Moonlight Rebel
Authors: Marie Ferrarella
The Women's Contemporary Originals from Marie Ferrarella
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Copyright © 2015 Marie Ferrarella
Cover images from Shutterstock.com
Moonlight Rebel
by
Marie Ferrarella
Chapter One
God damn their eyes
! She wished she could kill them, kill them all!
The seaport air was cold and damp. The night breeze reached through Krystyna's torn blouse and assaulted her just as the men were doing with their hungry eyes. She clutched the tattered shreds of silk against her and raised her head high.
Countess Krystyna Poniatowska was petite, with a delicate, oval face, clear blue eyes, and a sharp mind that her father had often boasted of. None of it mattered now. She was in a strange world. Everyone and everything she knew and cherished was halfway around the globe. A total stranger in a strange land, surrounded by men who barely deserved the appellation. They were more like wolves ready to pounce on her. She kept her dark head proudly aloft, while her heart pounded madly in her young breast, and struggled to keep the fear that was gnawing at her from showing in her eyes.
Don't look frightened
, she told herself over and over again in her native tongue.
You will survive to make them pay.
Slowly her fear transformed into a desperate anger. It only served to harm her. She heard the man on her right laugh, saying something about her being more like a wild Gypsy than a countess. He drew closer to her, his hand gliding over her hair. She jerked her head away.
Her father had always told her never to let the enemy know how frightened you are of them. Bravery confuses them, he had assured her countless times.
But the Count was dead, and the young, muscular stranger who stood before her in the alleyway didn't look like the enemy. Enemies didn't have soft, kind eyes. But men with kind eyes didn't bargain with filthy vermin in dark alleys for the ownership of a woman.
Ownership!
The single word pushed the bile of fear back down her throat. God damn them all! she swore silently. She was worth more than the lot of them put together, even the stranger, whoever he was.
Krystyna glared defiantly at the stranger. So much of his face was obscured by his beard. She didn't like beards, and this one was unkempt. Men in beards hid things. You couldn't read their expressions easily, couldn't tell what they were thinking by the sets of their jaws. She had always hated beards.
Who was he? And what would he do with her once she was his, once he knew who she was? The foul-smelling idiot next to her would sell her soon. Sell her! How ridiculous! How unreal.
Perhaps, perhaps
, she thought wildly,
it isn't real. Perhaps I'll awaken soon in my own bed, with Maruska drawing back the curtains.
Home. Oh God, she wanted to be back home so badly. Tears rose in her throat.
The sharp cry of a seagull pierced the air and dissolved Krystyna's desperate hope. She was here, in a Virginia seaport. Poland was somewhere halfway around the world, out of reach. She shuddered involuntarily, not from the night air or her torn blouse, but from the stark realization of her situation. She wished she could run. But to where? To whom? This was a strange land, and she had no money. No one would help her. There was no escape. She was hemmed in on both sides by her captors. And the dark-haired stranger blocked her way out of the alley.
Nowhere to run. No escape
. The thought choked her.
Her indignation and fury were the only things left to cling to, and they kept her tears from spilling out. She'd die before she'd let these men see her cry. At twenty, she thought of herself as sophisticated and worldly. But nothing she'd ever been through had prepared her in the slightest for this humiliation, for this desperate situation.
Krystyna closed her eyes and tried to propel herself away from the present, away from the bartering that was taking place. She was losing control. Even her thoughts would not obey her. They couldn't seem to go beyond the last series of events that had taken place in her young life. They slashed at her heart, bringing back the pain once again.
Twenty is such a young age to be stripped of all hope, she thought. But it was gone, all gone.
Papa, why didn't you listen to me?
Why did we have to come to this godforsaken, barbaric country?
Guilt wracked her. Maybe if she had insisted, her father would have capitulated to her wishes. She should have helped him find a way to remain in Poland, despite the political chaos that had engulfed their land, threatening to destroy them all. Seventeen seventy-five was certainly turning out to be a year of devastating strife and upheavals, but at least in Poland she would have known what to do, where to go. Here she was lost.
A bitter smile twisted her lips, a smile that the stranger noted and wondered at as he looked at her beautiful face in the moonlight while attempting to extract both himself and the young girl from these two evil-looking men —alive. If he wasn't careful, he would lose the upper hand.
He went on bartering in his calm voice, never underestimating the caliber of the vermin he faced.
Father and I fled to America to be safe
, Krystyna thought.
Safe among barbarians . . .
"We have to leave, Krystyna."
Her father's soft voice echoed unnaturally in the morning room. It was filled with gloom, and contrasted sharply with the scene that existed just beyond the huge, multi-paned window. The beautiful fall day, crisp and clear, was pregnant with sweetness. Deciding that her father couldn't be serious, Krystyna bit her lip as she looked at his sad face.
It was all true. Her worst fears had come into being.
The Count was a short, bull of a man in his late fifties. He paced about the large room, agitated, his hands clasped tightly behind his back, his eyes unable to focus on anything. His round shoulders sagged badly.
"It's happened, just as I knew it would. That fool, our 'beloved King,'" he spat on the highly polished wooden floor, "has allowed them to partition Poland. Russia, Prussia, and Austria have rushed in and reduced us to half our size! The land we are on now belongs to Prussia." An angry expression rimmed in disbelief played on his face as he said, "We are Prussians."
A small spark appeared in Krystyna's blue eyes and grew in intensity until they fairly glowed with fire. All the nationalistic patriotism that had been drummed into her since early childhood made her rebel at the words she heard. "That's impossible!"
Count Stefan looked at his daughter, his only child, and shook his head sadly. "Not so impossible." He sighed. "King Stanislaw is not astute in political machinations. He did exactly what Russia wanted him to when he asked Russia to help him settle the growing turbulence between the Catholics and the Protestants. Spineless idiot!" Stefan raged, his round, wide face turning crimson. "Now the powers say we are overrun with religious persecution and can't govern ourselves properly."
He put his ham-like hands on his daughter's slender shoulders.
She is so frail
, he thought. How is she going to withstand the journey that is ahead of us? "We have to leave as quickly as possible."
"But our land . . ." Krystyna protested, stunned. Her father was one of the most outspoken, the bravest, men she had ever known. He had never run from anything. How could he entertain the idea of leaving?
"Is not ours anymore." His voice nearly broke at the pronouncement.
"What!" Horror and outrage punctuated the single word.
She turned to the window, looking out at the trees, the sky. All
at once, these simple, ordinary things took on an importance they had never had before.
Not theirs?
It had always been theirs. Since boundaries and countries had existed, it had belonged to the Poniatowskis. There had to be some mistake. Mutely, she begged her father to recant.
But his words remained like solid, oppressive entities in the air between them as her father seemed to age before her eyes. When he finally spoke, it was with great difficulty.
"My cousin informs me that our enemies are preparing to
seize our land — and imprison us." Krystyna's eyes grew wide.
"Yes, you too, my child." Guilt racked him as he spoke the words. What had he dragged her into? "It seems that you are far too outspoken for a woman, and far too patriotic for their liking. That is my fault, all my fault." Stefan took a deep breath. "Our enemies are afraid that I shall lead an insurrection against the new 'masters.' " What had he done to them? To her? He closed his eyes as he tried to gather his crumbling strength.
When he opened them again, Krystyna saw his torture in them.
"Oh, sweet Jesu, I wish I had married you off and sent you far away when Count Andrej proposed. You would be safe now. If only your mother had lived to raise you the right way. . ."
"I was raised the right way," Krystyna insisted, lifting her chin proudly. Her heart ached for her father. She had never seen him like this. Suddenly, she was the parent and he the child. Such a simple exchange. Such an immense burden. Gently, she put a hand on his shoulder. "What good is a seed if it isn't allowed to bloom? You woke my mind to so many things that girls my age are blind to. How could I have married Andrej? He was more like a woman than I was. Such a fop. So concerned with his own toiletry and his money. So cruel to people." She shook her head. "I couldn't have tolerated that —and he wouldn't have tolerated me. I would have been in more danger there with him than I am now."
She walked over to the huge multi-paned window. Two small peasant children were chasing one another in the field, playing some game they had just invented. Maruska's grandchildren. Was she seeing them for the last time? Krystyna wondered. She fixed a brave smile on her face and turned to look at her father.
"So, what do we do now, Papa? Are we to flee into the night, clutching our belongings to our chests?" The words were intentionally flippant in the hope of making her father laugh, the hope of making him deny the gravity of the situation.
"Yes." The Count lowered his pear-like shape into the chair she had just vacated. "I'm afraid your little scenario is quite accurate. Thaddeus Kosciusko is arranging passage for us. He will accompany us on the overland journey. . . ."
Thaddeus? A smile crept to Krystyna's lips. For a moment, she allowed her mind to occupy itself with happier thoughts. She saw Thaddeus before her, his dark, good looks, his deeply tanned complexion. She thought of the way he always treated her, with respect tinged with a hint of something more. Perhaps this fleeing wasn't going to be so terrible after all. Not if he was coming with them.
"Passage to where?" she asked. "France?" France would be nice at this time of year. Next to her own country, she thought she liked France the best. And her French was excellent, thanks to Professor DuBois.
"Perhaps." Her father looked away evasively. "At first."
"At first?" He had never been able to lie to her. He was trying now, she could tell.