Chase the Dawn (15 page)

The same oppression hung over the clearing, rendering Bryony languid and depressed throughout the hours of waiting for Benedict’s return. The morning’s conversation had crystallized one important fact for her: she did not want to leave Ben, wanted no other life but this secluded woodland intimacy. Yet, the realistic Bryony Paget knew that such a want was not achievable, even had Ben been less resolute in his statement that it could
not be. He did not belong in the woodland for longer than he needed the seclusion for his present purposes. He would soon leave to fight the battle in the open, and there was no place on the battlefield for the loving play of fantasyland. So, what was to be done?

She had found no answer to the tormenting question by the time Benedict finally returned, appearing without warning at the edge of the trees. The minute she looked at him, Bryony knew that something was seriously amiss. He held himself taut, without the rangy ease to which she was accustomed. The black eyes were somber, and the light that usually sprang to life in them when he saw her remained dimmed.

“What is it?” Hesitantly, she approached him, her bare feet curling in the grass, one hand pushing her tumbled hair away from her face in a curiously nervous gesture.

“What is what?” he responded with the wraith of a smile. “How is your bellyache?”

“Better.” She looked at him closely. “Something has occurred to trouble you.”

“I have been into Williamsburg.” He strode toward the cabin. “I had better skin that rabbit if we are to have any dinner.”

Bryony found herself trotting after him—like a spaniel pup hoping for a pat or some such sign of affection, she thought with self-denigrating unease. Ben disappeared into the cabin, presumably to fetch their as-yet-hirsute supper, and she followed him inside, standing by the door uncertainly as he filled a beaker with cider from the stone jar, drinking deeply before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and setting the beaker down on the plank table with a gesture indicative
of finality. He spun on his heel and regarded her gravely.

“You have discovered who I am.” Her voice was low.

“Aye.” He nodded, picked up the rabbit from the table, and moved toward the door. Bryony stepped aside hastily and followed him outside.

“I did not think it would upset you quite so much,” she said. “I know my father is a fervent Loyalist and that—”

“You
know?”
Ben dropped the rabbit and swung around to face her, his eyes seeming to impale her so that she stood motionless, pinned in the doorway.

“I remembered everything the night of the raid on the armory,” she said in the same low voice, aware that she was suddenly afraid, but she did not know of what. “You are not angry with me, are you?”

Benedict sighed. “You could have saved me a journey and a somewhat tiresomely acrimonious meeting. Why did you not tell me before?”

“I suppose because I needed to become reacquainted with myself first,” she said slowly. “And … well, I had hoped that I would turn out to be a stalwart Patriot.” She gave a nervous little laugh and shrugged. “A vain hope, as it happens.” Ben did not respond and turned his attention to the rabbit. Bryony looked down at the bent copper head touched by a finger of late-afternoon sun, the strong column of his neck rising from the open collar of his shirt, the long-fingered hands performing their bloody task with such efficiency. A lump of tears clogged her throat, and she swallowed hard. “I do not, myself, seem to hold any strong opinions on the matter, but even if I did, you know I would not betray you, Benedict.”

“Yes, I know that.” He wiped his knife on the grass. “I am going to wash my hands and fetch water for the pot.”

“I picked a basket of mushrooms this afternoon,” she offered. “I think they are the right ones this time.” Her last attempt at mushroom picking had been a lamentable failure since she had had no idea that mushrooms could come in a poisonous variety as well as an edible one.

“I had still better look them over before they go in the pot.” He walked off in the direction of the creek, swinging the iron kettle, and Bryony realized forlornly that he had not looked at her properly since she had made her disclosure. It would have been better if she had told him herself, she realized now. Keeping her returned memory a secret, obliging him to hear of her identity by accident, had been an unfair deception.

She wandered in his wake down to the creek, feeling somehow as if she had been cast adrift from her moorings. “I should have told you before, Ben. Will you forgive me?”

He was squatting on his heels at the edge of the creek, washing the blood and debris from his hands with almost exaggerated care. “I am not sure that there is anything to forgive. I would have preferred you to tell me, certainly, but your reasons for not doing so were your own and strike me as sufficient.”

“Then why are you so angry?” She touched his back between the shoulder blades, and he seemed to recoil as if from a burning brand. Tears sprang into her eyes. “You cannot be this angry just because I am the daughter of an Englishman and a Loyalist.”

And the daughter of one of the abusers of his homeland, of the same breed that had convicted him of treason and sentenced him to bondage because he chose to
champion those whom they exploited. But he could not tell her that. It was a past he could share with no one in this new life. “I am not angry with you, lass.” He stood up, trying to make his voice light as he cupped her face with his wet hands, brushing his lips over hers. Her eyes were wide with distress and incomprehension, and a wash of remorse swept through him. “Come, let us talk no more of this for now. I am much in need of my dinner. On a full belly, we will be able to look at the situation with more clarity.” Taking her hand in a firm clasp, he hefted the now full kettle in his other hand and led her back to the cabin.

“What did you mean about an acrimonious meeting?” asked Bryony, washing the mushrooms that had been declared edible.

“Your identity, Miss Paget, has caused some alarm amongst the men,” he told her dryly. “They were all for cutting your throat and throwing your body in the creek.”

Bryony gasped. “They think I will betray them?”

He shrugged. “In all fairness, why should they think otherwise? Had you not included yourself in the raid on the armory, they would have been less alarmed. But you do know some rather incriminating facts about this operation.”

“But I could only tell someone about you by incriminating myself,” she pointed out. “And I warned you about the soldiers.”

“True enough. But that was a Bryony with no allegiances except those she had formed in the very recent past. Amnesia and captivity would be considered sufficient excuse for any aberrational behavior on your part.”

“You are not going to do it, are you?” She regarded
him warily, and for the first time since he had returned, Benedict laughed.

“No! I don’t think you deserve such a fate.”

“And I will not betray you,” she reiterated with sudden fierceness.

The laughter died from his face. “No, I know you will not. But the fact remains that we must contrive some explanation for your disappearance that will satisfy your family and any other inquisitive souls, who, I rather imagine, will be legion.”

“I do not want to go back, Benedict.” She plucked at the hem of her tunic with agitated fingers. “If it were not for my father, who must be out of his mind with worry, I would stay disappeared.”

“You are being a little childish, if you don’t mind my saying so.” His tone was calmly neutral—a schoolmaster correcting an erring pupil—and Bryony flushed, recognizing the truth in the reprimand.

“If I return, I will either have to marry Francis Cullum or expose him … his …” She stumbled wretchedly, unsure how to describe delicately what she now knew about her betrothed. “I will have to expose him to my father, because Papa will not accept any excuse for my withdrawing from the contract except the truth. Not after all these years,” she added. “Perhaps two years ago, if I had said the marriage was distasteful to me, instead of simply asking for a grace period, he would have agreed to break off the betrothal. But after everyone has been so accommodating to my”—her tone unconsciously imitated Eliza Paget—“to what Mama refers to as my self-indulgent whim, it would be unthinkable of me to cry off at this point.”

Benedict frowned, absorbing as much of this somewhat
jumbled speech as made sense. “I am all at sea, lass,” he said after a long, frowning silence. “To what self-indulgent whim was your mother referring?”

“It’s all a little complicated.” Bryony plucked a long stem of grass and began to suck it thoughtfully. “Francis and I have been betrothed from our cradles. He is also an only child, and there is a large inheritance. Sir Francis and my father decided it would be a good idea to merge the two inheritances.” Shrugging, she chewed the succulent stem. “It’s not exactly an unusual arrangement.”

“No,” he agreed with a tight little smile that fortunately Bryony did not see. “Quite customary. You made no objections?”

“I did not really have any, until … well, I did not have any. We have known each other for years and have always liked each other. One does not marry for love, after all.” She shot him a challenging look. “If one did, matters would be a little different, would they not?”

Ben simply inclined his head. “So, why are you not married to this worthy gentleman?”

Bryony bit back the angry retort at his thinly veiled sarcasm. “I wished for a little time … time to be free and to be myself—a self-indulgent whim, you understand?” She glared at him. “But Papa agreed that the marriage should be postponed until my twenty-first birthday. Francis and his father could not really argue, so …” Another shrug.

“I see.” Sir Edward Paget must be an indulgent father, he reflected. Indulgent, understanding, and loving. But the way a man conducted himself in his private affairs was not always reflected in his public conduct. He could be as gentle as a lamb with his daughter, and yet be as roughly brutal as he pleased to those unfortunates who
depended on his generosity for survival, without anyone remarking on any dissonance.

Bryony felt a graveyard shiver run down her back at the stark, bleak bitterness on his face. Nothing she had said could have caused that look. Hesitantly, she put her hand out to touch his. “What is troubling you so, Ben?”

He shook his head briskly, as if to dispel whatever cloud hung over him. “Continue with your story, Miss Paget. I am fascinated. What has this Francis done to cause you to wish to break off such a mutually advantageous arrangement?”

Bryony flinched at the cold, ironical tone. “You’re not really interested,” she said, exchanging the chewed stem of grass for a fresh one. “I think I will go to bed.”

“You have not yet had your dinner,” Ben pointed out, laying an arresting hand on her shoulder. “And the sun has only just gone down.”

“I am not hungry, but I am sleepy.” She made to rise, but the hand on her shoulder held her down.

“I crave pardon, Bryony lass. I have had an uncomfortable day,” he apologized softly. “I am truly interested in the story. There are times when my dark side makes itself felt, and I cannot always prevent it.”

“It is my fault. I know it is, but I don’t truly understand why.” She gazed, wide-eyed with the appeal for enlightenment.

Benedict sighed, running a hand up the back of her neck. “Sweeting, you must accept it when I say it is not your fault. More than that I am not prepared to say, and you should be aware by now that there are things about me you may not know. I have told you this often enough.”

It was so much easier to relax against the hand massaging
her neck, to let her head rest against his shoulder, to accept that this dark side would soon give way to the sun’s light and everything between them would be as it was before this morning. So much easier to believe that than to fight to understand what had happened, to shiver in the chill of hurt and incomprehension. Hesitantly, feeling for words, she told him about discovering Francis in the pantry, about his passionate, despairing appeal that she continue with the wedding, about the confusion that had led her to the stableyard in the early hours of the morning that had brought her and Benedict together.

Ben listened in silence, amazed at the matter-of-fact acceptance of Francis Cullum’s predilections exhibited by this tender, well-bred young lady. Some devil in him found aspects of the situation hilarious, but he controlled the reaction severely. It was not in the least amusing for Bryony Paget, for all that an outcast from that society might take wicked delight in such an overturning of well-laid plans.

“So, you see, I really do not know what to do,” she finished. “If Francis wishes to take his pleasure in that manner, then it’s nothing to do with me, but I cannot marry him, knowing that he prefers men to women. I don’t think I could even if he said he liked women, as well,” she added thoughtfully, and Benedict, his control finally defeated, whooped with laughter.

“Now, what’s amusing?” Bryony looked at him in puzzled indignation. “It doesn’t strike me as in the least funny.”

“Forgive me. It is you who are amusing, sweeting. Young ladies of your background and expectations are
not supposed to know of such peculiarities, and you are certainly not supposed to condone them.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I have had an unusual education. I am very well-read in the classics, you understand, and in ancient times such fancies were perfectly acceptable.”

“Yes,” he agreed solemnly. “I seem to remember that from my own schooling.”

“You are making fun of me again,” she accused.

“Heaven forfend!” His hands lifted in horror, and she fell on him, fists flailing in feigned indignation. They rolled together on the grass, burying the real emotional disharmony in a mock physical battle. Each knew that this was the case, and each, in cowardice, eagerly grasped the opportunity to retreat from the pain by denying, for the moment, the rift that had so suddenly sprung between them.