Ire rose in Anton’s chest. How dare anyone insult his sweet, beautiful Veronika. But Filip’s wife hadn’t insulted her; Veronika was just worried that she might. “These are new times. Birth doesn’t matter as much now. And you are as fine a woman as any I’ve ever seen.”
Her lips softened.
Anton led her farther down the street, toward the train station. “If she gives you anything other than courtesy, you’re under no obligation to help her. But will you give it a try, for Filip’s sake?”
She squeezed his hand. “No. But I’ll give it a try for your sake.”
He kissed her cheek. He wanted to kiss her lips, too, but that would make a scene, and neither of them would like the attention. “Thank you.”
“Be careful, wherever Kral is sending you. I’ll keep you in my prayers.”
“And I’ll keep you in mine.” He watched her walk to the women’s car. He’d had six months as her husband and was beginning to think he’d need six lifetimes.
Anton waited until Filip had shown his bride to the train coach. He couldn’t hear the words, but he saw Veronika greet the former aristocrat. She was brave, his Veronika, willing to risk ridicule to help the friend of a friend.
“Felicitations on your wedding day,” Anton said when Filip joined him and the women disappeared from view.
Filip’s lips moved into something like a frown. “I hope I haven’t made a mistake.”
“I’ve heard of people falling in love instantly. Some might scoff, but I believe it’s possible. My father claims he felt that for my mother, fell in love with her the day their parents arranged the marriage.”
“In my case, I wouldn’t call it love. More an insane urge to help someone.”
Anton looked back at the train. “Why exactly did you just get married?”
“Her father was part of the tsar’s regime. Some of his enemies attacked, killed both her parents, tried to kill her. She needed an escape. Kral said he only had room for the legion and its families, so Zeman offered to marry her. His idea of marriage sounded a lot like slavery. I couldn’t let him take advantage of her like that.”
“So you offered to marry her yourself?”
“Yes. With promise of an annulment when she wants one.”
Veronika’s talk of blasphemy was more on point than Anton had realized. “So it’s not a real marriage?”
“No.”
“You’re just helping her get away from the Bolsheviks? That’s the only reason you married her?”
Filip shrugged. “Kral said the Germans are trying to encircle Bakhmach. If they cut off the First Division’s escape route, they’ll slaughter them. Those are the men I fought with in the Družina. I’d still be with them if I hadn’t been wounded at Zborov.”
Anton let his friend change the subject. He’d never been part of the Družina, a Czech reconnaissance unit in the Russian army, but their exploits had earned his respect. “I doubt I know more than a handful of men in the First Division. But they’re my brothers. We all feel that way. We’ll fight to save them.”
Filip clapped Anton on the shoulder. “Off to Bakhmach, then. We’ve got to keep that train depot open.”
***
“You dirty thief.”
Filip hadn’t expected Jakub Zeman to welcome news of his marriage, but he’d been hoping to delay any confrontation. He didn’t want an argument. Especially not while approaching Bakhmach in an open-top ore car. “She wasn’t yours, so I wasn’t really stealing her, was I?”
Zeman cursed. “It was my idea. You distracted me and ruined my plan. Had she been some pretty peasant, I might forgive you. But a woman like that—goodness, I’ve never seen a woman so exquisite. It’s like she’s from a different world. And I almost had her for my own. Don’t think I’ll forget this.”
“That’s the thing, Zeman. I wasn’t thinking about you and what you want. I was thinking about her and what she might want.”
Dalek cleared his throat. “And that is why she married Filip instead of Jakub. A useful lesson for anyone who is still in search of a wife.”
Zeman glared and stalked to the other side of the car. He leaned on a sandbag and looked away.
Filip sighed. He hadn’t meant to cause discord. That was the last thing they needed when facing a German Army intent on cutting them off and annihilating them.
Maybe he should have let Zeman marry Nadia. Filip felt responsible for her now, and he didn’t need the extra burden. But he might have felt responsible for her anyway had she been forced to marry Zeman. It would have been too much like his sister, Eliška, all over again. Filip had gone off to war with a black eye after confronting her brute of a husband, and he may have only made her situation worse. Had he made things worse for Nadia too?
Nadia, his wife, if only for a month or two. Zeman was right. She was exquisite. What would it be like to touch that smooth skin, warm as honey and flawless as new silk? Her hair, her eyes, her lips, her neck. He could stare at beauty like that for hours, the way one watched the ripples of a river or the flames of a fire.