Moonlight Rebel (23 page)

She shrugged. "One has to if one is to survive in this world. Well, if there is nothing more . . ." She turned to leave when his voice stopped her.

"Um . . . Did . . . did you tell anyone about, um, my. . . ?"

If revenge had been her goal, she knew that she had the means to exact it. She could easily tell him that she had spoken to Jason about his attempt at seduction. Instinctively, she knew that would hurt Aaron. But in this instance, though, revenge would be a hollow thing. Aaron was sorry. For all his pompousness, she believed that he was basically a good, if misguided, man.

"No, no one else knows." She saw him smile and nod his thanks before she left the room.

The visit to her father's grave was brief. She had no flowers to lay upon it, nothing but her tears to cover the ground above him. She made her communion quickly, telling him how much she missed him and that soon she would be going home again.

To give her privacy, Jason and Nathan had kept their backs to her. But Jason heard her words and wasn't pleased.

What would it take to make her want to stay?

They went riding after that. The afternoon seemed to float away. Despite her feelings about being an outsider, she was growing more fond of these Americans with each passing day.

Nathan brought the character of the people in the Colonies to life for her. Listening, Krystyna saw little difference between the feelings of her own people and the rebels. The only disparity seemed to be in the circumstances surrounding the rebellion. In her country the movement, the feeling of oppression, was experienced nationwide. And never so sharply as among the aristocracy. Here, from what she heard, each man had a different opinion about what should or shouldn't be happening, and the war effort was hampered by the fact that so many didn't know which side to take.

They stopped by Jason's favorite spot again. When they first approached it, warmth seeped into Krystyna as she and Jason exchanged glances. Nathan loved it as much as Jason did, and it was he who had suggested they go there.

Dismounting, they sat on the bank, the stream as calm now as it had been that day Krystyna had first seen it. Not even the cold managed to dispel the warmth she felt. Time slipped by as they talked about the future.

"I don't know, Nathan. I just don't see this war the way you do." The wind picked up. Jason took Krystyna's arm, helping her up. "Come, let's walk. It's too cold to sit here any longer."

Being here, with memories of the last time, unsettleds him as much as it does me
, she thought, somehow pleased by the knowledge.

They walked, leaves crunching beneath their boots. "I just see it as a terrible waste," Jason said, answering the silent query in Nathan's eyes.

Nathan picked up a stick and tossed it as far as he could, then watched it drop to earth again. "Oh, it is that. But it's even more wasteful to let all our potential wither on the vine because we're shackled, unable to complete our own destinies." His voice swelled with enthusiasm. "It's a wonderful country, Jason, and it can be even more wonderful."

Nathan turned suddenly to Krystyna who walked between them. "Are we boring you?"

"Oh no!" How could he possibly think she was bored. The idea of a new nation being born was exciting. "I am finding that feelings of freedom are universal, just as I always hoped they were. When I first came here, I thought of Americans as barbarians." She glanced toward Jason and knew that her remark would make him grin. "Totally incapable of the kinds of feelings that cause men and women to form a country, to take pride in that country." She frowned, annoyed by her inadequacy with English. "I am putting this badly."

Nathan laughed, delighted as he shook his head to deny her assessment. Jason interjected, "I believe she thought all we did in the Colonies was scratch ourselves, forage for food, and live hand to mouth with no thought to tomorrow."

Stung because he was laughing at her, Krystyna pointed out, "You still do not think about tomorrow."

"But I do," he protested.

"Not your country's tomorrow," she said pointedly.

Jason sighed. "You're beginning to sound like my father." He resumed walking, and the three of them fell into step. "I'm not sure what my country is. I don't think 'the country' is sure it knows either." It seemed like a hopeless muddle to him. He liked things cut and dried.

"A country," Krystyna began, echoing something her father had once taught her, "is a feeling in your heart. It is an allegiance you have to a place that may go under various names, ones that at times may be considered not even to exist."

She looked up and saw a lone bird circling in the sky, looking for food. It made her feel lonely. "My home is now Prussian territory, but it will always be Poland to me, no matter what they call it. I come from a country which once spread from sea to sea, until its people became weak. They did not notice that their enemies were coming in from all sides and were chipping away at their borders little by little.”

"Someday," she sighed sadly, "we may not be there at all. They will take us and put another name on our soil. But we will be Polish nonetheless, and we will fight to regain what was ours. Our country." She looked at Jason to see if he understood. There was no answer in his eyes. "We will fight to have the right to be free. We will die for that freedom. The other countries are stronger, but their armies will not be stronger than our wills." Her hands tightened into fists as she spoke, hardly noticing the man on each side of her in her zeal. "We shall never give up."

Krystyna stopped abruptly. She had said too much. Men
weren't used to hearing such emotions expressed by a woman.
She looked at her two companions and found that they were
both staring at her. "Have I said something wrong?"

Nathan shook his head. "No, something right. Something beautiful. It's encouraging to know that sentiments such as yours are not confined to just one area."

She laughed. "I was thinking the same thing."

Jason said nothing. Her words had made him thoughtful. These days he found that the more he thought about the situation, the more inclined he was to agree with Nathan and his father.

He looked at Krystyna and wondered what seed had been planted in her that had been lacking in him. He felt an allegiance to his plantation, to his family, yes, even to Aaron, but it went no further than that. What did Boston mean to him? Or Long Island? Or England for that matter? Sadly, he was a man without far-reaching ties and that bothered him.

But I will think about all that some other time
, he told himself. Nathan would soon be leaving, and he wanted to enjoy his company as much as possible. Who knew when they would see one another again?

Talking of other things, the three mounted their horses and rode home.

Chapter Seventeen

As Jason, Krystyna, and Nathan walked through the front door, they heard the din of agitated voices, and when they entered the sitting room, they were greeted by a gathering of the county's largest landowners, all talking at once.

"What's going on?" Jason looked around at the animated speakers as fragments of conversation ricocheted about the room.

Savannah looked up from her chair by the fireplace. It annoyed her that Winthrop, who had been vaguely disinterested only a moment ago, seemed to come to life when he saw Krystyna walk in, her cheeks glowing from the cold.

Damn his eyes
, Savannah thought. And damn that whore, as well.

She gritted her teeth and glared at Krystyna. The look of unmitigated malice was not lost on its object, nor on anyone else in the room.
It doesn't take much to impress Winthrop,
Savannah thought. What if he was lured away from her because Krystyna was a countess? Because he wouldn't have to wait, perhaps in vain, before he inherited a title. Savannah couldn't stand the idea of being thrown over for someone else, least of all Krystyna.

Aaron pushed forward from the group. "Haven't you heard?" he asked Jason.

"No, we have been out, riding," Krystyna explained as she pulled off her gloves. She saw Savannah eyeing them. The gloves were another Christmas gift from Jason. He had given them to her with a note, saying that since he couldn't hold her hand, he would be pleased if she would slip it into the kidskin gloves he had had fashioned expressly for her.

Savannah regarded her maliciously. "Is that all you've been doing out there?" Her words dripped sarcasm. "You seem so out of breath to have just been out riding. A horse," she added sweetly. She looked down at her nails, then raised her eyes to see if she had embarrassed Krystyna or if the dolt had missed her meaning.

"We cantered back." Jason cut his sister short.

Or so he thought. "With or without the horses?" Savannah asked. Then, before Jason could make an appropriate reply, she averted her face as if to speak to Winthrop. But her fiancé’s attention was given totally to Krystyna. Savannah rapped his hand with the tip of her fan. "Winthrop, I was speaking to you," she hissed.

Aaron shook his head, dismissing his sister's petty remarks. Far more important things were happening that day. "There was a battle not far from here," he told them. "Yesterday morning. They beat us," he added.

Jason shrugged out of his coat and removed his scarf. "I think that deserves a clarification." He helped Krystyna with her long coat, a Christmas gift from Lucinda. Her scarf came from Christopher. Of the entire family, only Savannah had refrained from giving even a token gift to Krystyna. The lines of battle were clearly drawn. "Who is 'us'?"

"The loyalists, of course," Savannah put in impatiently. "No offense, Cousin Nathan, for I fear that your sentiments are on the side of the misguided troublemakers, but by and large, we are all on Britain's side." She smiled smugly, ably parroting something she had overheard recently. "We of the landed gentry must be on the side of the King, for if we aren't, who will be?"

She looked around the room, pleased with the lofty sound of her own words. There, that black-haired witch wasn't the only one who could spout political sentiments. Savannah didn't care a wit about the situation —indeed, the subject was getting extremely wearisome to her —but she did believe that their best interests were served by remaining with Britain. If the rabble won, the poor would overrun them. That couldn't be allowed to happen. In this, at least, she shared Aaron's feelings.

"If the King is right," Krystyna said, "then God is on his side. If he is wrong, then he deserves to be so informed, or to be replaced if he does not listen."

"Replaced?" Aaron echoed incredulously. "You mean killed?"
She is talking treason,
he thought. He looked around the room nervously, wondering if anyone there would make her comments known to the proper authorities. The men present were all friends of long standing, but in this situation one's loyalties did strange things to friendship.

"No." Carefully, Krystyna folded her coat over her arm. It was a fine gift and she meant to care well for it. "In my country, we elect our kings. We have for many years."

"Elect kings?" Savannah laughed. "How absurd." She looked around, hopeful that others shared her opinion and would put this upstart in her place.

"No, it is really quite civilized," Krystyna insisted calmly. "Then one man cannot do too much harm if he is not competent." Until recently, she amended silently, but she was in no mood to go into details and felt that no one really wanted to hear of the situation in her homeland. The struggle these people faced was far too overwhelming at present.

Jason rolled the thought over as he helped himself to cider. The liquid had cooled somewhat since Jeremiah had set the table. "Actually, that doesn't sound like such a bad idea."

"Oh, what would you know of it?" Savannah snapped, her frail patience at an end. "All you know about is that damned tobacco of yours." She turned accusing gray eyes on Krystyna. "And wenching."

Krystyna's fingers tightened about the cup Jason had handed to her. There was a deep silence in the room as the others waited to see what she would say. But it was Jason who spoke.

"I think you overstep yourself, dear sister." His tone was low, but foreboding.

Savannah didn't like being threatened, especially while so many others were watching. "Ah, she has a knight in shining armor to go with her nonexistent kingdom, does she?" Savannah taunted.

Jason had a desire to wrap his hands around his sister's slender neck and squeeze the hatefulness from her.

"I never had a kingdom." There was controlled anger in Krystyna's voice. "It was a manor filled with many peasants, the most ill-mannered of whom were not as bad as you." She turned her back on Savannah and faced Jason. Seeing the approval in his eyes served to hearten her. "I think that I will go to my cabin for a little while."

Jason took her arm and began to escort her from the room. Savannah jumped to her feet and grabbed Krystyna's other arm, jerking her around.

"Listen, you little trollop, I won't be spoken to that way!"

Krystyna silently looked down at the hand that held her arm and then back at Savannah. Her eyes were cold, and there was something almost awesome in them. A regal strength Savannah had no idea how to oppose. Savannah released her grip.

"Then don't make it necessary to do so," Krystyna instructed, her face impassive. "It is true that I am working for your father at the moment. But you will be civil to me, or you will be sorry."

Savannah instinctively knew that this was no idle threat. She saw Nathan smile over Krystyna's head at Jason. Even Aaron looked as if he had enjoyed watching her being put in her place.

Savannah uttered a shriek of exasperation and fled the room.

"Merry Christmas," Krystyna said softly after the other woman's departing figure.

The large Christmas meal served later that day at the McKinley estate left all well satiated. No one felt the deprivation that existed in the ranks of the American soldiers. Christmas that year for the regulars was just another day filled with hardships.

The British troops fared only slightly better when it came to supplies. An ocean separated them from their homes, and for them the holiday was devoid of merriment. They cursed the turn of events that had brought them to these shores to fight King George's war, leaving the comforts of home behind.