Prelude to Love — Elizabeth Renier

When Sarah Torrens, the prettiest young woman in all London, discovers the terrible truth about the disreputable and unfaithful character of Anthony Bretherton, her fiance she seeks comfort with the family of Crespin Dauncy, her father's enemy. Crespin, a dashing and idealistic adventurer, is an outspoken critic of English slavery. When it is disclosed that Sarah's father uses slave labor on his merchant ships, she is shocked into a new awareness of her own social consciousness, and to the realization that it is Crespin, not Anthony, whom she loves...