One Last
Farewell
by
Isabelle Kane
Krystyna Sielska,
a bold Polish beauty, hopes to escape scandal by fleeing her homeland
for the imperial city of Vienna. There she encounters two men: a charming
and handsome
rogue and a brash and unpolished scoundrel. Both men seek to woo the lovely
Krystyna, but another, a monster who goes only by the name of “Janus,” also pursues
her.
Can true love survive the flames of war?
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The
scrambling sound of shod hooves striking cobblestones, of a panicking horse,
quickened Krystyna’s footsteps as she ran into the unlit stable. Her eyes
were already accustomed to the darkness, so she could make out the great,
muscled mass of her father’s red bay breeding stallion, Thor, as he spun in
his stall seeking to escape the intruder. There was a loud smack of a
leather strap striking flesh. Thor kicked out, striking the wall. His eyes
were white-rimmed with fear, and his nostrils flared with panic.
“Who’s in there? Get out now! You’re going to be
hurt!” She hesitated to open the stall door, which, by some miracle, had
remained closed despite the chaos within, because she knew a maddened horse
would strike at anything and everything indiscriminately.
“I’ve got you!” The triumphant growl in Russian
revealed the identity of the intruder.
“Ivan! Have you gone mad? Get out of there!”
“Yes! I have you now!” Krystyna watched the
darkened figures struggling for mastery over each other in the stall. Thor
frantically swung his haunches about, trying to pull away, but Ivan’s grip
held firm at the rope looped around the horse’s neck. He used his weight on
the rope to anchor the frantic animal.
“Let go of him, Ivan! You’ve no right to be here!”
Now that Thor was immobilized, Krystyna opened the stall door. Ivan slid the
bridle over the trembling horse’s head, and the bit into his mouth. “My
father told you never to return here!” How she wished her father was here
now, but she didn’t dare run back to the house for him. Ivan and Thor would
assuredly be gone by the time she returned.
Suddenly, perhaps in reaction to her words, Ivan
began to jerk mercilessly on the reins, shooting white-hot agony through the
bars into Thor’s jaws.
“Get back, wench!”
Despite her escalating alarm, Krystyna stood her
ground at the front of the stall. What she could see of Ivan was disturbing;
his eyes were reddened and his clothing, soiled and rumpled.
“You have no business here! Leave now, and there’s
no harm done. If you hurt this horse, my father will see to it that you’re
punished.”
“I’m not leaving this place empty-handed!” He
tugged on the reins and made to push past her, but Thor lunged back,
dragging him back into the stall. Ivan whipped at the stallion’s sensitive
flanks and belly with the leather reins in his hands. Thor reared up again
and struck out with his front hooves. Krystyna raced to where a pitchfork
hung on the wall just down from the stall. She grabbed it and hurried back.
She held the smooth wooden staff with the sharp prongs aimed at the stall
door. “You won’t take him. I won’t let you!”
“All of this should be mine; this estate, this
horse, you. You robbed me! Cast me off, like a worthless serf. I am Ivan
Bestuzhev, and I will not be disposed of lightly.”
“So you come here drunk to steal my father’s
horse?” She was incredulous at the inanity of the situation. And she had
once believed herself in love with this fool. Obviously bitter about being
cast off by the Sielskis, he had taken to liquid consolation and was much
the worse for it. “There’s no sense in what you’re doing, Ivan. You will be
caught. Just leave here now. You’ll be glad of it in the morning.”
If only someone would come, but it was already well
past the dinner hour, and the grooms were sleeping in their cottage.
He dragged on the reins to pull the
horse back out. “You are threatening me? You would hurt me? I think not!”
With his forearm, he made to push the pitchfork aside.
She feinted at him. “Don’t underestimate me.”
He grinned, and she marveled that she could ever
have found his dark eyes beautiful, those cruelly sensual lips appealing. It
sickened her that she’d ever allowed him to touch her.
“Everyone knows this horse! You can’t hide him.”
“Your father! He should have forced you to marry me
when I told him what we’d done together. He didn’t believe me. He laughed at
me. He threw me out like a dog! Your whole family will pay! All of this
should have been mine!” He repeated this last bit with a fanatical edge to
his voice, as if it was a lesson he’d learned.
Thor charged out of the stall. His great chest
knocked the pitchfork from Krystyna’s hands. She fell to the ground and
sought to roll away amid the sparks shot out by the deadly shod hooves. She
scrambled up and then flattened herself against the wall while man and horse
fought to dominate each other.
Screaming, Thor threw his head high, lifting Ivan
from his feet. Then the stallion slipped on the cobblestones and went
crashing down, the man disappearing under his bulk.
Suddenly, the barn was eerily silent. Snorting and
shaking his head, Thor rose to his feet. Ivan lay like a discarded doll on
the ground.
For a moment, Krystyna couldn’t move then she took
one hesitant step forward, and then another. Ivan remained limp. To her
horror, she saw his eyes were staring blankly up. The prongs of the
pitchfork jutted out through his blouse and jacket, and a dark pool of
seeping blood was already forming around his body.
There was no doubt. Ivan Bestuzhev was dead.
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