Moonlight Rebel Read online

  He knows, she thought suddenly. Somehow, he knew who she was, what she was. She would wager her soul on it.

  She couldn't wait to be rid of him.

  Krystyna walked quickly behind her father. There was a great deal of hustling on the docks. The sounds and smells were completely foreign to her, and the low-hanging fog made everything wet with its mist. The scents of wet wool, wood, rotting food, and sweat were everywhere, making it hard for her to breathe. Her first taste of America was even worse than she had anticipated.

  Although he knew it was futile to hope, Stefan searched the fog-enshrouded dock area for his brother's face. He finally turned away, disappointed. Jan wasn't there, and no one had come in his place. Only sailors. What had gone wrong?

  Krystyna looked at her father as they stood on the dock. She could see that he was concerned and strongly anxious. It never occurred to her to think that he might be frightened as well. Fear was an emotion she attributed to herself and other people. She considered her father to be a little above the realm of normal people, always brave and strong, never at a loss for a course of action. She adored him.

  She slipped her hand into his, unmindful of the first mate and the others on the dock. She needed to draw on his strength and to feel protected by his presence.

  "Looks like your brother couldn't make it." The first mate's voice broke their moment of privacy. His eyes searched the area as he spoke.

  "He doesn't work for himself. His time is not his own." Still, Stefan looked around again, hoping against hope.

  But it was the first mate, not Stefan, who was rewarded with a familiar face. "Ah, here's my friend now. We'll take care of you."

  He pointed off into the distance, and out in the shadows, Krystyna thought she could see the form of a man sitting on top of a coverless wagon. She watched him approach as she wondered at the mate’s choice of words.

  "We'll take care of you," he repeated, and she thought she detected a bit of an accent. A Polish accent. But if that were true, wouldn't he have approached them sooner, on the ship, and made himself known? She told herself that she was just homesick and searching for someone from home. The crew members hadn't been Polish, and there was no reason to believe that this man was either. It was just her imagination.

  Krystyna looked toward her father. His florid face was pensive. He doesn't trust this man either, she thought. With mounting apprehension, she looked around for the captain, who had been making transactions not too far away from them only a few moments ago. But he was gone.

  Having kept his word to Kosciusko and delivered them safely to their destination, the captain felt his job was done.

  He left, giving the two passengers no more thought than he would his cargo. His responsibility there was over as well. What he needed now was to make his way to the tavern and sample his first brew and his first woman in weeks. There was no room in his mind for any other details.

  As the man in the wagon approached and came clearly into view, illuminated by the full moon that broke through a hole in the misty haze which engulfed the harbor, Krystyna found herself repelled by what she saw. And what she smelled. The man had not bathed in months, she guessed. Even in the cramped quarters aboard ship, she had managed to bathe, albeit taking great pains to do so. How could anyone allow himself to get into such a state? she wondered as she looked at the man's unkempt clothing. He was wearing what appeared to be the tanned skins of animals. He looked like a savage to her.

  Krystyna glanced uncertainly toward her father and missed the wink that went between the man in the wagon and Peter, the mate. The former patted his breast pocket reassuringly.

  Suddenly, the first mate took both Krystyna and her father by the arm and boldly escorted them toward the wagon. He grabbed Krystyna firmly by the waist and deposited her into the back. With a leer on his lips he took no trouble to hide, his hands slid down to her legs as be made a show of tucking them further into the corner.

  "See here!" the Count began indignantly as Krystyna shrank back from the man's touch. It brought back the revulsion she had felt the evening Andrej had tried to force himself on her. Instinct drove her away that time too. She looked at Peter with growing distrust and fear.

  "Only being helpful to the boy, sir," Peter said cheerfully, his hands on the Count's shoulders, ready to push him into the wagon.

  "But you have no idea where we are trying to go," the Count protested. He checked an urge to jump from the wagon and flee with Krystyna.

  But it began to move as Peter hoisted himself up next to them. "I have a rough idea."

  There is no way he can know of our destination, Krystyna thought. Her father would not have told him or the captain. Something was dreadfully wrong. Her palms became damp as she gripped the side of the weather-beaten wagon, and a splinter dug into one. Stifling a cry of surprise, she pulled back her hand.

  "Who are you?" the Count asked darkly as he peered closely at Peter's face.

  The tall man laughed, leaning so that his back was against the side of the wagon and he could see them both. "No one you know."

  Stefan tried another approach. "We wish to be taken to the plantation of Mr. Morgan McKinley."

  "I know that." Peter's eyes became catlike slits as they washed over Krystyna. He was not looking at the Count. Stefan took his arm in a hamlike hand, his grip far stronger than Peter could manage despite his youth.

  As he had done all his life, the Count met the enemy head on, determined to outface him. "You will take us there, then. There will be money for you for your trouble."

  "I already have money for my trouble." The rough edges were gone from Peter's voice now. And the accent that Krystyna had thought she detected was clearly evident. There was no more need to pretend. "Count Stefan," Peter added. He smiled at the older man. It was a chilling smile.

  "Who paid you?" Stefan demanded.

  The man driving the wagon began to laugh. The sound cut through to the bone. Krystyna searched the depths of her soul to restrain the hysteria that was welling up in her throat. This couldn't be happening, not after what they'd been through already. She had to keep her wits. If they were to survive, she had to think, to help her father. She couldn't be a millstone around his neck. The danger he had spoken about was real. Even here, in this godforsaken wasteland. They had been followed.

  "That you do not need to know. It is enough to be told he wants to insure that you are never coming back. I'm to make certain of that." Peter's eyes strayed toward Krystyna, and the polite smile he had given her earlier turned into a lusty smirk.

  "What are you to do with us?" Count Stefan demanded.

  "I was told to silence you. Forever." The malice in his voice was evident. "How I go about that is my business."

  His eyes were evil. Krystyna felt naked under their scrutiny. She was so frightened that she appeared almost deadly calm. Still, her mind could not assimilate what was going on and refused to believe it.

  The Count shot Peter an authoritative look and said in the condescending tone of those used to being obeyed, "You will let us go, swine. Our murders will bring a heavy reprisal."

  "Your deaths," Peter sneered, "will not even be noticed out here. You will have simply," he waved his hand in the air, "vanished."

  Peter took a long knife from the sheath at his waist and held it up before him. He moved it toward the Count in a threatening, mocking fashion as the wagon swayed on into the night. The sounds of the docks, of the unloading of ships grew fainter. Noises came from the tavern at the end of the street, but Krystyna hardly heard them. All she knew was that Peter was holding a knife in his hand and quite possibly their lives as well. Her mind searched frantically for a way to save them.

  "My brother will —"

  " — do nothing." The thin lips twisted in a blood-chilling smile. "He is already dead, and you will join him shortly."

  The news of his brother's death was like a knife to the heart. A pang of bitterness and horror shot through Stefan. It did not matter that he had not
seen Jan in twenty years. He was his brother, and this animal had killed him.

  "God's blood, then you shall join him!" Stefan shouted as he lunged for the tall man. He grabbed Peter's thin wrist and wrestled for possession of the knife.

  Krystyna screamed as the two men grappled. The driver pulled on the reins of the lone, tired mare, but otherwise seemed to express no concern over what was happening behind him. His attention was completely fixed on Krystyna. With the reins firmly wrapped in one hand, he reached over with the other and snatched the cap from her head.

  "You are a girl," he said with deep satisfaction, as long, silky black hair tumbled down her back like a soft veil, and Fargo felt an immediate surge of lust course through his loins. This one was pretty. This one he would keep for a while before he sold her. If Peter would let him.

  Krystyna didn't have time to react to his words or his look, for her eyes were riveted to the conflict taking place beside her. Stefan was stronger than the sailor, but his heart was weak and Peter had youth on his side. She tried to help her father, but the two men rolled off the wagon. Krystyna screamed. Peter managed to land on top of Stefan in the fall and pinned him to the ground. Within a moment, before Krystyna's horror-filled gaze, the knife had been driven into Stefan's chest.

  A gasp of surprise escaped Stefan's lips. It was the last sound he made before he was stabbed repeatedly..

  "No!" Krystyna shrieked, throwing herself on top of Peter. She kicked, beat, and clawed at him with all the fury that her grief unleashed within her. Desperate, she sank her teeth into his ear.

  "Get her off me!" Peter shrieked, trying to shake her off. "The damn bitch is a wildcat!"

  Fargo came to life and leaped from the driver's seat. He snatched Krystyna about the waist and yanked hard.

  Peter put a hand to his ear. Blood. His expression darkened as he looked at the distraught woman who twisted within Fargo's powerful grasp. "Just like her old, dead father." Peter said the word "dead" with a great deal of pleasure. Excitement pulsed through him as he looked at the still, slack form that lay on the ground covered in blood. Done.

  "I will kill you!" she swore. "I will kill you if it is the last thing I ever do!"

  Peter wiped his cheek with the palm of one hand and looked down. His hand was sticky. She had drawn blood there too. His face hardened further as he looked at her, this representative of the greedy, cruel wealthy elite. Peter had been born a peasant on a farm in Poland. When his father's crops were burned, and his father killed by the baron who owned the land, in retaliation for some imagined slight, Peter had run away to sea. He had managed to get taken on as a cabin boy on a docked foreign vessel. He had learned English on the ship as well as a great many other things. But he had never forgotten how to hate the wealthy Poles. As the years passed, he had made himself part of an inner core of "patriots" who wanted to deliver the wealthy to their enemies. The Count's murder, to him, was one small payment for his father's death.

  "You haughty bitch, the last thing you will do before you die is to wither beneath me as I take my pleasure with you."

  Krystyna tried to keep the horror from her face as she spat at him. Stomping the heel of her boot into the moccasins that Fargo wore, she caught him off guard, and he grabbed for his injured foot, releasing her.

  Krystyna ran. She had no idea where she was going, only that she had to get away. The dark alley behind the tavern was the first thing she spied, and she flew for the cover of the barrels she saw against the side of a building.

  Behind them, she crouched, her lungs bursting, but she was afraid to gasp for air. She prayed that she had reached shelter in time and that the two men hadn't seen where she had gone.

  The prayer died on her lips as Peter pushed the barrel away. Krystyna scrambled to her feet, but he caught her by her jacket and swung her around to face him, pinning her against the wall.

  "You will pay for that," he promised her. "Your torture will be long and hard." All Krystyna could see were his small eyes gleaming in the full moonlight. They were the coldest things she had ever beheld. "I've learned a lot in the brothels I've been to. Things that will kill the gentle soul of a high-born lady."

  I have come face to face with the devil himself, Krystyna thought in panic. But there was no one to help her and no way to help herself.

  "Hey, Peter, don't forget me. I want a bit of her myself— alive. They're better alive." Fargo laughed at his own wit.

  Peter didn't bother looking over his shoulder at his companion. "It doesn't matter all that much to you if they are breathing. You see," he drew his face close to Krystyna until only inches apart, "my friend has strange tastes, too." He enjoyed the thought of the fear he knew he was fanning within her. Urged on by the look of disgust in her eyes, he ran a hand over her heaving breasts.

  "Breathe harder," he ordered. "I like to feel them move." When she tried to move to the side, he caught her long hair, wrapping it about his hand and pulling her head back until she had to bite her lower lip to keep from crying out.

  "Let's move over there where we can have some room." He jerked her further into the alley. He could feel his loins pulsating with anticipation.

  Chapter Four

  The noise in the tavern was getting too loud for Jason McKinley. Of late, he found himself losing his taste for the laughing, mindless crowds of drinking men and the easy, buxomy women with fetching smiles and sad eyes who were to be found in Samuel's Tavern.

  Jason smiled to himself as he drained the last of his ale. He was only twenty-five years old, but his father thought that he was long overdue for a wife. To quiet him, Jason had allowed himself to become engaged to Charity Rutledge, an empty-headed, frivolous girl who had set her sights on him. It was meant to be a temporary situation, to curtail his father's lectures about his obligation to sustain the McKinley lineage.

  Well, he supposed he could do worse than marry Charity. She was pretty in a superficial sort of way. But marriage has to be more than just settling for a woman, he thought as he pushed his empty tankard aside. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life bored, the way his brother Aaron was, the way his father had been before his mother had died. Both men took their pleasures elsewhere and then came home to their wives. What was the sense of it? Why marry at all?

  Marriage, it seemed, was arranged for one of two reasons. Either to better one's station, which for Jason was improbable and unnecessary since the McKinleys were at the zenith of society in Virginia, second only to the Lees. Or to annex more land, also unnecessary. The McKinley's had, in Jason's estimation, too much land as it was. Certainly his father was having trouble keeping track of it all since their overseer had unaccountably disappeared two months ago. In desperation, Morgan McKinley had made Jason temporary overseer. To his surprise, Jason found that he rather liked the role.

  "Another drink, Jason?" The question came from a deeply rouged woman with a battered tray in hand. One of Samuel's bar girls. She sensuously ran a hand through Jason's jet black hair and purposely pressed his head closer to her ample bosom. The faded white blouse above the corseted waist did little to cover what was there for the asking and the price.

  Jason met her eyes, an amused smile curving his lips. "No, I've had enough tonight."

  The woman winked at him broadly. "My room's empty. Gladys has to work until past two tonight." She ran her tongue slowly along her lips.

  "Not tonight, Eileen." Jason pushed his tankard back. "My father expects me home with my reports by tomorrow at sunset."

  Eileen swished her hips, brushing her thigh against his arm. "Ah, a couple of hours won't matter to the old gent if your reports are good." She pouted prettily, trying her best to look seductive. She was twenty and looked well into her thirties. She had been serving men their ale and tending to their other needs for over six years.

  Jason shook his head. The smile he gave her was friendly, but firm. "My reports are very good —and so shall my conduct be tonight."

  She threw her head back and laughed, disappoi
nted but not put off. She genuinely liked Jason, so much so that there were times she gave him his comfort for free. "Well, Jason my love, there's a first time for everything I suppose."

  He tugged at a lock of henna-colored hair. "I'll call you if I change my mind." He rose and put down an extra coin for her. She scooped it up quickly and hid it in her bodice so skillfully that he would have doubted he had seen her hand move if not for the fact that the money was gone. He knew Samuel would have demanded the coin had he seen her take it.

  "I certainly hope so. I haven't had a good time since you last were here."

  Jason began to leave. "Keep it coming, Eileen. A man likes to hear that."

  "But it's true!" she called after him as he made his way through the crowd to the front door. Shrugging her shoulders, she turned her attention to someone else before he had gotten halfway across the floor.

  Jason sidestepped the flying form of a drunk who was engaged in an altercation over the favors of one of the other bar girls. On any other night, Jason would have stayed behind to watch and possibly get involved. He enjoyed a good, healthy fight as much as the next man. His father had often called him a ruffian, and said he was showing his shanty-Irish background, which had come into the family by way of his mother. My father's relations, Jason thought sarcastically, were undoubtedly saintly, having been made so with the passage of time.

  But tonight, Jason had no appetite for fisticuffs. He was restless; he had been for days. Deep down, he knew the reason. A fight was brewing, a fight of much larger proportions than just a simple brawl in a tavern. There would be no avoiding it soon. But with confrontation came a dilemma.

  Jason had not yet made up his mind where his sympathies, his loyalties, lay. Americans were railing against the laws imposed by a faraway British King—Fat George the rebels called him. Jason's father, although a large landowner, was on the side of the Americans, a fact that had struck Jason as odd in the beginning since the Americans who were protesting were predominantly men of Jason's age and were called shiftless rebels. But his father was a friend of George Washington, whose plantation was not far from their own, and of Benjamin Franklin, that unorthodox, self-proclaimed sage who was the most unusual, gifted man Jason had ever met in his life. Neither of these men could be considered young, except in their hearts, and they supported the idea of self-government for the Colonies. But they were the exceptions. Most supporters of rebellion were of the landless class.