Moonlight Lover (10 page)

"If you want help, little sister, it's advice I'll give you. Next time, make sure that there's no musket in the way." He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing again. "Otherwise, you run the risk of shooting something off that you might be wanting to use later."

Rachel's eyes blazed as she cuffed his ear. She'd expected more of him. "There isn't a thing on Sin-Jin Lawrence's anatomy that I'd be wanting to use. Ever. Da'd take you over his knee for that if he were alive, twenty and seven or not."

"And at twenty and two, you shouldn't be fighting like a hellcat with a man who pays attention to you." He moved around the printing press to face her again. She had the ink roller in her hand. Riley watched it respectfully. Rachel wasn't above painting his face black with it. She'd done it before, though at the time it was in jest.

She looked at the roller, weighing her options. "There're worse things to be than an old maid."

Riley kept his distance, a retreat open at his back. "Not for a woman."

Rachel looked at him, truly hurt. He saw the wound in her eyes and damned himself for it. "I thought you had a broader mind than that, brother."

Riley crossed to her and placed an arm around her shoulders. "I want you to be happy, Rachel."

"I am. I'm doing something that counts." She looked

at the printing press and gestured toward it. "This counts, Riley. We're taking life and putting it down to paper. And someday," she said wistfully, "someday, history'll thank us because we did."

He understood how she felt. It was his dream as well. But he had another dream, a simpler one. It involved a home and family. Children. He wanted that for himself and for her. "There are personal histories to be made as well, Rachel."

"Aye, well." She shrugged carelessly, shaking off his arm. "I won't be wasted on the first beggar that comes along."

There were times that they were so alike, they could
read each other's minds. This was not one of those times,
Riley thought. He couldn't penetrate her expression, couldn't read beyond the words. Was there something
more to the way she spoke about Sin-Jin or not? He would
have said that her reaction was too extreme, but he knew how she felt about the British. And why. Perhaps there was only hatred for the man in her breast and nothing more.

"His plantation is small, Rachel, but he's hardly a beggar."

"We define the term differently, you and I." She took in a breath. The roller was laying on the platen. She decided to leave it there for the time being. "Now, I'll make us a healthy cup of tea and we'll put this issue to bed. There're a lot of pages to be printed before the morrow if this paper is to go out on time. No use the weather making snails out of both of us."

Riley watched her walk from the room and shook his
head. Women. If he lived forever, he would never be able
to understand the breed.

Chapter Ten

"It's been a while since we've seen you at our table, Sin-Jin."

Morgan McKinley, the man whose name the town bore, looked down his roman nose at his former son-in-law. Whenever he saw the tall, blond man, Morgan was
reminded of the fact that he now had two children instead
of three. Though he had begotten them late in life and
considered them nuisances for most of the years they had
been growing up beneath his roof, now, as the winter of his life approached, he began to realize that the measure
of a man was at least in part what his children were. They and not the name of a town was the real indelible mark he
left upon the world long after he returned to the dust from which he had risen.

He studied Sin-Jin over the glass of wine he held in his
hand. When he had initially learned of Sin-Jin's existence, his first inclination had been to order him imprisoned. The revolution had just begun to burst upon them, and Morgan, a patriot to the core, had no love of anything English, much less a soldier he had been informed was being hidden by one of his household.

But Morgan was and always had been a fair man, for all
his ill-temper. Sin-Jin had been spared and subsequently escaped. When he returned, Sin-Jin was a different man. A man who had turned his back on his country and the bloodshed he wanted no part of.

So when Sin-Jin had asked for his daughter's hand,
Morgan debated but a short while. When he had given his
permission, he gave them a parcel of land to start them off with as well. Jason and Aaron, Morgan's sons, had loaned their brother-in-law enough money to purchase the adjacent abandoned farm, and suddenly Saint John Lawrence, former lieutenant in his majesty's army,
spurned second son of a philandering father, the late Earl
of Shalott, was a plantation owner.

He's done a fine job of it, too
, Morgan thought as he
swirled the last drops of the wine he had paid so dearly for
before downing it.

Morgan knew he couldn't have asked for a finer third son, though they would probably have to threaten him with cutting out his tongue before he'd admit to it aloud.
For Morgan compliments were to be hoarded like the last
of the tea, to be doled out sparingly and only as a final resort.

Sin-Jin took a sip of his own wine before answering. He
felt good at this table, at home the way he never quite had
when he was growing up in England.

"I've been busy," he admitted. "This is only my fifth year running the plantation and it seems as if I'm always learning. The lessons learned from previous years are never quite sufficient for addressing the problems of the
next. Besides, as you well know, the sale of the crop was
not an easy matter this year." Though the English blockade was no longer in effect, getting merchant ships from foreign countries to come to their ports to buy tobacco was particularly difficult with the war on.

Though Aaron had come to like Sin-Jin, he had not
come to understand some of his philosophy. "You should
have never freed your slaves," he murmured. "The first year's problems, or lessons as you've called them, should have made that clear. But you have never corrected your mistake. A lesson poorly learned." He looked up at Sin-
Jin from across the table. "You could have saved yourself
a considerable sum in wages." Aaron shook his head in sympathy. How Sin-Jin could have performed such an elementary blunder was beyond him.

"Perhaps," Sin-Jin agreed. "At the cost of my conscience," he added mildly.

He had no desire to be embroiled in a debate on the subject tonight. He just wanted an evening with old friends, with family. He wanted, needed, something to rub away the dull ache that had been troubling him of late. The emptiness that seemed to be haunting him. Kissing Rachel had only made it that much worse, reminding him of what he no longer had. It had caused suppressed feelings to surface and haunt him.

"Still, you started something that has been noted and can't be taken lightly." Aaron used the tip of his knife as
he spoke to emphasize his point. A staunch loyalist in the
beginning, Aaron had been made to see that survival lay in being a rebel. He accepted that and all that went with it. But new ideas only went so far and a man's beliefs could only be bent so much.

"One man's sin is another man's virtue, Aaron."

Aaron turned to look at his sister-in-law. Krystyna smiled serenely as she placed her hand over his, as if the very action could still the conversation.

It never ceased to amaze Aaron, even after knowing his outspoken sister-in-law for so many years, that a woman would venture into a political discussion. It seemed as incongruous to him as a man bearing a child. Still, he saw the wisdom in her words and in keeping his piece. Tonight was not a night for arguments, however friendly they might be.

Outside the window, the thunder rumbled, threatening even more rain on an already saturated landscape. The thunder seemed to underscore her words.

Sin-Jin smiled at Krystyna. Foreigners in a foreign land, they understood one another perhaps a little better than the others did. "Riding to my rescue again, Krystyna?"

It had been Krystyna who had found him lying in a field Christmas morning, wounded and half dead. She was the one who had him secretly brought to her cabin and then nursed him back to health despite the danger she ran in incurring Morgan's wrath.

"It is a very short ride, my friend." She worried about him, alone in his big house. A man his age, with his generous heart, should not be alone. "So, what is it you have been doing with yourself besides running the plantation?"

Jason heard more in his wife's words than the others did. He knew the capacity of her heart. She worried about the slaves when they took ill, about his father's failing health, and about friends who were alone.

"Nothing very much." Sin-Jin shrugged. "Evenings I've been teaching Bronson, my overseer," he clarified for his other sister-in-law, Lucinda's benefit, "how to read."

"Now that should be diverting," Christopher laughed. "Why not have Krystyna help?" He smiled at his aunt. "I've always found her to be an excellent teacher. Though a little demanding at times." He winked at her.

He was getting to be such a handsome young man, Krystyna thought. It would be time to find him a wife, soon. She'd grown very fond of him over the last six years. When she had found herself initially stranded here, she fell back on her extensive education for help.
She had struck a bargain with Morgan to teach his twelve-
year-old grandson in exchange for shelter and wage.
Morgan had agreed, despite Aaron, Christopher's father's
initial objection, or perhaps because of it. She went on teaching Christopher even after she married Jason.

"Anyone can be excellent with good material to work with," she told the young man fondly. Krystyna turned to Sin-Jin. "But if you would like, I could perhaps—"

Sin-Jin shook his head. "Don't trouble yourself. He's
reading now as well as he ever will. He's not very keen on it. Teaching him was just a way to fill my evenings." Sin-
Jin sighed, pushing back his plate. His appetite had abandoned him days ago.

"To be truthful, I feel as if I've been isolating myself from the whole of the world." Sin-Jin looked at his host and smiled, dismissing his momentary lapse into melancholy. He hoped no one would really take note of it. He didn't want their pity, only their friendship. "I thought I'd catch up on what was happening in it by accepting your kind invitation."

His glance swept along the length of the table, taking them all in. Aaron, Lucinda, and Christopher lived at the main house with Morgan, while Jason and Krystyna and their two small children lived in a house built closer to Sin-Jin's property. Whenever they gathered together, it was always at the main house.

Attempting to sound as if the matter didn't interest him as much as it did, Sin-Jin said, "Did you know we have a newspaper now?"

"Yes." Hungry for news of the world, for the printed word, Krystyna had been the first to devour it. "Jason brought a copy home last week," she told Sin-Jin, smiling affectionately at Jason.

Sin-Jin toyed with his glass. "What do you know about the editor?" He tossed the question out on the table for anyone to answer.

Morgan had shared an ale with the man. He shrugged, recalling. "Not much. He's a friendly enough fellow. And his politics are in the right place," Morgan added with feeling.

Jason had made a point of meeting the new editor once he had learned of the newspaper's existence. Riley had struck him as an amiable sort, with fierce loyalties. Not unlike Krystyna. "Likes to talk a lot."

"Small wonder," Sin-Jin murmured to the bottom of his glass, "when he gets away from that sister of his. From what I saw, she doesn't let him say very much."

Krystyna exchanged a look with Lucinda. "He has a sister?" She turned accusing eyes on Jason. "You did not tell me there was another woman in the town."

Jason shrugged. In reality, it had slipped his mind. "You didn't ask."

Krystyna shook her head, looking at Sin-Jin. "Such a man. Next time I will remember to ask if any new women have arrived." Her laughter softened and faded as she caught a spark of something in Sin-Jin's eyes. It gave her cause for speculation.

Krystyna leaned on her elbow, her face in her upturned palm. "What is she like?"

She looked from her husband to her brother-in-law, waiting. When Sin-Jin was the one to answer her, it told her everything she wanted to know.

There was only one way to describe the woman. "She's
nothing short of a spitfire." When Krystyna's brows drew together as she tried to digest the word and unearth
its meaning, he added, "Come to think of it, Rachel's a lot
like you."

"Ah. Spitfire. You mean even-tempered and friendly," Krystyna guessed. She successfully hid her smile from her face, but not her eyes.

"Hot-tempered and opinionated," Jason put in, grinning. That had been one of his first impressions of her.

Krystyna playfully swatted away her husband's hand as he tugged on a loose curl at her temple. "Is she pretty?" she asked Sin-Jin.

Krystyna was beginning to see a solution for her friend's loneliness. Though he didn't talk of it, she could read it in his eyes and she ached for him. But until now, there had been no one she thought of as suitable for the man. Perhaps this new woman would change that.

"Pretty or not, she'll probably get snapped up right away," Lucinda ventured knowingly. "There's hardly enough women to go around." She'd been considered plain herself when she married Aaron. If not for Krystyna's patient ways, she would still be hiding behind clothing meant for a women years older than herself, wearing her hair in a severe fashion that made her features appear harsh rather than comely.

Sin-Jin thought of his first meeting with Rachel. And his second. "The men in this county would have to be utterly desperate before they'd turn to her."

"Then she's plain?" Christopher guessed, disappointed.
He had visions of accompanying his uncle into town on the next trip he took.