by Sue London
Chapter Fifteen
Hans had to gain his feet and pace the room before his temper had the better of him. "So the Prussian attaché –Otto-- when he accused you of giving her secrets, he was right?"
"Yes."
"Dammit, Casimir, I trusted you."
"And I trust you, which is why I'm explaining myself to you."
"You trust me? We are by definition enemies. You have undermined the country I am sworn to protect."
"I have no designs on Prussia, only Poland has my interest. Do you truly care if Polish lands are part of the Prussian Empire?"
"If the Emperor cares, then I care."
"All right, how about this. The letter that Otto was so disturbed to have lost included details on a plan to smuggle goods. Doesn't that count as undermining the Emperor's goals? For a highly placed and trusted official to be conspiring with smugglers?"
"Don't try to justify your misdeeds by pointing to those of others."
Casimir was quiet for a moment. "But now we are at a new place. You understand that I am not with Prussia, I am with Poland, yes?"
Hans braced his hands on the marble fireplace mantle. "Yes, that is very clear."
"And you understand that although I will not turn my back on Poland's need for independence, I am neither seeking to create an uprising nor believe that I could or should rule it."
"What is your point, Casmir?"
"I want you to marry my sister."
Hans gave a helpless laugh and wished he was still drinking at that inn. "Why?"
"First, I do not care for her marrying Gregor Eichen. Second," Casimir was quiet for a moment. "She has already given herself to you, and I would think that as a man of honor you would do what is right."
"Did she tell you that?"
"She doesn't have to tell me anything, I've seen the two of you together."
"I don't know what you think you've seen, but I have never, would never, dishonor your sister." He gave a hollow laugh. "At least half of which was because of my respect for you."
"Take heart, I don't require that you respect me. Only Krystyna."
"How am I supposed to tie my family to yours?"
"Everyone else thinks me an earnest young gentleman from Silesia. I tend to doubt you will disabuse them of that impression."
"It's not about who knows--"
"Everything is about who knows. Everything in the world is based on who knows what about whom. You, of all people, know that."
Hans clenched his jaw. Casimir was, in a sense, correct. While in the diplomatic service Hans had seen a number of times where gaining additional information completely changed things. Knowing, for instance, that a highly-placed Prussian diplomat such as Otto was working with smugglers changed things. Not that Hans ever had any particular liking for the man, but he had at least found his credentials satisfactory.
"After all," Casimir cajoled, "who knew more about the people in Vienna than you?"
"You, apparently," Hans said. He picked up the glass of whiskey and finished it in one long swallow. Casimir was quiet for long moments while Hans rolled the empty glass between his hands. Hans finally broke the silence. "What will become of Krystyna?"
Casimir took a sip of his own liquor. "Well, if you're saying that you won't offer for her, I don't see where that is any of your concern."
Hans felt a tremendous rush of anger. He had once found Casimir likable? This high-handed arrogance was infuriating.
"However," Casimir continued, "you are free to spend Christmas with us. It's likely the only house you'll find in London with a tree being decorated tonight."
Hans paused and narrowed his eyes. How had he not seen how arrogant, how manipulative the man was before? Then he registered what Casimir had said. "It's Christmas eve?"
"Yes, what day did you think it was?"
Apparently he had a bit more of that rye whiskey to drink than he had realized if a full day had gone missing.
Any reply he might have made was circumvented by the boy arriving with meat pasties. After eating, Casimir rushed him through his ablutions, insisting he would have time to shave and tidy more once they arrived at the house. Although he didn't want to go to the Polishman's home, it seemed he couldn't keep his feet from walking toward Krystyna. Taking the opportunity to see her one last time. Even if his progress was made with all the enthusiasm of a man walking to the gallows, he couldn't seem to turn back.
Chapter Sixteen
Krystyna stood patiently in the front hall, waiting to divest herself of her outer garments while Wladek was assisting George. The door opened, but it proved to be her annoying little brother. Then she saw who was behind him and her heart, what was left of it, stopped. Hans looked haggard and angry, but when his gaze found her it softened for a moment before he firmed his jaw. A jaw covered by at least a week's growth of beard. And not a handsome, trimmed beard, either. He looked as though he might have been living in the wilds.
She took a step towards him, but then glanced at her brother. His smug look stopped her in her tracks. How had he found Hans, much less convinced the man to come here? She wouldn't give Casimir the satisfaction of showing her happiness at seeing Hans again. Besides, the last thing Hans had asked of her, the only thing he had ever asked of her, was to never speak to him again. She turned back to Wladek but a moment later felt hands on her shoulders, pulling her overcoat off. She didn't have to look to know that it was Hans. She nodded her thanks and studied the tips of her slippers while Casimir and his wife chatted about the visit George had just made to the neighbors.
It surprised Krystyna that her brother had settled into such a life. Even if his wife was unorthodox, their lives had taken on all the trappings of the impoverished gentleman. Casimir was even working, like some sort of bourgeois. It was far from what he could be doing, should be doing. Hundreds of their clansfolk stood ready to assist him in anything he wanted to do, but instead he was here? Working for British lords? How did that in the least help him to achieve his destiny?
While she was thinking, Casimir sent Wladek off to settle Hans in a guest room. She realized that it might be best if she quietly withdrew to her own room, but as she murmured her excuses her brother interrupted her.
"We will see you downstairs tonight, I hope?"
"Of course."
"Don't use that high and mighty tone with me, I know how stubborn you can be. It doesn't take someone of my perception to see that you rate time with Herr Von Rosen as less desirable than choking on your own hat pins."
There had been a time when Casimir wouldn't have dreamed of speaking in such a way to her. Even as his wit had been honed on those around her, he had held her in enough awe that his manner toward her had always been deferential. She was the eldest, his trusted and wise sister. But as she drew back her shoulders and considered what to say to him, she realized that she had barely seen him these last four years and perhaps the tone she had imagined when reading his letters home hadn't captured his true feelings. He had grown into a man in that time, and it seemed a darker, more vicious man than she had ever expected him to be.
"I, for one, do the things that I say I will." With that, she turned to walk up the steps.
* * *
Casimir's grip on the newel post was so strong that George worried he might wrench it off. When in doubt, she usually tried levity, especially with her playful, entertaining husband.
"I'm starting to like your sister."
The glance he cut to her fell far short of entertained. Anguished was what she would call it, really.
"I should tell her." He looked back to the steps his sister had ascended. "I should tell her how, why, father died."
George frowned, remembering how his first fiancé had used information about the Rokiczana’s political plans, information that Casimir had freely given her, to accuse his father of treason and release herself from the engagement. "Do you think that would help the situation?"
He finally let go of the bannister and his shoulders slum
ped. "At least then she could be furious with me for the right reasons. She has never known why father was accused of treason and likely suspects it had to do with the robberies."
George wrapped her arms around her husband from behind and rested her head on his shoulder. “I worry that telling her now will only confuse the situation. Let her settle whatever this is she feels for Hans first.”
He nodded. "I've always been afraid that if she really understood the role I played in our father's death that she would never forgive me."
"That's possible," George said soberly, "but what’s more important is that you forgive yourself."
“As that’s unlikely, I was hoping she would do it.” He looked up the stairs again thoughtfully. “But you’re correct. Now isn’t the right time.” He finally smiled at her. “Now is when I make sure that my sister’s future is secured.”
* * *
Krystyna found that once she gained her bedroom she couldn't settle. She paced the modest space and couldn't help but compare it to their rooms at the various inns. Larger, certainly, than the one they shared in the inn south of London, but nothing in comparison to their quarters in Calais. Her step faltered as she heard a voice in the hallway she thought was Hans. She pressed herself up against the door and closed her eyes, focusing on the sound. It was definitely him, but she couldn't quite make out the words. Even so, the tone soothed her. Warmed her, like a wool blanket.
She would do what she must, what she had promised to do. She had never been happy about it, and now she just had the bittersweet burden of loving a man she could never have.
Chapter Seventeen
With the fog of the whiskey clearing, Hans found himself thinking about Krystyna. He thought about her as he bathed and shaved and dressed. He thought about her when he asked Wladek about the plans for the evening and when he should return downstairs. And he definitely thought of her as he looked up and down the hallway, wondering which door might lead to her bedroom. Not that she would necessarily be in it, but he would like to know. If nothing else, he had a deep protective instinct when it came to her. Perhaps it had developed by being her chaperone on the trip from the Continent, but whatever its source, not knowing where she was nagged at him like a sore tooth.
It wasn't typical for him to be focused on another person. Not that he was uncaring, far from it, but he was also clearly aware of the limitations of his responsibility for others. If he hadn't learned that, the loss of his men on the battlefield would soon have crushed him. The outrageous behavior of his brothers would have had him racing across the continent cleaning up after them. But now this woman had concentrated his attentions in a way he wasn't accustomed to feeling. As though she were important. Significant. In all the times he had envisioned, if a bit hazily, what it would be like to marry, this gnawing worry and uncertainty hadn't been featured. He had expected warmth, comfort, and attraction. Although when they were alone together, when he woke up with her in his arms, it was everything he might have hoped, there were so many other complications. Her engagement to another man. Her treasonous brother. The fact that her lineage would never please his parents. Her own proud, stubborn, secretive personality.
He sighed and returned to his room, unsure of what would come.
* * *
Krystyna smiled at her sister-in-law, glad of the distraction provided by their work in the kitchen. George had a surprising grasp of both Polish and German, but was using it to question almost every holiday tradition from the Rokiczana's homeland.
"But why a tree?" she persisted.
"Why not a tree?" Krystyna asked, shaping a rogaliki.
George frowned and paused while rolling out dough. "Technically we bring in trees, too, we just tear them apart first."
"That sounds terrible!"
Her sister-in-law shrugged. "We burn a big log in the fireplace, a Yule log, and decorate the house with greenery. And bows."
"Why bows?" Krystyna asked innocently, hoping to give her sister-in-law some small serving of the questioning she had been subjected to this afternoon.
George opened her mouth to answer, but glancing over must have seen a glint of deviltry. Quirking her eyebrow the British girl finally said in a pious tone, "They're quite sacred, didn't you know?"
Krystyna hated to admit it, but she really liked George now. And she liked the way her brother looked at his wife when he didn't realize anyone was watching. Pleased, as though she were a treasure only he was privy to. The same way that Papa had looked at Mama.
Krystyna licked some jam off her thumb. "If bows are sacred, then that Miss Peregrine you introduced me to must be the holiest creature on earth."
George laughed. "That gown was a travesty, wasn't it?"
"To each their own, I suppose. But you couldn't pay me enough to wear that dress."
"I could admonish you for never having a bad word for anyone, but it's all right. I undoubtedly have enough for both of us."
The outer door opened, bringing in a chill wind and the scent of pine. And Hans, laughing with Casimir and Wladek. The traitorous shreds of her heart tangled, leaving her with an ache in her chest and a bubbling bit of joy and hope that she ruthlessly repressed. As soon as he saw her, Hans sobered as well. The others, however, were swept up in the excitement of the Tannenbaum.
Casimir caught his wife up in a spin. "Our English merchant did well, don't you think? The tree is almost as tall as our Prussian friend here."
The tree was indeed almost as tall as Hans, who was holding it by himself until Casimir turned his attention back to the project. The two carried the tree out to the parlor, Wladek following with the wood to be used in making the tree stand. With the tree, the smell of the ciasteczka na święta baking, and the joy of her family around her, Krystyna felt overwhelmed. She wished she had stayed home where her mother would be fussing about her wedding dress and talking about how they would finally be fulfilling one of her father's key plans, uniting their family with a politically advantageous one. Instead, she was here watching her brother turn his back on those plans. And pining over a man she certainly couldn't have.
Chapter Eighteen
Watching the household preparing for the evening, Hans missed his own family. Not that the Von Rosens had planned to gather this Christmas. For years Hans himself had been too busy to spend the holiday at home, as for some time the military was his family. Now his brothers and sisters were scattered throughout Europe with their own households and his parents had taken to traveling. They might, according to their last letter, return home as soon as the spring. With Henry, the last unmarried sibling other than Hans, off to parts unknown, it would have been lonely indeed to holiday at one of the family estates.
That was what his life had come to, then. Celebrating the most holy of days in the house of a traitor to his country, while secretly coveting that traitor's sister. It had all the trappings of a Greek drama. Frau Rokiczana, or George as she insisted he call her, even served as a credible Greek chorus, taking the time to explain things to him when he didn’t understand the language or reference.
Meanwhile, Krystyna seemed sad and withdrawn. Having a better understanding of her goals now, he didn't see that her trip could ever have yielded the result she wanted. However, being the veteran of many untenable situations, he understood that sometimes you needed to something, regardless of how slim the odds were for success. To do otherwise was to surrender to the impending tragedy. Even if he found her belief in her father's stories foolish, it was certainly understandable that she was struggling to make sense of where she now found herself, stranded between her desire to fulfill her duty to her father's memory with an unwanted marriage and her loyalty to a brother who no longer believed himself to be a lost Polish prince.
How lowering it must be, however, to accept that one was not a princess, but a commoner. He could certainly understand the instinct to fight against that. He couldn't fathom learning that everything his father had told him had been, at best, an elaborate fabrication or, at worst
, a terrible delusion. Hans wasn't sure that even he would have the fortitude of mind to convince himself that everything he believed was false, as Casimir had apparently done.
After supper the Rokiczanas gathered everyone in the parlor to trim the tree, sing songs, and drink egg brandy. Hans didn't even try to sing the Polish songs, but Frau Rokiczana tried valiantly to keep up. She then bravely sang some English carols on her own, since she was the only one that knew them. The group had dissolved into boisterous laughter when Casimir called for Wladek to take up his violin for dancing. Hans assumed he would naturally pair with Krystyna, but the siblings started by demonstrating traditional Polish dancing while he and George clapped in time. Krystyna was as beautiful and carefree while dancing as he had thought she might be. Her face shone with joy as she kept time with her nimble brother. He couldn't understand their language as they called out to each other, but could tell from the tone that it was typical sibling ribbing.
It had been so long since he had been with his own siblings in such a way he had almost forgotten the simple entertainment to be had from teasing them. When they were young, Christmas had been a treasured time of exuberant games and rich treats. By the time Hans was six, their parents had given up on any sense of order and decorum for the season, letting the Von Rosen children sleep on blankets next to the tree on Christmas Eve like a litter of puppies. His favorite sister, Ilsa, would tell him and Henry stories until they fell asleep. He hadn't seen Ilsa in over twelve years and their correspondence had become sparse. Watching Krystyna laugh and hug her brother at the end of yet another song caused a pang of nostalgia and sorrow.