There was anger in his young voice and a note of frustration. "That we shouldn't do anything." He flipped through the pages of the book without looking at them. "That the King knows best when it comes to how to treat us." The hostility she had once seen directed toward her was back in his eyes. "He says that the people who dumped the tea in the bay are just a bunch of troublemakers —and that the soldiers at Lexington and Concord are savages."
This is the stuff that makes up history, she thought. Morgan had discussed these events and more, vividly, at the table. She chose her words carefully, though she knew where her own sympathies lay. "Well, they might have been troublemakers, but they believed in what they were doing. They were protesting a tax that they did not think fair. They killed no one at the 'Tea Party,' they just rid themselves of the cause of the problem. At least for now."
She looked at the small, open face and saw the responsibility that rested on her shoulders. Here was someone to teach, someone to set on the right path. She couldn't let that opportunity just slip away. Couldn't take the easy path. That would be cowardly.
Krystyna took a deep breath, her hand covering the boy's. "No, Christopher, in answer to your question, I do not think your father is right." The boy beamed immediately. "Kings tend to forget that they must make decisions for all the people, not only themselves. And kings are only human. Sometimes they listen to the wrong advisers and make the wrong decisions."
She rose and wandered toward the window. Snow was falling heavily. "Things in America are very different than they are in England, and in my opinion, the King should not rule on matters here from a seat so far away. He is stifling growth. The men who threw the tea away knew this. It was their way of telling him he was wrong in his tax and in his thinking." She turned to see that the boy was hanging on her every word.
"Perhaps they should not have been so wasteful, but sometimes you have to do things you would not normally do in order to be noticed. My own King," she thought of Stanislaw, "was weak, just as King George is, and he listened to the wrong people. That is why we lost parts of our land to our neighbors—Russia, Prussia, and Austria. If your King is not careful, he will cause a rebellion. And then other countries might come in and take the Colonies over, as parts of my land were seized."
Christopher looked at her, wide-eyed. Then confidence filled his young soul. "That can't happen here. We'd never let them take us," he boasted proudly.
How wonderful to have such conviction, she thought. Perhaps if King Stanislaw had had some of Christopher's spirit, I would be at home right now.
Krystyna leaned over and closed the book on Christopher's desk. "The lesson is over for today."
Christopher looked up in surprise. It was only the noon hour. Did she mean to stop for a meal, or was she serious?
Krystyna smiled at his obvious confusion. "It is snowing." She gestured toward the window. "Back home, when I was your age, I loved to build castles in the snow."
Christopher was almost to the door when he suddenly turned around. "Will you come, too, and build a castle with me?"
Krystyna laughed as she joined him. "I am glad you asked. Come," she took his hand, "we need coats."
Without trying, Krystyna slowly began to win over most of the family. Her kindness to Christopher gained her not only the boy's but Lucinda's affection. Aaron, however, continued to regard her as a growing curiosity and, more to the point, a possible future mistress.
One member of the family didn't change her opinion. Savannah. From the first moment she'd seen Krystyna, Savannah had thought her the enemy. She resented having her at the table, resented her presence in the house, and passionately hated the way her brother and father acted toward the woman. In addition, Charity was as close a friend as Savannah cared to have. As far as she was concerned, a marriage between Charity and Jason was imminent.
Krystyna's untimely arrival had changed all that. Charity cried on Savannah's shoulder and blamed Jason's inattentiveness and preoccupation on Krystyna. Savannah did nothing to change her opinion.
To Savannah, Krystyna represented competition, plain and simple. Having her here disrupted the order of things. And Krystyna was a potential complication for her well-thought-out plans.
Krystyna felt Savannah's hostility, though very little was said between the two women. Krystyna saw no reason to go out of her way to try to change Savannah's mind about her. There was no point to it. She was what she was, and Savannah could like her or not as she chose.
What Krystyna did go out of her way to do was to avoid Jason whenever possible. She answered his questions politely at dinner when there were others around, but she never allowed herself to be alone with him. All his invitations to go out riding again were politely but firmly refused. She didn't trust him. She didn't trust herself.
Krystyna's most surprising conquest was Morgan McKin-ley. Everyone noted the fact that he was increasingly less gruff with her. The probing questions he shot at her ceased to be verbal attacks on her class and became inquiries into her life in Poland. More than anything, he was fascinated by the fact that she was so different from his previous conception of an aristocrat.
"How many peasants did your father work to death?" he had asked her over dinner on one of the first evenings she spent at Smoke Tree.
She had raised her sapphire eyes to look at him and had retorted calmly, "None. How many slaves have you tortured to death?" Without missing a beat, she continued to sip her wine.
A hush had fallen over the room, and with bated breath, everyone awaited Morgan's response. An explosion was foreseen by all. But after the bright color had receded from his face, the old man had laughed heartily. "Good God, girl, you've got guts." His stomach shook as he laughed. "More guts than brains, I'll wager."
But that had been the beginning.
Morgan liked her spirit and the fact that she was not afraid of him the way Aaron and Lucinda were. Winthrop, whenever he came, which to Morgan's sorrow was often, was afraid of him as well. But that rather pleased Morgan. And even Savannah, for all her haughty airs, could be subdued with a raised brow. The only ones who were not afraid of him were Christopher, who was too innocent and honest to fear him, and Jason, who was more like him than the others. And now this uppity, displaced countess.
"A countess." Morgan laughed to himself, lighting his worn pipe with a poker as he stood by the hearth in the den. The pipe had been the one thing he had carried with him when he had escaped to the new world. It was his only reminder of his father.
The irony of the situation struck him. "Who would ever have thought that I'd harbor a countess in my home?" And like her at that, he added silently. But then, he had Each}an in his employ, and there had been a fondness between the two men. Jan had been of noble blood. I didn't know that, of course, Morgan thought as he drew on the stem. Not when I hired the man.
Jan had been very closemouthed in the beginning, asking only to be given a chance to prove himself. It wasn't until Morgan found he depended heavily on the little man that he began to ask Jan questions about his past. After several years, in a rare moment of truth, the two men being in their cups, Jan had revealed the truth.
Morgan, too drunk to care, saw the humor and roared with laughter. After that, Jan slowly told him everything, about his country, about the cause and the danger his brother and niece were in. Morgan had been the one to suggest that perhaps a position could be found at Smoke Tree
for Jan's brother. He hadn't given much thought to the girl who would be coming along with her father.
"You do seem to like her," Jason said as he stood watching his father.
"Who?" The question was too innocent as he looked toward his son. Things had changed for the better between the two in the last two months. Jason ran the plantation as well as he himself had once done, when he was young and could sit a horse all day. But those days were gone. A back injury sustained when he'd been thrown from a horse kept him from riding for any length of time now.
Jason is a handsome man, Mor
gan reflected, turning more than his share of ladies' heads. Oh, to be young again —and to look like Jason. God forbid, he thought, that I should look like Aaron.
"You know very well who. Krystyna. Our resident princess." Taking a long cigar, Jason bit off the end and threw it into the flames. He lit his cigar with the same poker his father used.
"Countess," his father corrected, then allowed himself a smile. "Oh, she's a mite uppity," he proclaimed, shrugging.
"Nobody could be more uppity than Savannah," Jason pointed out.
"That's for damn sure. I worry about her, Jase. She's a hellcat, that one. All the wrong values. If I had my druthers, I'd have her more like the Countess."
"Changed your tune about her, haven't you?"
"Yes, yes, I like her." Morgan waved a hand, annoyed at being cornered.
Jason blew out a smoke ring and straddled a chair. "I thought you would. She's a lot like you, you know."
"Oh, is she now? And in what way, may I ask?" He raised his brow, his interest peaked.
"I overheard her teaching Christopher."
Morgan was glad that arrangement had come about. Christopher seemed a lot happier these days. But because it suited him, he feigned ignorance, wanting to see what Jason had to say on the subject. "How's that going?"
"It's one of your better decisions." Jason nearly laughed out loud at his father's frown. As far as Morgan McKinley was concerned, all his decisions were good. "Christopher really likes her. He listens to everything she has to say. And despite Aaron's little lecture to her about not talking to Christopher about this rebellion of yours, Christopher tells me very happily that she's on the side of the rebels." Jason blew out another smoke ring and watched its crooked form fade.
Would that the crooked British were that easy to get rid of, Morgan thought, waving the smoke aside. "She is, eh?" Even though he knew as much, hearing it again pleased him. He looked in his son's direction. "This rebellion of mine, as you call it, should be yours, too," he informed him, seizing on the term Jason had used. "When will you see that, boy?"
As usual, Jason's patience evaporated when he was confronted with this unresolved conflict. His father could only see his own side and didn't understand anyone else's point of view. Especially not in this matter.
"In my own good time, Father. When the time comes to make a decision, I will. But it's not here, yet."
The friendly talk threatened to turn into another argument, so Jason left. Morgan watched him go, shaking his shaggy head.
Perhaps the newest member of this household can make him change his mind, Morgan thought. She had the kind of sense Jason needed to infuse into his own life. And Morgan suspected that Jason was far more taken with the dark-haired wench than he was allowing himself to believe. There was hope. He watched the flames in the fireplace as they leaped up. There was always hope.
Chapter Fifteen
As the days passed and Krystyna fell into a routine of sorts, gaining with it an understanding of how the household worked, it made it easier for her to avoid Jason. She could elude him successfully by having someone near at all times. She let her guard down and was alone only when she knew that Jason was nowhere about. But as the Christmas season approached, she found it increasingly difficult to be alone.
The season brought with it a pang of nostalgia. It had always been her favorite time of year at home.
Jeremiah was twice as busy, overseeing the decorating, cooking, and baking for all the people who were to come and go in the week between Christmas and New Year's. Krystyna was surprised to discover that Jeremiah was actually in charge of the preparations and that Lucinda only timidly offered suggestions, while Savannah took almost no interest in any of it whatsoever. Her only acknowledgment of the approaching holidays was to tell her father what she anticipated being given on Christmas Day.
Krystyna couldn't understand why the others would willingly cut themselves off from the joy that went with the season.
Jeremiah was taken aback when Krystyna asked to help with the decorating. The people in the big house didn't work beside the slaves, and he had thought she'd follow suit, even though he had overheard her differences of opinion with the McKinleys.
"It will remind me of home," Krystyna explained. He nodded, seeming to understand this link she needed to maintain, and he saw to it that everything and everyone was at her disposal.
Leola and a heavyset, older woman struggled as they helped Krystyna carry a huge box of decorations down from the attic into the ballroom where company always gathered. Setting the box down on the floor with an immense thud, Krystyna waited for the two women to catch their breath before they undertook decorating the windows and doorways with bright garlands.
Standing on tiptoe, Krystyna balanced herself on a chair and began to string a garland around the archway. As she worked, she hummed a song she'd often heard in childhood. The words had long since escaped her, but the melody was forever embedded in her mind. Stretching her fingers to reach the highest point on the wall above the archway, she didn't see Jason approaching. Nor he her. Preoccupied with a book he was paging through, Jason walked right into her chair and knocked it over.
With a strangled cry, Krystyna fell on top of him, sending him sprawling. "What the —!"
She heard Leola gasp in the background and the scurry of feet as the two women hurried to help them untangle their bodies. "Why were you not looking where you were going?" Krystyna demanded, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
"I wasn't expecting angels to be falling out of the sky onto me." He waved back the other women carelessly and made no move to get up. He liked the feel of her body on his. "If I had known, I would have been here a lot sooner."
Leola and the older woman exchanged secret smiles and returned to their work. Master Jase's preference for the lively lady was well known by now.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
"No." Krystyna tried to rise, but his leg was over hers, pinning her down.
"Don't get up yet," he murmured. Lightly, he smoothed down her collar at the nape of her neck. Krystyna tried not to react, but she only partially succeeded. The memory of his touch was burned into her soul. "This is the best present I could have hoped for. You haven't even let me touch your hand in weeks."
Krystyna's eyes darted toward Leola. The young black woman appeared not to hear as she busied herself with laying out more garland to be draped, but Krystyna knew better. "Lower your voice," Krystyna hissed.
"I'll lower it as far as you want, only don't move."
She felt his eyes undressing her, and the color rose to her cheeks even as her heart began to beat faster. "Help me up, please." It wasn't a request. It was an order. She swept away the garland that was clinging to her skirt.
"Very well." He rose, pulling her up next to him. Their bodies touched. The sparks that traveled between them were felt by both. Krystyna broke away, turning her back to him.
Jason looked around the room. She was bringing her touch, her warmth everywhere. "Where have you hung the mistletoe?"
"Mistletoe?" She turned and looked at him quizzically. "What is that?"
"Here's some, Mist'r Jase." Leola brought a sprig to him. It had been cut just that morning.
Krystyna took it first. She examined it, turning it around in her fingers. It didn't look particularly attractive, and would be lost if they put it on the tree, its color fading into the bright greenness of the spruce. "Why would you want to hang this?"
"So we can do this." He took it from her and held it over her head. As she looked up toward it, she didn't see the look that entered his eyes. And she didn't see his lips lowering to hers until it was too late.
The protest that sprang up left even more quickly as her needs smothered her reason. For one brief second, she forgot the women who looked on with broad grins, forgot her promises to herself. Forgot everything but the sweet, tangy flavor of his mouth and the paradise it created for her.
Forgot, but only for a moment. With the breath drained from
her, she somehow still found the strength to push him away, her eyes demanding to know how he could have been so presumptuous in front of others.
"It's a tradition." He twirled the sprig in his fingers, trying to mask the fact that the slightest contact with this woman affected him far more than was comfortable. Yet he couldn't resist wanting more. "We hang it up and if you walk under it, you get kissed."
Anger gave way to curiosity. "You kiss everyone under it?"
"Only members of the opposite gender," he clarified.
She needed to put distance between them, more than just physically. "Like Charity."
That name again. He struggled to harness his impatience. Placing both hands on her shoulders, he forced her to look at him. His eyes were no longer teasing. "I'd never kiss Charity that way —I'd never want to." He searched her face. "Do you understand?"
"No," she whispered. She didn't really. How could he be engaged to one woman and kiss another that way? Krystyna felt very, very confused.
"Good," he muttered, releasing her. "Neither do I." He set the sprig down on a table and looked around. "Do you need any help?" He turned to face her. "I used to have fun doing this sort of thing as a child." That had been when his mother was alive. Things were very different then. There had been love in the house. "It kind of took Christmas away when I got too old to hang those things." He gestured at the box of decorations.
"You are never too old for that. Or too young," she added, seeing Christopher peer into the room. "Come," she called to the boy, holding out her hand. "There is a lot to do."
She put the boy to work sorting out the decorations for the tree, while Jason took her place, hanging the garland over the archways. Krystyna turned her attention to decorating the windows.
"Do you celebrate much where you come from?" Jason asked, driving in a nail. He draped the garland over it, then turned and waited for her answer. There was so much he didn't know about her. So much he wanted to know.
The memories came flooding back again. "For almost the whole month." Krystyna's eyes grew bright as she remembered. "My father would stock the house with food, and we would sing songs and have one long party. It would last until the twelfth of January. The peasants were all given geese and—" Her hands dropped suddenly. "Who will take care of the peasants this year?"
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