Page 6 of Lord of the Hollow Court
But Ichabod wasn't listening. Katty tailed him into the ballroom just as the men began to put their arms on each other's shoulders, singing along with Katrina and drowning out her silvery notes.
“Mr. Crenwell!” Katty cried, but her words were lost amidst the singing. With so many linking arms to shoulders, navigating the ballroom after Ichabod was nearly impossible. Katrina was on to the verse about the miller—a flush touched Katty's cheeks—before she admitted she'd lost the schoolmaster.
The singing abruptly stopped. There were murmurs—most of them delighted. Katty turned, standing on the tips of her slippers to spot what had happened. It wasn't like Katrina to stop her song midway through.
As she scanned the tops of heads, a champagne flute raised above the crowd. Mr. de Vries' hand was attached to it, immediately silencing the room.
"I could not be happier," he said, lifting the glass higher, "to announce the engagement of my dear, sweet daughter Katrina to Abraham van Djik!"
The crowd hooted in delight, then dissolved into alcoholic sips. They parted just long enough for Katty to view the happy for now couple—and Ichabod in the newly opened span of floor, watching them and looking as though he'd like to disappear.
She saw his ears turn crimson and fancied she heard the sigh of his shoes as he spun toward the door.
"Mr. Crenwell!" Katty called after him, earning very few looks. Even at such a time—chasing a man through a party—she did not garner much attention.
"Mr. Crenwell!" she hissed as she burst after him through the front door.
The moon was high, roiling with clouds. It was bloody as a cut of fresh venison, hanging over the road like in one of the haunted tales of the town. Katty was too busy to devote much time to that, nor to the haze that had fallen over the far side of the street.
It was from this misty street that the clop of hooves echoed, the narrow silhouette of Ichabod Crenwell visible upon the horse's back for just a moment before he turned, lost to the night.
Chapter Three
Spooked
"Curse it all," Katty breathed.
She raced toward the stable, picking out Katrina's chestnut mare and fumbling for the sidesaddle. The two had shared the mild-mannered Inge often enough while on excursions, with Katty made to remember her station each time she walked alongside the horse while Katrina rode. One of them always ended up on foot more than the other, and that person was always Katty. Perhaps a bit of revenge was in order then—let Katty travel in comfort for once, while Katrina grew footsore at the ball.
After a moment of fumbling with the side saddle and curious looks from Inge, Katty shouted for a groom's help. The man, who might've been twenty or forty, depending on his mien, appeared belatedly, smelling of tobacco.
He furrowed his brow at the sight of her.
"Did Miss de Vries send for her horse?" he asked, none too pleased with the sight of Katty in his stable, a girl dressed like a sad debutante in his little equine kingdom.
Katty nodded. "The saddle, please."
The groom folded his arms, chin lowered. Katty rolled her eyes. "I haven't any money on me!"
"You'll owe me, then."
Katty wrestled with a sneer while he saddled Inge, then helped her into it, clucking his tongue at her confection pink slippers. Katty already knew they were ruined, and that her mother would scream at her for days. That was not chocolate her slippers were mucked with.
She would care about that later. Ichabod was getting away, and she didn't want her mother's screaming streak extended to a week.
With a feeble "ha!" Katty and Inge sped off into the night, in search of a gangling schoolmaster who did not know it yet, but was about to find himself betrothed to the better of the two Katrinas. Because the last thing Katty van der Vos wanted was to return home with her mother without a proposal in hand, if not at least a very strong understanding. Ichabod had always been friendly with her, if only for his interest in Katrina. Now that she'd refused him, he would see his way to a match with Katty. He had to.
She had no other prospects in sight.
The blood moon had become a rusted orange by the time Katty caught up to Ichabod. A fresh pile of horse dung lay in the center of the road, the bridge leading to Mrs. Beekhof's boarding house just out of sight over the buckle of the hill. For a too brief moment, she saw his silhouette before the bend of the road quickly swallowed it. She'd lost precious time while Inge was saddled. Now the mists reflected the sounds of distant hooves strangely, making her unable to tell whether Ichabod was a span of road ahead of her, just behind her, or somewhere well beyond.
Katty had to reach him before he was in spying distance of Mrs. Beekhof's boarding house. The woman was a worse gossip than Ichabod, and chasing a man in the dead of night was hardly a sign of unimpeachable character. This Katty knew, and yet she urged Inge on, unwilling—no, unable—to return to the ball without good news.
Were she honest with herself, Katty would see she acted both rashly and out of a desire to preserve her own person. She wanted out of her parents' home—and her mother's scathing remarks—as quickly as possible. And as the only way to do that was through marriage, Ichabod would play the part of the white knight, saving her from a dour five foot tall Dutch woman with more heat in her words than any fire-breathing dragon.
The woods closed in on Katty as she neared Ichabod and the edges of Sleep Hollow, every bare branch reaching for her and the snorting Inge. It was unearthly quiet as they approached the footbridge, with not a single cheep issuing from a night bird, nor any rustling from wild turkeys or deer browsing in the undergrowth. The world felt wide and close all at once, and Katty felt as though she could hear for miles one moment, and as if the woods had a damper upon them in the next.
She could no longer hear Ichabod's horse.
