“Miss Katrina?”
I emitted a startled cry. “Nancy,” I said, turning to see her standing in the doorway, her shawl clutched about her. “I … you frightened me.”
“I am sorry,” she said. She looked at the pot over the fire. “Tea? At this hour?”
“Yes,” I said. “I awoke and could not get back to sleep, and so I thought to make myself a cup of tea.”
“I see,” Nancy said, glancing about with narrowed eyes. “Have you been in your room all night, Miss Katrina?”
My heart increased its pace again. Do not stop to think about why she might be asking, I told myself sternly. “Of course,” I said, hoping my tone sounded suitably bewildered that she would even ask such a thing. “Where else would I have been, at this hour?”
“I’m sure I can’t say,” she said. “It’s just I sometimes hear you tossing and turning, or pacing when you can’t sleep. But I heard not a sound from in there tonight, until I woke up to hear you coming down the stairs.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Nancy,” I said. “I paced a bit, I suppose. You must have simply slept through it.”
“Hmmm.” She studied me for a second longer. It was all I could do not to squirm beneath her dark eyes. “If you say so. But seeing as I’m here now, I may as well brew your tea for you.”
“No,” I said, my hand instinctively tightening around the jar. I prayed she hadn’t noticed. I remembered well Charlotte’s warning to keep the herbs hidden: I do not know how much Nancy or your mother knows of herb craft. “No, there is no need. I am already awake and have gotten started; you may as well return to your rest.”
“Hmmm,” she said again, lingering. Then, finally, finally, she turned to leave. “Very well, then. I hope you are able to get some sleep, Miss Katrina.”
“Thank you, Nancy,” I said. “I am sorry to have disturbed you.”
The door to the kitchen closed behind her, and I exhaled, panic subsiding.
Once the water reached a boil, I removed the pot, poured it into a cup, and added the herbs. I let them steep for several minutes, then took a sip. Instantly my face scrunched up in disgust. Well, Charlotte had warned me. I added some honey, which did much to improve the taste, but still I drank it down in a few gulps, washed the cup in some of the remaining water, and went back upstairs.
* * *
I was certain my racing mind would keep me awake. Yet almost as soon as my weary body touched the mattress, I fell into a deep sleep.
When I awoke, it was later than when I usually arose. I stretched my body languorously beneath the coverlet; it ached in ways it never had before, deliciously so. I closed my eyes again, allowing myself to be consumed with the memory of his mouth and hands on my body, of him inside me, of that one glorious moment …
I felt the heat rise between my legs. We had not planned our next tryst, and this now seemed like a very glaring omission to me.
Would that it could be tonight, today, that he could join me in my bed this very moment …
Soon, I promised myself, we would be man and wife, and we could make love before sleeping and again before rising each and every day, if we so chose. I still had my very reasonable fears that my father would refuse Ichabod’s proposal, but it did not matter. I would run away with this man if I had to, and take the disgrace that would come along with it.
My reverie was interrupted, yet again, by Nancy, who knocked before opening the door. “Ahh, awake at last, I see,” she said, coming in. “Seeing as your sleep was so disturbed last night, I told your mother I would let you sleep a bit longer.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to rid my face of its no doubt dreamy expression.
Apparently I failed, for Nancy stopped to consider me, hands on her ample hips. “Seems like you must have had some sweet dreams indeed when you eventually got to sleep.”
“I … I did,” I allowed.
She went to my wardrobe and opened it, poking about for a clean day dress. “You must miss having that Mr. Crane around the house,” she said casually.
I froze, startled at the change of subject—then wondered if, horror of horrors, it was no true change of subject in Nancy’s mind. “I suppose,” I said carefully. “He was most amiable, and I enjoyed having him as a guest.”
“Heard you were walking together in the village a few days ago.”
Take a deep breath, Katrina, I told myself, feeling a slight panic rise. This is what you wanted, after all. To be seen with him, in no compromising circumstance, but just enough to put the thought in Papa’s head that Ichabod may ask for my hand, and that it may be a good match after all. “Indeed,” I said, as though I thought it a matter of no import. “After my lesson, I went to visit Charlotte, and he graciously offered to accompany me.”
“Hmmm,” she said, in that same suspicious and unsettling tone she’d used the night before. “No doubt. Well, people hereabouts talk, Miss Katrina. Mind you’re not giving them anything to talk about, you hear?”
Her eyes met mine for an instant, and I wondered just how much Nancy knew, or guessed. Her even gaze suggested she would keep my secret for now—but what she understood that secret to be, I could not say, and that unnerved me. Surely, though, if she knew the true extent of my and Ichabod’s relationship, she would feel honor-bound to tell my parents. So she could not know all. “Of course not, Nancy,” I said. “You need not even waste your breath on such words.”
“I’ll be the judge of what I waste my breath on, thank you,” she said. “Now out of bed with you. Your mother has some mending for you, but as it’s a lovely day she says you may take it out to the portico.”
At least mending was a rather mindless activity; I would be free to relive the night before as many times as I chose.
* * *
“Ah, Katrina. Goedemiddag! How industrious you are!”
I looked up from my mending a few hours later to see my father climbing up the steps. Behind him one of the farmhands led his horse away.
I rose from my chair to kiss his cheek. “Good day, Papa,” I said. “How goes the harvest?”
“Quite well,” he said. “I found no shortage of help in the village and the surrounding farms, as usual. I’ve some of the children threshing in the barn today.”
“Ahh, yes.” My father could always find farmhands without their own wheat to hire for this task; though there were some white men who would not work alongside Negros who earned the same wage as them, Father always said he’d rather not hire such fools, anyway. As such, his hired hands were mostly free Negros and a few white men. And some people sent their children to be paid a few coins to do the threshing, one of the lightest tasks.
He drew up a chair beside me and sat down heavily in it. “I am getting too old to ride around in such heat as though I were a young man,” he said ruefully.
“Don’t say such things, Papa. You are as hale and hearty as ever.”
He chortled. “You are a good daughter, Katrina. The very best, methinks.”
I smiled. “I am glad you think so.”
He shifted in his chair toward me. “I certainly do. And in that vein, there is something I wish to speak with you about.”
I was immediately wary. I could not forget Nancy’s words of warning, her knowing gaze. Her telling me of the village gossip. If the gossip is no more than what Nancy told me, there is no cause for alarm now, I assured myself. Papa cannot possibly know any more than that. “Of course, Papa,” I said. “What is it?”
He sighed and paused, as though gathering his thoughts and determining how best to begin. “I have given my permission to Brom Van Brunt to pay court to you,” he said at last. “And it is my wish that you shall seriously entertain his suit.”
I leapt to my feet, heart thudding in anger and consternation. “What?” I demanded. Had my mother not told him of my feelings on this matter?
“Do calm down, Katrina. It is too hot for such a fuss and, may I say, it is not entirely ladylike for you to gape at me in that way.�
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I continued to stare at him, mouth open. “Papa, you … you can’t mean it!”
“Why not? I like him, and his point about it being financially advantageous to eventually combine our two farms is a good one. Besides, you and he were such close friends as children. Surely that is enough to build a good marriage on, and certainly to consider one.”
“Papa,” I said, “surely it has not escaped your notice that I cannot abide Brom Van Brunt, have not been able to for years now. And you well know why.”
He waved this aside. “Nothing remains the same as it was when we were children, Katrina, and that is as it should be. You and he will resolve your disagreement in time.”
“Disagreement?” I fairly shrieked. “He called Charlotte a witch, accused her before the whole village. In another time and place that would have cost her her life. As it is, she is still—”
“Katrina, do not be overdramatic,” he said. “It is the one unfortunate result of you reading so much, I fear. No harm came to Charlotte. And do not forget that Charlotte had a part to play in that particular incident, as well. She does not always conduct herself as she ought, and fine woman though Mevrouw Jansen is, I would have thought she might have seen to such things with more care.”
My mouth dropped open again. “I thought you liked Charlotte!”
“I do, and know her to be a fine young woman. My point is merely that those who do not know her as I do may, ah … have had cause, rather, to lend credence to young Brom’s words, as impudent as they were.”
“That is hardly—”
My father cut me off again. “Calm down, Katrina. I am not here to speak about Charlotte Jansen. That is not my point.”
“In a way, it is exactly the point.”
“Katrina, really. This was all years ago. I would have thought you could get past it by now, and settle down to the task of considering your future.”
“Brom Van Brunt is not my future.”
“It would be a good match,” my father persisted. “For reasons I have already stated. You know I have always been fond of him, and find him to be a worthy young man. Would I so much as consider entrusting my only daughter to anyone less?”
Here I paused. In truth, my father had always been fond of Brom. For years now Brom had come to the farmhouse—regardless of his and my relationship—to speak to my father, and seek his counsel, as he had never been able to do with his own father. From the time he was a boy, Brom had admired my father a great deal and, I knew, wished that he was his own.
My father meant what he said, that he felt Brom was worthy of me. That I knew differently caused me to doubt my father’s judgment, but not his heart.
“Did not Mother speak to you of this?” I asked at last. “She and I spoke of this matter once, and I let her know I was very … disinclined to Brom’s suit.”
“She did,” my father allowed, “but I wish him to court you, anyway. It is my wish that you should at least formally consider him.”
“I will never consider making him my husband.”
“Katrina, I lose patience for this,” my father said, rising from his chair. “You are of an age to marry, and then some. You must marry someone, and while I shall certainly take your wishes into account, I mean to decide on the suitor I think is best for you. That is a father’s prerogative, is it not?”
I ignored this altogether. “Are there no other suitors who might come pay me court?” I asked.
“Did you have someone in mind?” he asked, studying me carefully.
This, it occurred to me, might be my moment. Perhaps now I should confess (almost) all, tell him of Ichabod’s and my feelings; that we were deeply in love and wished, more than anything, to be married. Perhaps now I should ask him to at least allow Ichabod to pay court to me as well, let him at least think I was considering both men.
But I didn’t. I feared too much what would happen if he refused.
If everything was going to come crumbling down around me, I could not bear for it to happen yet.
My father patted me on the shoulder. “Do not worry, Katrina. All will be well. You have nothing but good things ahead of you, I shall make sure of it.”
I sank down into my chair, my mending forgotten on the wooden floor of the portico. I felt as though I were made of stone.
20
Courting
The next day, coconspirator of my father as he was, Brom appeared around midday just as we were rising from the lunch table. “Good morrow, Meneer Van Tassel, Mevrouw Van Tassel,” he said as we entered the front room, where he was waiting. He bowed to me. “Juffrouw Van Tassel. Hoe gaat het met jij?”
I did not deign to reply. Nox, well aware of my distaste for Brom, growled low in this throat.
Unfortunately, this did not discourage him. “I have come to ask if you might take a walk with me,” he asked. “Along the river, perhaps.”
I remained silent for as long as I dared, until my father’s face began to grow red with frustration. “Very well,” I said aloud. “But Mr. Crane is coming to give me my music lesson in an hour. We must be back before then.”
Brom’s face lit up at my reply, as though it were not the most reluctant of acceptances. “I am honored that you should agree,” he said, extending his arm to me.
I crossed the room to him as though walking to my own execution and took it. Nox followed closely at my heels.
“Heel goed, heel goed,” my father boomed, his good humor entirely restored by my acquiescence. He grabbed Nox by the scruff of his neck. “You stay here, boy.”
At Nox’s pleading amber eyes, I opened my mouth to object. I would feel better to have him with me, but in the end I did not speak. No point in arguing with my father more than I must.
“Enjoy yourselves,” Papa said. “It is a fine day outside, most fine.”
My mother did not say anything, but I fancied that she tossed me a sympathetic look as I went out.
Brom led me out the front door and toward the Hudson, helping me down the embankment so that we might reach the bank. I was determined to speak to him as little as possible, to give him no encouragement whatsoever; as such, I would be damned if I spoke first.
We had been strolling for a few minutes when he finally spoke. “It is an exceedingly fine day, is it not?”
“Ja.”
We walked along a few more feet before Brom withdrew his arm and turned to face me. “Katrina,” he asked, meeting my eyes, “am I really so repugnant to you?”
“I should think the answer would be obvious by this point,” I said. “And just to allay any foolish hopes you may have in regard to a betrothal between you and me: I am only going along with this because my father has insisted.”
“I shall look upon wooing you as a challenge, then.”
“Indeed? And are you so foolhardy as to set yourself a challenge that you have no hope of accomplishing?”
“Katrina, please,” he groused. “We were friends, once. How has that changed so drastically?”
I was nearly spitting with anger. “You know how! You know what you did!”
His expression darkened. “That is still what this is about? You would turn on me so completely over Charlotte Jansen?”
“Again, the answer should be obvious. Do you have even the slightest concept of what you did to her? Of what such slanderous lies mean for a woman, even in this day and age?”
“You were there, Katrina,” Brom said, his voice low, with a dangerous edge to it now. “You heard what she said to me. What was I supposed to do, when she threatened me so?”
“I would hardly call it a threat.” I sniffed. “And I was there, yes; so I also remember you begging her to tell you your future, how you pressed her even when she did not want to speak of it, and how you goaded her until she relented.” I was even angrier now, remembering it all. “Like the selfish child you are, you pressed her into saying something she did not want to, and when you did not like what you heard, you made sure she suffered for it.”
; “You don’t know anything, Katrina,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Explain it to me, then. Explain to me what prompted such behavior—for Charlotte was your friend, too, Brom. If there is anyone who can rightfully be accused of turning on a friend here, it is you.”
“I was scared!” he burst out. “I was just a boy, and I was frightened of what she said. Are you happy now?”
“Humanity commits its worst sins out of fear, methinks,” I said. “And what on earth could you possibly have been frightened of, really? You know what she told you … it is impossible.”
Brom glared at me. “Don’t you remember how she said it? That look that comes into her eyes, like she is a … a sibyl, prophesying grim tidings.”
In spite of the warmth of the day, I shivered. I knew exactly what he meant, had seen that look on Charlotte’s face more than once. Her eyes had clouded over as she stared unblinking at Brom without really seeing him. I heard again the flatness of her voice as she’d spoken, so different from how she usually sounded.
Brom, damn him, had been watching me closely. “You remember,” he said. “You know just what I mean.”
I forced myself to draw my haughty air around me again, like a cloak. “And so?” I said. “That changes nothing. The Headless Horseman is not real.”
“Are you so sure of that, Katrina?”
“Of course,” I said, deliberately pushing aside thoughts of my dreams, of my panicked flight through the woods.
He turned his back to me and walked a few paces before returning. “I will apologize to Charlotte, if that will put everything to rights between us,” he said. “It is true that I was most impudent in my speech back then.”
I regarded him coldly. “Then apologize,” I said, “for you owe her that much and more. But do it because it is the right thing to do, not because you seek to win any sort of favor from me.” I could not resist adding, somewhat cruelly, “I will not marry you merely because you apologized to Charlotte, Brom. Know that.”
The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel Page 12