Moonlight Rebel (6 page)

"Ten and a half it is," Peter agreed grudgingly. His cold, flat eyes never left Jason's face. "You're getting a bargain."

"That remains to be seen." Jason extracted the coins from the pouch he kept in his waistband.

Peter took the money and then looked at Jason's extended hand.

"Fargo, give him the document."

With great reluctance, the stout man did so, giving Krystyna one last long look. The lust in his eyes fairly blazed.

“I’ll thank you not to look at my property that way," Jason murmured, a tinge of amusement in his voice, amusement that did not reach his eyes. The men he was dealing with were like wolves. In the light of a fire, they wouldn't make a move. But if he left himself open, or turned his back, they wouldn't hesitate to tear him apart.

"You'll be taking your leave now." It wasn't a question. It was a softly uttered command.

Peter and Jason exchanged a long look. It was Peter who turned away, aware that he was facing a man who was not to be underestimated, despite his easy manner.

"Yes, it's time to spend some money on ale and a good time —one that doesn't scratch." Peter ran a hand along his cheek.

The look he gave Krystyna made her shiver inwardly, but she kept her eyes defiant.

"C'mon, Fargo, let's leave this gentleman to his cheaply gotten prize."

Peter put an arm around Fargo's wide shoulders in a sign of camaraderie, a gesture that Fargo wasn't accustomed to, and walked with him to the front of the tavern.

Krystyna didn't watch them go. Her eyes were on Jason. What was to happen now?

Jason could feel her staring at him as he watched the two men disappear. He kept an eye on the alley entrance for several moments, waiting for the pair to return. When they didn't, he looked toward the woman behind him. "What do they call you?" he asked her gently.

Krystyna raised her head. There was undaunted pride in her eyes. He found himself admiring that and the spirit she had displayed. "My name is Krystyna," she finally said after a pause. She didn't give him her last name. Fear of her father's enemies kept her mute.

"You've got an accent." There was no missing the distinct way she pronounced her words. She spoke better English than a lot of Americans he knew, but she was decidedly foreign.

"Yes."

"What kind of an accent is it?" he prodded patiently.

Without hesitation, she lied. "French."

Jason laughed. "Not hardly. Those weren't French words you were hurling at that man before." He saw her face cloud. "That's all right, Christine-"

"Krystyna," she corrected sharply.

He inclined his head indulgently, "Krystyna," he repeated, carefully recreating the cadence she had given her name. "You'll tell me when you want to." He looked around him. "Well, 'Krystyna,' " his tone was friendly, teasing, "unless you want to catch your death, you'd better put this on." He stripped off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

Krystyna let go of her blouse for a moment and one breast was exposed. Hurriedly, she closed the jacket around her. She returned Jason's unwavering gaze with an accusing one.

"If you were a gentleman, you would have looked away."

"I am a gentleman," he told her. "But I am also a man. Men have their weaker moments."

"So I have been told." Her bravado wavered. "My father — "
Her voice broke and she was unable to continue.

"What about him?" Was he going to learn more about this strange creature fate had thrust his way? He wondered what his father would say when he brought her home, along with the shipping reports.

His thoughts were cut short by the tears he saw shimmering in her eyes. He reached out toward her.

Krystyna backed away, afraid of being touched after what had just happened. She wasn't about to trust, not even this man with gentle eyes. If she trusted no one, she'd be on her guard. It was as simple as that. But like it or not, she needed his help.

"I wish to see my father buried, please."

"Then he really is dead?"

She pressed her lips together, the word bringing her pain back to her. To keep from crying, she sought refuge in anger. "I said they killed him, did I not?"

"That you did." He drew a breath. "Where is he?"

Krystyna pointed into the dark.

"Show me."

It took effort to still the trembling that threatened to overtake her limbs. "This way." She walked in front of Jason the few yards it took to reach her father's body.

He bent over the squat, lifeless body that had been hidden in the shadows, and pity overwhelmed him. "I'm sorry."

She didn't absorb the pity in his voice. She was already on her knees beside her father's body. Tenderly, she cradled his head in her lap. She stroked Stefan's cheek, already growing cold, and rocked. Within her young breast, her heart was breaking.

"Goodbye, Papa," she whispered in their native tongue. "Goodbye." She kissed him one last time, a ragged sigh escaping her in lieu of a sob. Then she looked up at her new captor, something inside of her going dead. "Bury him, please." There was no command in her voice now, only a plea.

"I can't leave you here," Jason told her. "And I don't have a shovel."

"I cannot leave him here to be eaten by
...
by things." The
thought made her want to scream, to rant and rave to God who had not been watching over them. Somehow, she managed to keep her voice calm.

"I didn't say we would leave him, but I've got to go find a shovel and those two may come back for you. I'll put your father's bo —" He stopped, instinctively knowing that word would intensify her pain. "I'll put your father across my horse until we find something to bury him with."

Krystyna nodded. Gently, she slipped her father's head from her lap and rose, ignoring the hand that Jason offered her. She watched Jason struggle with and then lift the lifeless form in his arms. Drawing on an inner source of courage, she walked silently behind him.

Chapter Five

The heavy scarred door creaked as Jason pushed it open and entered the tavern for the second time that night. Once again, the smell of stew and ale assaulted his nostrils, the din of voices filled his ears. But this time he wasn't searching for a few hours of easy respite. This time his reason for entering the tavern was far more sobering.

"I need a shovel, Sam." Jason's voice cut through the noise as he approached the bar on the far side of the large room.

The heavyset man behind the bar continued to clean the counter slowly, as if deliberating Jason's request. "Strange time o' night to be diggin'." The eyes beneath the bushy gray brows shifted to the woman Jason held by the wrist. She looked lost in Jason's jacket. Interest highlighted Samuel's thick features, but he knew better than to ask Jason about her.

"There's a dead man outside that needs burying," Jason answered simply.

Samuel looked around at the faces closest to him. All customers of long standing. "Anyone we might know?"

Jason shook his head. Though he liked and trusted Sam, he thought it safer not to discuss what had just happened. There were too many ears around, some unfamiliar. One never knew.

Samuel gestured to the bar girl at a nearby table. Reluctantly, she left the side of a prospective customer. "Eileen, fetch a shovel from the back. Fine young Master McKinley wants to do some digging tonight." Samuel leaned over the bar toward Jason. "Just don't be buryin' him too close to the tavern." He winked and nodded his head toward the crowd of patrons. "Bad for business, you know. They tend to be believin' in spirits and such."

And so did Sam, Jason knew.

Several people, some drunk, some not, tumbled out of the tavern to watch as Jason dug a hole the size of a man near the rotting fence that ran along the back end of the tavern lot. The Count's final resting place.

Krystyna was oblivious to the verbal exchanges that were going on around her. It was as if she were totally separated from the ill-smelling rabble now gawking and drinking near her, tankards still held tightly in their hands, some making rude comments. She stood numbly by, unconsciously clutching at her sampler as if to draw strength from it. But tears were gathering inside her as she watched Jason dig the shallow grave.

When he finally laid her father in the dank earth, everything within her cried out: It should not be here. He deserves better than this. And he did. He deserved to lie next to her mother and his own father. He deserved a funeral ceremony, with all his old friends gathering around his casket to wish him Godspeed. She clenched her hands at her sides in mute horror. She desperately wanted this to be a nightmare. One that, no matter how horrible, she would wake up from. She had never experienced pain and desolation like this.

She saw Jason looking toward her and she sensed his concern. He was a kind man, she supposed, though at the moment she wasn't disposed to think well of any of these Americans. Krystyna wet her lips; they felt so parched, so lifeless. "Is there a priest?" She hated asking for favors, but this was for her father, not for herself. "He was not a very religious man, but we are —were," the word came heavily to her, "Catholic and . . " She stopped, her emotions blocking her throat.

Jason shook his head. "We have no priest." Though religion had never really mattered to him, he found himself wishing there was a man of the cloth about to give this woman comfort. "I can say a few words," he offered.

Krystyna nodded, resigned. There was nothing else to be done.

As Jason picked up the shovel to throw dirt back into the grave, she turned away. She couldn't bear to watch the process.

Jason bowed his head, wondering at the whimsy of fate that had suddenly brought this woman into his life. An hour ago, he had been drinking in the tavern, his only thought to get home. Now he was standing over a grave, commending a man he did not know to God. "Dear Lord, please accept this man's soul."

When there were no other words, Krystyna looked at him. "That is all?"

What more did she want of him? "If he's with God, that'll be enough."

Krystyna looked at Jason oddly, then turned away. He spoke the truth, but she took no comfort in it. Her father might be with God, but she was alone in a foreign land and fighting fears that threaten to overpower her.

By now, the last of the onlookers had meandered back to the tavern, their curiosity satisfied in part, their thirst renewed by watching Jason work.

Samuel, who had been standing in the back, silently watching, moved quietly toward Jason. He placed a hand on the shovel. "Will she be all right?" Samuel nodded toward Krystyna.

Jason shrugged. He had no idea, but he had seen grief mark others before. "It'll probably take a while, I expect."

Samuel nodded his shaggy head, then roughly patted the girl's shoulder as he walked away, leaving the two of them alone in the dark. Krystyna tried not to flinch. The man meant well.

God, she wanted to be home.

"Will they just go free?" Krystyna finally asked, her voice still and low, like whiskey flowing into a glass. She stared down at the fresh mound which hid her father from her.

Jason turned to look at her. "Who?"

How could he ask who after what they had just been through? "Those two horrible men." She gestured impatiently in the direction in which Fargo and Peter had long since disappeared.

Jason knew it had to be frustrating for her. "It's just your word against theirs, even if we could catch them. And besides, we don't have any sort of court system here yet, the way they do in England." He turned toward his horse and checked to see if the cinch was secure. The horse would have a heavy load tonight. "Things like revenge are mainly left up to family." He turned back to look at her significantly. "Or God."

"God is too slow." There was uncontrolled hatred in her voice.

He studied her face in the dim light afforded him from the tavern and the moon. He saw a mixture of hurt, raw anger, and rage — all barely kept in check. It will help her deal with the grief, he thought. A person can only handle so much hurt at one time. If she was busy being angry, the pain wouldn't engulf her.

"Sometimes people are too fast," Jason answered philosophically. "Well, let's go." He placed an arm around her, intent on helping her onto his horse.

Krystyna pulled back, suddenly realizing that he was trying to take her with him. "Go? Where?" Her eyes dared him to touch her again.

"Home. I can't very well leave you here and," a grin came to his lips, "I did buy your 'contract' from those two."

In frustration, Krystyna stamped her foot. "There is no contract!" she shouted. "And I will pay you back for your trouble and your money."

"You have money with you?" He looked at her in surprise. The two men who had held her captive hadn't looked like the type to have left her with any valuables.

"No, not with me. It is in —our trunk!" Her eyes grew wide as she suddenly realized what had happened. "They took the trunk! It was in the wagon!" Even as she looked toward where it might have been, her heart sank. She knew the wagon was gone.

Jason shook his head, "I'm afraid it's long gone now. C'mon, we'd better be moving along. It's getting late."

Hopelessness began to get the better of her. She felt overwhelmed, incapable of handling anything more. She needed to rest. Maybe tomorrow things would seem better. When she could think. "Can we not spend the night at some inn?"

He laughed. "There is no inn." He saw the way she was looking toward the tavern. "I'd like to say I'd put you up in the tavern, but I'm already late getting back," he picked up the reins, "and I don't think you'd like the company there. I'm afraid we're going to have to get what sleep we can on the trail."

She looked at him, dumbfounded. Was the man crazy? "Sleep while we are riding?"

He laughed, finding her question somehow delightful. "No, we'd probably fall off." Although, if truth be known, he wouldn't have minded a tumble with her. There was something about her, even in her haughtiness, that pulled at him, that reminded him that he was, foremost, a man. "We can make camp in a few hours, but I've got to put some miles between the port and myself. My father's anxious to get the reports I have. And it wouldn't hurt to put some distance between us and your friends."