Whiskey Dreams (9 page)

John and Katrina exchanged greetings and pleasantries, then began to discuss books – something they were both clearly passionate about – which caused the stranger’s face to turn an unflattering shade of puce. Brom nodded when appropriate and drank deeply from a cup of punch, trying not to glance at the stranger too often, or to feel guilty when he thought of how he’d brushed his lips across John’s in the barn and how close they’d come to being caught. If the man had entered a moment sooner, or – Christ, it was harrowing to consider – if he’d waited outside the half-open door and seen or heard anything… But no, surely not. Surely he was only eyeing Brom and John that way because he was jealous of their conversation with Katrina. Wasn’t he?

“Katrina, my dear.” Mr. Van Tassel materialized at his daughter’s elbow, managing to wedge himself into the circle as Belinda scooted aside in deference, her smile widening as the position forced her to rub elbows with John. “People are demanding to know which of the pies on the table were made by you.” He cast a glance over his shoulder, as if he feared being pursued by a discerning dessert-craving mob.

She laughed. “Well, since Mr. Van Brunt has had his share, I suppose it’s all right for them to know. The apple with the little dough leaves around the edge is mine, as is the second pumpkin to the right.”

Brom exchanged a few polite words with Mr. Van Tassel, speaking briefly of horses, which were often the theme of their conversations. Some other young women came and spirited Katrina and Belinda away in a chattering queue, remarking upon Katrina’s gown. Katrina flashed a last smile over her shoulder at Brom, then disappeared into the crowd with them. Belinda gazed longer at John, but finally went along, leaving the men to themselves. John slipped away too soon after, leaving Brom and Mr. Van Tassel to their horse-talk. A little while later, Brom was left quite alone when Mr. Van Tassel excused himself. That was for the best, for Brom estimated that an hour had passed.

Casting his gaze around the room, he was glad to find that the crowd was largely relaxed, with many people clutching cups, laughing and talking more loudly than usual. He didn’t see John anywhere, which was a relief; deep down, he’d been worried that John would change his mind. Apparently – hopefully – he’d already left the house. Brom did the same, slipping out the door as inconspicuously as such a large man possibly could.

Night had truly fallen, leaving Brom to make his way through the field that sprawled across from the house and to the wood at its edge by moonlight. It was amazing how quickly the coolness and darkness snuffed out the flame of mirth inside him, erasing the happy state of revelry he’d slipped into while dancing. His heart beat a little more quickly with each step, and he fought to remain calm. If he failed John this time, he would not be given another chance.

Brom listened and watched with a hunter’s instincts as he approached the tree line. If John was indeed there already, he’d know it soon.

A voice caught his attention, though it wasn’t John’s. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he sensed the unfamiliar tone, and when he made out what the stranger was saying, his entire body heated with fury.

“It wouldn’t do for the citizens of Sleepy Hollow to discover that their new schoolmaster – the man they intend to trust with the education of their children – is a sodomite, would it?”

“Don’t touch me.” John’s voice cut through the night, edged with anger.

“I saw the kiss in the stable and heard your pathetic exchange with that great oaf of a man. You can cling to women’s skirts and keep them from the real men all evening, but I know what you are. On your knees, boy, and you’ll do exactly as I say, or the entire village will know of your true nature within minutes.”

Brom crept quietly past a towering elm, blood pounding in his ears as he entered the forest. There, mere yards away, John stood, facing the man from the stable, the one who had spent the evening leering at them and Katrina. He looked more repulsive than ever as he grinned at John, his eyes alight with malicious excitement. With one hard motion, he shoved John, knocking him back against a tree and pressing himself against him, shoving one hand between their bodies and reaching for either his or John’s groin – in the darkness and the confusion, Brom couldn’t tell which. Either way, he wasn’t going to let it happen.

Just as Brom lunged forward, John reacted, swinging his fist with vicious force. With a grunt, he landed the punch on his attacker’s cheek, and the man’s excited panting turned to a groan of pain. He stumbled backward, trying to cling to John, who shoved him down onto the ground.

John straightened, stepping away from the tree as the other man floundered on the forest floor, struggling to stand again. As he began to rise, something bright flashed in his hand – a blade, gleaming in the moonlight.

Brom leapt forward just as the man swung his knife at John, the blade flying dangerously close to John’s gut. The sharp tip of it was mere inches from John’s body when Brom collided with the other man, knocking him to the ground.

John’s assailant began to struggle immediately, but Brom reached for the knife, wresting it from his grasp before he did anything else. Then he drove his knee into the man’s back, pinning him to the ground with relative ease – something that wasn’t difficult for him to do, considering that he was easily a head taller and significantly heavier than him. Gripping the knife’s handle, he pressed the flat of the blade against the stranger’s throat, letting the edge of it dig into his skin just a little, threatening to draw blood. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The man gasped and panted, his small eyes going as wide as they could with fear. “Unhand me!” he demanded, his words muffled by a mouthful of dirt.

“No.” Brom drove his knee a little harder into the man’s spine and increased the pressure of the blade against his throat. “Answer my question.” He spared a quick glance for John, who was watching the proceedings with narrowed eyes, though his lips were cracked in surprise. He forced himself to focus again on the man he was holding captive against the earth. “What did you mean by threatening Mr. Crane?”

The man drew a ragged breath, spitting out a clump of wet dirt and leaves. “Teaching him a lesson about what happens to sodomites.”

Brom resisted the urge to let the knife slip into the man’s clammy throat, cutting through it like butter as he remembered the way the man had threatened and assaulted John. “Seems to me that the term applies to you as well.” He pulled the blade just a little tighter, cutting off the man’s attempt to respond. “Fortunately for you, I don’t consider sodomite to be a shameful term. Rapist, however…” He tightened his grip on the knife’s wooden handle, letting just a little blood seep over the blade. “I can hardly think of a more disgusting sort of human being.”

The man whimpered, and Brom eased the pressure just a little, careful not to actually give in to his baser urges and kill him. He would have liked to, after what he’d seen him try to force John into, but how would he explain the situation?

“Do you have any idea who I am?” the man choked out, his voice strangled and his face red with rage-induced blotches.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Brom assured him. Brom knew the face of every man in Sleepy Hollow, and this stranger did not belong. He was dressed like a country gentleman – though he hardly deserved that title – which pointed to the likely possibility that he’d ridden in from a nearby village.

“A family friend of Mr. Van Tassel’s, invited here tonight by the man himself.” He spit out another mouthful of dirt. “He and my father have known each other for years. Just wait until he hears of this. Why, you’ll be—”

“It just so happens that I myself am a close acquaintance of Mr. Van Tassel’s. He’s never bothered to mention you to me before.” A man of Mr. Van Tassel’s wealth was bound to attract attention, and Brom doubted that this stranger meant anything to him. Mr. Van Tassel was deeply protective of his daughter, and would never have invited this lavicious man to the gathering if he’d known anything of his character.

If possible, the man’s face grew even redder with indignation, and it was clear that he was torn between anger and fear. “You’ll learn my name, you lout, as I intend to marry his daughter.”

The knife slipped, drawing a little more blood, and even Brom wasn’t sure whether the move had been intentional. What Mrs. Smit had said must have been true – Mr. Van Tassel must have decided to allow his daughter to see suitors. To think that this man had been drawn to Sleepy Hollow like a fly to honey for the purpose of preying upon Katrina and terrorizing others along the way… Blood roared in his ears, and it was all he could do to keep his hand still. “What is your name?”

“Nathaniel Abbey,” he spat, grimacing. “Now get
off
of me.”

“Brom, perhaps you should let him up. You’re crushing him. He may die of suffocation.”

Brom let his gaze flicker toward John, who was observing the happenings with an apprehensive expression. But Brom still saw the sparks of anger in his eyes. “I’ll let him up as soon as he swears to leave Sleepy Hollow immediately afterward and to never lay a hand on you or Katrina.” Katrina’s pretty face and sweet smile flashed before his mind’s eye, and a fresh wave of anger assailed him. He couldn’t stand to think that this vermin might try to touch her, to manipulate her as he had attempted to do with John.

“I’ll swear no such thing,” Nathaniel protested.

“Very well,” Brom said, removing his knee from the man’s back and pulling the knife from his throat. “Then I’ll kill you.” He seized Nathaniel by the collar and yanked him to his feet before he could rise on his own, then slammed him against a tree, facing him and pressing the very tip of the blade to the side of his neck, just above his cravat, where his pulse hammered, making the tender skin there jump.

“Brom,” John said, stepping forward and laying a hand on Brom’s shoulder. Under any other circumstances, Brom would have savored the touch. Instead, he ignored it.

“Either he swears, or I’ll snuff out his miserable life,” Brom insisted, keeping his gaze locked with Nathaniel’s so that the man knew he meant it. Already, a ring of purple was rising around Nathaniel’s left eye, where John had hit him. He deserved the bruise, and so much more. But Brom would let him go with just his petty injuries, if only he’d swear to leave Katrina and John alone. He tightened his grip on the knife’s handle, preparing to keep his word should the man refuse.

“All right!” Nathaniel cried, lowering his gaze to stare down at the knife, going cross-eyed in his attempt to see the sharp blade. “All right, I swear it.”

Brom held the knife steady for just a moment longer. “So help you God, if I find that you’ve gone back on your word, I’ll hunt you down with this very blade.”

“I won’t,” Nathaniel said, his voice hollow with defeat, edged with desperation. He squeezed his eyes shut and panted for a few moments before opening them again. “God knows there are plenty of women who’d be glad to marry me,” he said, attempting to regain his bravado. “I don’t need the Van Tassel chit if it means troubling myself with a bastard like you.”

Brom let go of the man’s collar and lowered the knife. “Hurry to the stable now and saddle your horse. Leave.”

Nathaniel scrambled through the underbrush, hurrying out of the woods and striding across the field, pressing a hand to his throat. Brom stood by a tall pine and watched him fade to an indistinct figure crossing the moonlit field. As instructed, he entered the stable. Several minutes later, he emerged with his horse and took to the road. Brom didn’t take his eyes off the man until he’d ridden so far that he and his horse had disappeared. Then, at last, he tossed down the knife and turned to John.

“You didn’t have to nearly kill him on my behalf,” John said.

Brom frowned. It was bad enough that he himself had hurt John – he could never watch as someone else harmed him. And Katrina… His fist closed around a weapon that was no longer there. If Nathaniel Abbey ever dared to return to Sleepy Hollow, Brom would run him out of the village. “I did what was necessary. Besides, he’s too much of a coward to die for you, Katrina or anyone else. Men like him will give up anything to save their own skins.”

“And you knew that?”

“Rapists are not brave men.”

John’s eyes narrowed, and he tipped his head, tossing a stray lock of hair out of his eyes. “I would not have suffered him to rape me, or to force me to service him in any way.”