Chase the Dawn (18 page)

“When you come back, we should plan how best I may return home without causing difficulties,” she stated matter-of-factly, although her eyes slid past him lest he read the different message there.

“Yes, it is time,” he agreed quietly, and then the silence hung heavy in the clearing, expanding to enfold them in the deadening truth of inevitability. Ben tilted her chin and lightly kissed the tip of her nose, the corner of her mouth, the cleft of her chin. “Farewell, sweetheart.”

“Have a care,” she bade softly.

For an hour, Bryony wandered aimlessly around the cabin and clearing, but she could settle to nothing when her thoughts seethed in such turmoil and her soul was leaden with unhappiness. Eventually, deciding that she had learned enough in the last weeks for the woods to hold no perils, she set off along one of the paths that she had taken with Ben, reasoning that if she did not deviate from it, she could simply retrace her steps later. She recognized the little crossroads where four narrow trails met. She and Ben had branched off to the right, as she recalled, but, sticking to her original plan, Bryony continued straight ahead.

She walked for about two hours, until fatigue had driven off turmoil and despondency. She had made no plans, but the calm of resignation lay upon her. She was about to turn back when she noticed a difference in her surroundings. The trees seemed spaced farther apart, the light was brighter, pouring down through foliage much thinner than in the center of the forest. The sounds of woodland life were somehow muted, as if the creatures of the wood did not inhabit this part, or, if they did, wished to keep their presence unmarked. Then, quite suddenly, Bryony broke through the trees and found herself on a road.

She stood and stared. It was a broad thoroughfare, and well traveled, judging by the wheel tracks and
hoofprints in the dust. Where did it go? Williamsburg, of course. Hadn’t Ben said the town was some seven miles away? The highway would have to pass alongside the woods. Even as she stood, blinking at the first sight of the wider world—if one did not count the armory or Joshua’s farm—that she had glimpsed since waking in the log cabin all those weeks ago, a horse and rider rounded a bend on her right. Instead of obeying her first instinct to duck back into the trees, Bryony could not resist indulging her curiosity to see this fellow traveler.

The horseman drew closer. He was dressed in buckskin britches, a brown cloth coat and matching waistcoat, and a tricorn hat on his unpowdered hair, which was drawn into a queue at the nape of his neck. He had a small, neat brown beard. Bryony was rooted to the spot, no longer having the option to run.

As the horse drew level, the rider cast the Indian woman a cursory glance, then pulled back on the reins with an almost vicious tug, bringing his mount to a rearing halt.

“Bryony Paget! Dear God, is it really you?”

Bryony looked blankly at Francis Cullum and shook her head, rubbing her temples in a gesture of total confusion. “I do not know,” she said. “Who are you?”

T
his time, Ben knew that the clearing contained no mischievous watcher in the trees. He could feel the emptiness, the absolute solitude as he stood listening under the dying rays of the evening sun. So certain was he that he did not even bother to call her name, turning instead to the cabin in search of some sign of her whereabouts. Everything was as he had left it that morning, except that the covers had been straightened on the bedstead and some attempt had been made to tidy up. But it seemed to have been a halfhearted attempt. He shook out the damp, scrunched ball of towel lying on the plank table and took it outside to dry. Where the devil was she?

A minute search of the immediate wood and creek produced no clues, and by nightfall Benedict’s iron control had yielded to the terrors of uncertainty. There were perils aplenty in the forest for the unwary, particularly after dark, and he greeted the appearance of his Indian friends with undisguised relief.

“Run off again, has she?” one of them said with a
shrug that seemed to imply, What else could you expect of such an unpredictable creature? “She needs a leash, if you ask me.”

Ben refrained with difficulty from replying that he was not asking for such advice, instead requesting quietly, “I’d be grateful for your help in tracking her. If she’s lost in the woods, there’s no knowing what could have befallen.”

Somber nods of agreement ran around the small group. With one accord, they loped off into the trees, Ben this time accompanying them. They picked up Bryony’s trail easily enough, following it to the outskirts of the forest.

“Reckon she took the road.”

“Aye,” Ben concurred tersely, turning back into the trees. “There’s nothing more to be done. My thanks.” The set of his shoulders and the angle of his head indicated to his friends that he did not wish for further company, and they melted into the woods, leaving him to make his solitary way back to the cabin.

Had she left him deliberately or by accident? Not that it mattered either way, he thought with a light shrug. She had gone and that was the only significant fact. It would have happened within a day or so, anyway, but at least if it had been planned there would have been some ceremony, some dignified rounding off of the loving idyll, instead of this jagged ending where the rawness of this morning’s horror still pulsed, only half healed.

News of her safe return would run like wildfire through the district, and once he had heard it for himself, then he would be able to put Bryony Paget behind him and devote his undivided attention to the vital
business that had never before left the forefront of his waking mind.

Benedict Clare went into the log cabin and slammed the door on the deserted clearing and the star-filled sky. The nightshirt that Bryony had made her own lay on the sea chest. He folded it carefully and put it back in the fragrant cedar interior, beneath the pile of shirts.

A few hours earlier, Francis Cullum, on the Williamsburg road, had struggled to find his wits. “What do you mean, you do not know?” He sprang down from his horse. “Are you hurt, Bri? Where have you been? Why on earth are you wearing that tunic?” The questions tumbled over themselves. He took her shoulders and pushed back her hair as if to assure himself that she really was the missing Miss Paget.

Bryony continued to shake her head in apparent bemusement, although her brain was racing. Of all the damnable ill luck! At no point had she given thought to the story she would tell if and when she returned to the bosom of her family—to have concocted an explanation would have emphasized the finite nature of the idyll, and she had not been ready to face that. But now it was upon her, and Francis was staring, his green eyes puzzled, anxious. Amnesia was a familiar enough state for her to be able to feign it convincingly, which would at least buy her time.

“Am I called Bryony?” she asked blankly. “I do not appear to remember.” The deep blue eyes widened as if with the effort of thought. “I don’t remember you, either, sir, for all that you seem to know me.”

Francis swore softly. He had known Bryony Paget
since the dawn of memory, and it seemed utterly inconceivable that she should be looking at him in that blank, featureless fashion—particularly after their last meeting. He could feel a dull flush stain his cheekbones at the thought and wrenched his mind away to deal with the problem at hand. It was clearly incumbent upon him to restore this sun-browned gypsy in her Indian tunic to her father with no more ado. Let Sir Edward deal with the situation from then on. It would surely not be beyond his powers. Indeed, Francis doubted whether anything would be beyond Sir Edward’s powers.

“Your name is Bryony Paget,” he said gently. “I am Francis Cullum and I am going to take you home.”

A frown fluttered over the smooth wide brow. “Home?”

For answer, Francis took her by the waist and lifted her onto his horse. He swung up behind her, circling her waist as he reached for the reins.

“How do I know that you are not kidnapping me?” his passenger inquired in stricken tones. “Why should I believe—” She began to struggle and he tightened his grip.

“For heaven’s sake, Bryony, be still! You’ll have us both off!” he expostulated. “Dirk is no pony!”

Bryony became prudently still, deciding that she had put up sufficient protest to be convincing. Francis was no fool and knew her too well to be deceived by her present ploy if she overstepped the mark. She would have to be careful with her father, too—the slightest exaggeration and he would instantly smell a rat. “Where are you taking me?” she asked in a small, hesitant voice.

“Home,” he replied, “as I told you. Your parents have been frantic since you disappeared.”

“When was that?” Bryony swiveled on the saddle to look at him with what she hoped was convincing curiosity.

“Six weeks ago,” her companion told her. “You vanished from Trueman’s on the night of the ball.” He frowned at her upturned face, his voice suddenly intense. “Are you sure you have no memory of that, Bri?”

Bryony dropped her eyes hastily, turning to face forward again as she murmured a soft negative. The agonizing memory of that evening was obviously as vivid to Francis as it was to herself. “I have been with the Indians,” she offered as the story sprang ready-made to her lips. “I woke up one day in a hut in a village. They said they found me wandering in the woods. I had a bump on my head … but I don’t know how I got it or why … I remember nothing before waking up. They were very kind to me….” She allowed her voice to fade a little, then to pick up as if with sudden resolution. “I went for a walk this morning and arrived on the road by accident.” That, at least, was God’s truth, Bryony thought. The nearer she could keep to the truth, the better would be her chances of pulling off the deception until she could safely appear to regain her memory.

“Dear Lord,” Francis muttered. “What a tangle!” Sir Edward was going to have a fine time worrying at it, and he wouldn’t let go until it was unraveled. The English aristocrat was as tenacious as a bulldog once he got his teeth into a puzzle, particularly when matters concerned his precious daughter.

They rode in silence for a while—a silence that Bryony welcomed, as it gave her the opportunity to take stock and plan her next moves. The thought of Ben was
a dull ache, one that she knew waited only for solitude before it blossomed into pain, but she could not allow it to intrude now; she needed to keep all her wits about her. It took her but a few minutes of serious reflection to acknowledge that she would not be able to deceive her father with the pretense of amnesia. Her own desire to see him was too strong for her to pretend convincingly not to know him at the moment of reunion, so she had best recover her memory under the shock of that reunion. There was no reason, however, why the events that led to her disappearance should not remain lost to memory as a result of the bump on her head, just as there was no reason why she should be able to retrace her steps to the Indian village where she had supposedly been cared for in the intervening time. The woods were vast and Indian settlements plentiful. So long as she could swear that she had come to no harm, her story would produce no demand for action.

Bryony was not prepared, however, for her reaction as Francis turned his horse onto the long driveway leading up to the Paget mansion. The great house stood a mile from the road, but in sight of it, high on a hill. It was served both by the road at the front and the river at the rear, and Bryony had never been able to decide which view of the house she preferred. Both front and back of the large, square, two-storied brick building were distinguished by their imposing entrances, pillared and stepped, neither one obviously the superior.

She had always loved the house, and now, as they rode up the drive between the sweeping lawns and terraced gardens hedged with boxwood and lilac, her heart filled with nostalgia. She wondered why she had not missed her home while she had been living in the log
cabin, but it was a question all too easily answered. Her surroundings were of no importance beside the loving companionship of a certain Patriot, and if a wave of her hand would cause this elegant, solid grandeur to disappear, a log cabin and Benedict put in its place, she would gladly have waved.

She shivered suddenly. Francis’s arm tightened around her waist. “What is it, Bri?”

“I am afeard,” she said slowly, realizing that she spoke only the truth. The prospect of the imminent meeting with her mother and father was terrifying in the depths of emotion that she knew would accompany it. How could she keep her head clear? Benedict’s life, as well as the lives of the others, depended on her ability to maneuver her way through the maze. One false step and her father would wrench the truth from her. He was the only person capable of doing so, but he
was
capable.

“There is no need to be,” Francis said gently, and Bryony felt a sudden stab of regret at the twists and turns of fate. He had always been a good friend to her, and if things had been different they probably would have dealt with perfect amity in marriage. But
now
such a prospect was inconceivable—the original impediment compounded by her knowledge of what passion, love, lust, and friendship combined really meant. Such a knowledge precluded the acceptance of its counterfeit. So, what was she to do?