Chase the Dawn (19 page)

Sir Edward Paget walked to the long window of his study at the front of the house, gazing almost absently out onto the broad gravel sweep before the landward entrance. He recognized Cullum’s horse immediately and wondered with a snap of irritation what could have brought the young man here to this grieving house.
Then an icy stillness enveloped him as he stared fixedly. There was no mistaking that blue-black hair cascading over her shoulders, no mistaking the set of those shoulders, the proud angle of her head. A strange sound, half sob, half expletive, broke from his lips, and he flung himself out of the study into the central hall, which ran through the house to connect its two fronts. He was through the door and on the steps above the sweep as the horse and its two riders reached the entrance.

“Papa!” Bryony tumbled from the horse and into Paget’s arms. Father and daughter clung together in the afternoon sun, heedless of the now bemused Francis, who remained mounted, uncertain quite what he should do next. Bryony appeared to have recovered her memory somewhat abruptly.

“Where have you been, child?” At last Sir Edward drew back to look at the returned wanderer, disbelief, wonder, and amazement all mingling on the lean, aristocratic face.

“I found her on the Williamsburg road, sir,” Francis offered diffidently. “She had lost her memory, but …”

“I remember now,” Bryony said hastily. “It must have been the shock of seeing Papa that made all the pieces fall into place again.”

“Yes, I expect so,” Francis agreed, wondering why he was not convinced. “I will leave you now, sir. You do not need intruders on your joy.” He took off his hat with a courtly gesture. “Perhaps I may call upon Bryony in a day or so, when she has quite recovered from—”

“Call upon me tomorrow, Francis.” Bryony went swiftly toward him, extending her hand. “There is really nothing from which I must recover, you know. I am perfectly
well, just a little confused. But tomorrow I will be able to thank you properly for your kindness.”

Francis leaned down and took the proffered hand, examining her face intently. Something was lurking behind that innocent smile, he decided. She’d best have a care if she wished to keep whatever it was from Sir Edward. “Until tomorrow, then,” he said blandly. “Pray accept my congratulations, Sir Edward.”

“Yes … yes,” said the Englishman with a degree of impatience at these elaborate courtesies. “I owe you much. By all means, call upon us tomorrow, when I have discovered the truth of this tangle. Lady Paget, I know, will be glad to welcome you. Bryony, come inside. Your mother has been out of her mind these last weeks, and I am much in need of an explanation.”

Bryony cast a backward glance at Francis as her father hustled her indoors. She could not resist a mischievous wink, which she knew Francis would interpret correctly. Sir Edward Paget was never at a disadvantage for many minutes; not even the miraculous return of the daughter he had presumed dead could disturb his self-control for long.

An excited crowd of slaves stood chattering in the doorway, witnessing this extraordinary reunion, and Bryony was instantly engulfed as they exclaimed over her and touched her as if to convince themselves that she was indeed flesh and blood. Sir Edward sent them about their business tersely, propelling his daughter into the relative cool of the hall, where the loftier members of his household, the paid staff who ensured its smooth running, were gathered in wide-eyed astonishment.

Eliza stood on the stairs, one hand pressed to her bosom, shock and disbelief on her face. She had not
believed the housekeeper who had rushed in upon her where she knelt at the prie-dieu as she had been doing continuously once hope had finally left her, praying for forgiveness, for salvation, for knowledge, at least, to bring an end to the agonizing uncertainty. Mary had gasped that Miss Bryony and Mr. Cullum had just ridden up to the door, that Sir Edward had run out, and that it was a heaven-sent miracle that the poor child was restored to them. The old woman’s eyes had rolled incredulously, her hands clasped tightly at her heart, and Eliza had been obliged to move the rapt figure bodily from the doorway before she could venture forth herself to discover the truth of this marvel. Now she looked upon the miracle and, with a mother’s instinctive knowledge, knew that her daughter was unharmed though she had lived through some life-defining experience.

“Mama.” Bryony moved away from her father, toward her mother, reading the agony of the past weeks in her face and feeling a wash of remorse that she had not put an end to that agony sooner. In fact, if it were not for the accident of finding the road and Francis, she would still be in the clearing with Benedict, still clinging desperately to the last shreds of a fairy tale. Benedict … oh, Ben, she thought with her own agonizing wrench as the ache threatened to blossom. Why could it not have been different? Then she had her arms around her mother, who was crying. Her own tears began to fall, and she could no longer distinguish who or what it was for which they fell.

That night, she lay in her own big poster bed, the light summer hangings drawn back to allow what little air there was some freedom of movement. There had been more tears, a little laughter, endless questions, so
that her head spun with the effort to keep her story straight, the continuity accurate. But there had been no serious questioning of the truth of her tale. Eliza had wanted to summon the physician from Williamsburg, but Bryony had protested so vociferously, had demonstrated so clearly that she was as healthy as she had ever been, that her mother had yielded. However, when she had tucked Bryony into bed as if she were again a little girl, she had sat beside her, taking her hand, and had gently probed into the details of her life among the Indians.

Bryony flung herself on her back, kicking off the sheet. The feather mattress was somehow smothering after the hard, resistant surface of the straw mattress on Ben’s bedstead, and even the slight river breeze drifting in through her opened casement was no compensation for the unutterable loneliness of an empty bed.

Was she doomed to spend the rest of her life in this emptiness? To condemn a body that had known the glory of fulfillment to eternal deprivation? Having known Ben, she could not imagine sharing the glory he had taught her with anyone else. And what had her mother suspected? Not the truth, surely? That her daughter was a spoiled virgin, no fit bride for Francis Cullum or for any other young man.

The thoughts circled, viciously relentless, and the great well of grief at the suddenness of her loss, the denial of the time to draw matters between them to a civilized close, swallowed her in abject wretchedness. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself as if they could replicate the hold that had carried her through sleep for the last six weeks, and finally she fell into an exhausted oblivion as the dawn crept into the sky.

The rich, familiar fragrance of hot chocolate brought Bryony out of sleep. She blinked bemusedly in the brilliant sunlight, her first thought that it must be sinfully late and Ben would greet her appearance with an eyebrow raised in admonition and some wry comment about slug-a-beds who neglected their allotted tasks. And then Mary’s face, beaming and hovering over her, filled her vision, and she remembered.

“Dead to the world you were, Miss Bryony,” Mary said, plumping up the pillows behind her young charge, who was struggling to sit up. “Your mother said to let you sleep, but it’s all of three o’clock in the afternoon!”

“It cannot be!” Bryony stared in horror, pushing back her tumbled hair as Mary placed a silver tray on her lap. “I cannot have slept so long.”

“Well, you did,” Mary affirmed stolidly. “I’ll have your bath prepared in no time. Sir Francis and young Mr. Cullum are bidden to dinner at four o’clock.”

Bryony poured the dark, richly scented stream of chocolate from the silver jug into the shallow, fluted cup and sipped appreciatively, watching as Mary bustled around the large sun-filled chamber, pouring steaming water into the porcelain hip bath before the empty hearth. Every piece of furniture in the room, as elsewhere in the house, had come from England, carefully chosen for the elegant simplicity of master cabinetmakers, bearing the hallmarks of Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite. A Wilton carpet of deep rose covered the floor, matching the hangings at the bed and windows, and on the walnut chest of drawers reposed the heavy silver-backed hairbrushes and combs that had been her betrothal gift from the Cullums.

Anything further from the primitive simplicity of
Ben’s log cabin in the woods would be impossible to imagine, she reflected, flexing her toes beneath the fine linen sheet. It was no wonder he had teased her so often about her luxurious tastes and overly refined habits.

Bryony bit her lip. Such thoughts were not going to facilitate her return to the life to which she had been born, and she could not allow herself to be distracted by melancholy in company. Her mother already seemed to suspect something untoward and must not be given further food for suspicion.

“Why, whatever’s the matter, Miss Bryony?” Mary, her face twisted with concern, came over to the bed. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

That
was what she must guard against! “No ghosts, Mary,” she responded cheerfully. “I am still trying to become used to being home again, that’s all.” She offered a teasing smile. “I have not had anyone to wait upon me in the last weeks, and it is proving a novel experience.”

The explanation appeared to satisfy Mary, who turned her attention to the contents of the armoire while Bryony took a bath in a tub within four walls for the first time in an eternity. Half an hour later Bryony stood in front of the pier glass, examining her reflection with critical curiosity. She should look different, surely? But, apart from the freckles on her nose and the delicate suntan, she appeared to be quite unchanged. Her stays felt uncommonly constricting, and she toyed with the idea of telling Mary to loosen them, or to remove them altogether, but the elderly housekeeper would probably swoon away at such a sacrilegious request.

Mary shook out the folds of an elegant French sacque of turquoise silk and dropped it over Bryony’s head. The
flowing gown fell unconfined from her neck to her ankles at the back while molding her figure at the front and the sides. The elbow-length sleeves were edged with lace ruffles threaded with dark blue velvet sleeve-knots. A similar ribbon held the luxuriant mass of black hair away from her forehead to tumble artlessly to her shoulders. Would Ben approve of the effect of this finery? This amazing transformation from grubby gypsy in a doeskin tunic to lady of the first style of elegance, the epitome of the English aristocrat … No, he would not like it. He had loved the Bryony who had no history, no family, only a present that he shared … but shared no longer.

“There, now.” Mary finished fussing over the set of the gown. “You’ll want to wear the pearls, I daresay.” She opened a japanned jewel case on the dresser, drawing out the rich creamy string of pearls, then clasping them around Bryony’s neck with a little sigh of satisfaction. “Beautiful,” she pronounced. “To look at you now, no one would ever know what you have been through.”

Exactly so, thought Bryony desolately. It might never have happened. She went downstairs, praying that her armor would hold, would be strong enough to withstand sharp eyes or keen questions or, more dangerous, the sudden, unbidden surge of memory and wanting that would show on her face. Was Ben worried about her? Had he searched for her? The news of her safe return would be around the town already. Someone would have told him….

“Bryony, dearest. Are you quite rested?” Eliza stood up from the brocade upholstered sofa in the drawing room in a stiff rustle of lavender satin. She wore a crimped cap with lace lappets hanging down the sides of
her face, a style that Bryony privately thought made her mother look older and dowdier than she had any need to. But Eliza was most insistent on dressing according to her perceived advanced matronly state, for all that she was barely six and thirty. “See, Sir Francis has come to offer his congratulations on your safe return, and Francis is here, of course.” Eliza gave a satisfied little nod. “He was far too anxious to know that you are in good health to stay away another minute. Is that not so, Francis?”

Francis bowed and murmured that, indeed, it was so. Bryony received a chaste salute from both Cullums then was subjected to her father’s minute scrutiny before he, too, kissed her in greeting.

“It’s a relief to see you looking like my daughter again,” Sir Edward declared. “There was a moment yesterday when I wondered if you would ever appear respectable again.”

“Oh, dear,” Eliza fluttered, fanning herself vigorously. “The least said the better, sir, do you not think?”

“I am not about to be ashamed of my dress, madam, when it was furnished by those who offered me only kindness,” Bryony said, thus indicating to all in the room that her conduct and personality had undergone no changes during her disappearance. However, she smiled and took her mother’s hand, kissing the faded cheek. “Indeed, Mama, I do not know what would have become of me without them.”

“No, no … and we are forever in their debt,” Eliza said hastily. “I wish I could tell them so myself. I only meant that … well …”

“That my scandalous disappearance and equally remarkable reappearance will provide food for the gossips
as it is,” Bryony finished for her, taking a glass of sherry from the silver tray held by the butler.

“For which reason we shall not broadcast any details, miss.” It was the nearest to a reproof that Sir Edward was likely to come, and his daughter simply inclined her head in acknowledgment.

“Quite so … quite so,” concurred Sir Francis heartily, patting his wig with one hand as he held his glass to be refilled with the other. “Best to withdraw from society for a while, my dear, on account of your ordeal, you understand. It’ll be a nine days’ wonder, you mark my words.”

Nothing had changed, absolutely nothing at all, Bryony thought, except for herself.
She
was radically changed and could allow no one to see the change. How was she to confine her expanded soul in this rigid mold again?