I stayed in bed all the next day, pleading a headache. I slept some, but mostly I tossed and turned, debating my options over and over again. Nancy brought me my meals, and I forced myself to eat, for the child’s sake more than my own. It was certainly the least taxing thing I was prepared to do for my child’s sake.
Time was running out.
The following day I rose as normal, and just after lunch slipped out into the gray day.
I made my way back to my and Ichabod’s spot by the stream. I walked slowly, trying to take in every step. This might well be the last time I would venture there.
Once I got to the clearing I sat down, my skirts pooling around me, heedless of dirtying my dress. I closed my eyes, letting the sounds of the forest drift around me—quieter now that winter was approaching—and remembered.
I allowed myself to remember every word, every kiss, every touch. To remember every time that we had made love, in this very spot, the sensation of him inside me, of the pain that first time and the pleasure that had followed. To remember how it felt to be so wholly connected and wrapped together so that we became one person, two halves of a whole.
I remembered the promises, the plans for the future, the hopes and dreams we’d shared. I remembered the love and tenderness in his eyes when he looked at me, spoke to me, remembered the times we’d laughed together.
It was all gone now. All in the past. And I had to say goodbye to it.
I bid farewell to every memory, hoping they would not return to torment me, even as I longed to clutch them to me forever. And I wept.
Ichabod would forgive me. He would understand what I had to do, wherever he was, and he would forgive me. Even if I could not forgive him for leaving me behind, for leaving me to make this choice, however his disappearance had come about.
Goodbye, my love.
As the sunlight filtering through the branches began to weaken, and the sky faded into twilight, then darkness, I began to sing, softly at first, then louder. My voice was rough and ravaged by tears, but I did not care. I sang the song of the lotus and the willow, the star-crossed lovers who were kept apart from each other. I sang it and I cried.
Once full darkness had fallen and I had finished the song, I rose to my feet and left the clearing, forbidding myself to look back. I walked slowly back toward my house, and I did not fear the Horseman coming upon me, not that night.
Let him find me, I thought dully. Let him find me and kill me and save me from what I am about to do.
* * *
As though he knew what I planned, Brom appeared at the farmhouse again the next day.
I was ready, as ready as I could ever be. When my mother came to tell me that he was here, I brought my cloak with me and met him in the receiving room.
He bowed when I came in. “Katrina,” he said. “I hope that you continue to be in good health.”
“Might we walk?” I asked.
He took in the cloak I was already wearing over one of my warm dresses and nodded. This time I took the arm he offered as we made our way to the river once again.
“I am glad you have come today,” I said, once we were several paces from the house.
“Oh?” he asked. “Given my usual reception, I am surprised to hear that.”
“Indeed.” I stopped walking and turned to face him, ready to say what I needed and set all the wheels in motion and have done with it. “I have decided I will marry you.”
Surprise, and a look of triumph that he could not entirely hide, crossed Brom’s face. “Oh?” he said again. “And what has led to this abrupt and rather astonishing change of heart?”
“That is none of your concern.”
“Is it not?” he asked, cocking his head at me, a grin on his face. “Surely I have the right to ask the woman who has agreed to marry me why she wishes to do so?”
I shrugged half-heartedly. “I must marry someone,” I said. “Better it be you than some stranger.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “You will forgive my doubts, Katrina. I seem to remember several vows you made along the lines of your preference for death over marrying me.”
Death was indeed something I had considered, however briefly. “And yet you persisted in your suit,” I said. “It seems you do not give your charms enough credit.” My God, how was I saying such things without vomiting?
Dunce that he was, he looked heartened by this. “Well, that is true.”
“I do have two conditions, however.”
“Ah,” he said. “I was correct. There are strings attached.”
“There are,” I said. “But just this: the first is I wish us to be wed as soon as possible.”
Brom looked torn between delight in his good fortune and wariness. Fortunately for me, his delight won out. “That can be arranged easily enough, I should think,” he said. He grinned again, though this time it was more of a leer. “Eager for the marriage bed, are you, Katrina? Eager to see what it’s like to have a real man in your bed?”
My face burned with both embarrassment and rage. For he was exactly right. As much as I might dread it, we must be wedded and bedded as soon as possible, so that he might believe the child I carried was his. But I would endure anything if it would mean my child would be safe. “I have never had any man whatsoever in my bed,” I said. After all, Ichabod and I had never made love in my bed, specifically. I would need to convince Brom I was still a virgin. “So my … instruction in that area will fall wholly to you.” God help me, but I did gag slightly, at those words, and his look of joy as I spoke them. Fortunately, he did not seem to notice.
“I am wholly in favor of this first condition,” he said. “And what is the second?”
“The second is that I shall ask you a question, and you must answer me truthfully.”
“Easy enough.”
I took a deep breath before speaking again. It was a dangerous question, but if I was going to marry him, I needed to know. “The rumors in the village,” I said. “I must know if they are true.”
“And which rumors might these be? Sleepy Hollow is rife with them, as you do not need me to tell you.”
“The rumors that say you somehow scared Ichabod off for asking for my hand in marriage,” I said. “Did you? Did you say or do something to frighten him away, to make him leave, so you might not have a rival for my affections?”
He studied me.
“I will know,” I said, “if you lie to me.”
“I believe you would,” he said. “But no, I did not. I did not attempt to frighten him off. I did not do or say anything to intimidate him or scare him away from Sleepy Hollow.”
I searched his pale blue eyes, but saw only sincerity in them. He was telling the truth, it seemed. And though I did not know if this was the answer I had hoped to hear, I believed him.
“Very well, then,” I said, turning back toward the house. “My father is in his study. You had best speak to him and secure his permission for our marriage. Let him know we wish to wed as soon as possible.”
“It will be my pleasure,” Brom said. “I’ve no doubt your father will be very pleased as well.”
No doubt he would be.
“Katrina,” he said with uncertainty. “This is truly what you want?”
In that moment, at the genuine concern in his tone, I softened toward him just a bit. Maybe being married to him would not be quite the nightmare I had feared.
Want, I had learned, was a very slippery word. “Yes,” I said. “It is. There are many things I wish to leave in the past.”
I could see from his expression that, with these words, I had erased the last of his doubts.
We walked the rest of the way to the house in silence, and Brom went to speak with my father.