The message came at dusk.
Jan’s hands worked feverishly at saddling his horse, his mind a web of thought and emotion. That the note had come from Countess Stella and not Anna was unsettling. Antoni is home, it read, come at once. Why hadn’t Anna herself written? Had something already happened?
He mounted now, adjusting the pistol hidden by his waistcoat, and directed the horse out of the carriage house and into the night.
Anna had said it would not be long before Antoni turned up, and she had been right. Had she been right about everything else? He had believed Anna’s earnest suppositions about her husband, yet in retrospect they seemed like something out of fiction. What kind of man plots to kill his own wife, risking the lives of children in the bargain—the two French children and Anna’s unborn child? Of course, there were such men, men who valued themselves above everything.
He spurred the horse through muddied streets.
He was incensed to think anyone would attempt to harm Anna. Since he had met her, she was all he could think of. If it were true, he felt capable of dispatching Grawlinski on the spot. What need was there for a formal duel? What need was there for the slow and haphazard workings of the law? If he could only be certain of Antoni’s malevolent intent for Anna, yes, he would do it. Gladly. But what if Anna had let her judgment become colored by her dislike of the man, her resentment of the arranged marriage, or her love for another?
A perfect world, he had told the Countess Gronska. In a perfect world, Antoni’s guilt would be proved. But this is not a perfect world, he knew. “To meet an angel, one had to go to heaven,” his own mother had often said. Earthly reality was different. How many guilty go unpunished daily? Would it be so with Antoni?
Jan pulled on the reins, slowing his horse as he moved into a heavier flow of traffic near the bridge to Praga. His hands were perspiring, he realized. He was nervous.
His options were twofold and simple on the exterior. He could kill Antoni. Or he could allow Antoni to live. What was it to be? To kill him would make it all so neat. The husband of the woman he loved would be dead and out of the way. In time, she would be free to marry another, himself. But wasn’t it a bit too neat? How would the law see it? What if Antoni were not guilty? Or what if his guilt were never proved? Could he live with himself, having taken the man’s life—and his wife? No, not with any integrity.
And if Antoni were to live, was there some way he could be prevailed upon to give up his sham of a marriage? Could he be intimidated into releasing Anna? Might he be bought off? Anna’s religious ties, too, were to be considered. As long as Grawlinski lived, she and her church would deem it a marriage. Jan knew divorce was forbidden in the Catholic Church, but in cases where a marriage wasn’t a marriage, might annulment be a possibility? The ways of churches were often inscrutable to him.
The thundering echo of the horse’s hooves on the wooden bridge seemed to further jumble Jan’s thoughts. He had only minutes now to rethink his options.
Presently, he arrived at the Gronski townhome. Countess Stella Gronska met Jan at the door, a lamp in her hand. Evidently, she had anticipated his arrival, for he had been about to lift the knocker when she opened the door and motioned him in.
They moved noiselessly to the open doors of the reception room. Jan could hear a man’s low tones.
Stepping in, he saw Anna’s face first. She was seated. She looked neither frightened nor angry. Just passive in some vague sort of way. The amber-flecked green eyes were lifeless pools. Antoni was pacing in short steps, never moving far from his wife. He seemed agitated, his voice quietly impassioned.
It was Anna’s expression—Jan thought it more alarm than relief—that gave away Jan’s presence to Antoni. He turned about, startled at first to see someone not of the household, startled again as he took in just who it was. But by the third beat he had masked his displeasure. “Stelnicki, is it not?” He forced a smile.
“Sir!” Jan responded, bringing together the heels of his boots and bowing slightly.
“Why, Anna Maria,” Antoni cried, “we have a guest!”
Anna nodded silently.
The countess remained in the doorway as Jan moved into the room. He had expected Anna to be in tears or raging in accusation. What did this passiveness portend? Were things as she had made them out to be? Or had her mind been changed somehow?
Anna looked at Jan, nodded expressionlessly.
Antoni’s gaze went from one to the other. “Ah, you two scarcely act as though you have not seen each other since the Royal Castle. If I’m any judge, I would say you two have met recently, in fact.” Antoni behaved as though Jan and Anna were two children found at some forbidden mischief. “Am I right? It’s true?”
Jan attempted a polite smile. The man was astute, he thought. “I made an initial visit yesterday to welcome Anna back. I learned only then what she had been through.”
“Purely a social call?” Antoni asked, the corners of his dark moustache rising. “And only just hours after her arrival in Warsaw? What coincidence!”
Jan braved it out. “Yes, indeed!”
“You’ve become a soldier in the interim.”
“Yes.”
“Infantry?”
Jan was well aware Antoni knew better, but he was not going to be baited. He smiled. “Light Cavalry.”
“You know, my dear Stelnicki, I really should be angry with you. The last time I saw you was the last time I saw my wife. We had—you and I—our words then. Now she and I are happily reunited after so much… distress… and here you are again. Strange, isn’t it? If I were not in such a relieved and ecstatic frame of mind to find Anna Maria after I had every reason to give her up, I might not find room in my heart to be polite to a rascal like you. But then, she is an easy woman to like, is she not?”
Anna stared at Antoni as if he had just quoted the Bible, but she did not dispute her husband. She looked back to Jan and said nothing.
“Yes,” Jan answered. “She is an easy woman to like.”
“And to love?”
Jan grew angry. Later he would realize that the truth had angered him so. Of course, he had long ago opened himself to the intensity of his love for her, but to hear Grawlinski speak of it coarsened it. He tried to keep up a cool front. “You could have no better wife, Grawlinski.”
“Yes, I agree. Anna Maria has, however, a predilection for fantasy. It is her chief failing. She read too much as a child, I think.”
Neither Jan nor Anna spoke.
“It’s the most amazing thing, Stelnicki. My wife has imagined that I have been behind the terrible things that have befallen her. Can you imagine?… Why, now I can only guess that it was her lack of faith in me that must have taken you away from whatever heroic deeds you are about these days.”
Anna squirmed in her chair. Jan could only wonder at her protracted silence.
“And you have assured her—”
“That I am innocent? On my father’s grave, I have! It pains me to the quick to have her think and give voice to such things. But, alas, she has listened to reason. We are a family once again.”
“I see.”
“I will not let Anna Maria wander off into danger again. She shall stay under my wing. You see, Stelnicki, we will be happy.”
Anna stood now, and both Jan and Antoni turned to her. “That is not possible, Antoni.” Her voice was soft but even.
“Anna, dearest, to find your tongue only to say such things! This is talk of the moment and talk not meant for others’ ears.”
“I won’t have you stay in this house.”
“I am your husband, and do remember that the house is Zofia’s.”
“Then it is I who will not stay!”
“To do what?” Antoni was losing his patience. “To run off with him? A soldier? To disgrace your aunt’s name? Your father’s memory?”
The mention of her father seemed to startle Anna. Her head tilted in her husband’s direction, green fire in her eyes. She could not bring herself to words.
“I’ve told you!” Antoni continued. “I’ve explained.”
“What?” Jan pressed. “What has he explained, Anna?”
Antoni turned on Jan. “You’ve worn out your welcome, Stelnicki. But go ahead, Anna Maria, tell him. And when you’ve been told, Stelnicki, you are to disappear from our lives. Go back to playing soldier.”
Anna stared at Antoni. Jan couldn’t read the emotion playing out on her face. What was this that she kept so subdued? Anger? Then she turned her back to both of them.
“Anna Maria?” Her husband was affecting a loving tone. “Tell Stelnicki.”
With her back to them and her words bereft of emotion, she said, “He says that he was the one who sent the Poles.”
Jan took a moment for it to sink in. If it were true, it meant that Antoni had saved Anna’s life. It was a dizzying thought. No wonder Anna seemed so torn. She, like him, wanted nothing more than to have done with Antoni Grawlinski.
“I most certainly did send the Poles,” Antoni was saying. “The Russians were kidnappers who meant to ransom my wife.”
“Kidnappers? Why?” Jan asked. “What proof is there of that?”
“Proof? Who needs proof, Stelnicki? Evidently I was tried and found guilty without any proof.”
“Anna,” Jan asked, “do you believe it?”
Anna did not turn around. A long moment passed. Anna’s answer came as a mere whisper: “Perhaps… I don’t know…”
“Listen to me, Anna Maria,” Antoni said as he moved toward her, reaching for her arm.
Later, Jan’s memory would replay that move as one that hinted violence, but for now there was no time to interpret, only time to act.
Jan took three quick, precise steps and struck his fist flush into Antoni Grawlinski’s face.