Chase the Dawn (2 page)

Fighting down the agony as the skin of her palms blistered, she jerked on the solid fastening. As it eased upward, she pushed with her last vestiges of strength against the massive double door. It swung open, letting in a rush of air that caught the conflagration behind her, sending it upward and outward with a great roar of triumph. The flames seized the back of her gown. She screamed in pain and terror, outlined in flame in the doorway. Then she was lost to the world as a smothering black cloud drowned her, rolled her over, knocked her to the ground with head-splitting violence, and light and life dissolved in a starburst of dazzling color.

Benedict Clare left the close confines of the log cabin and went out into the summer evening. The heat of the day
was retained by the tall trees surrounding the small clearing, and he wiped his brow with his neckcloth. This evening, that broad brow was buckled with a deep frown. He was a man who considered himself cured of sentiment, immune to the softer emotions. There was no room for them in the life struggle he had been fighting ever since puberty. He couldn’t blame the men for their startled disapproval. He had been condemning his own weakness from the moment he had tossed that ruined bundle of scraps and tatters into the wagon, atop the stolen cache of muskets and ammunition, and ridden away from the Trueman plantation, the blazing barn at his back.

But once the raid had been completed successfully, Loyalist weapons appropriated to the Patriot cause, firing the barn had been unnecessary—a self-indulgent act of personal revenge. It was a revenge to which he was entitled, God knew, but the trapped girl bore no guilt, and if he had not indulged himself, she would not have suffered. Some stubborn sense of justice had obliged him to pick up the pieces. He hadn’t known whether she was dead or alive when he had borne her off, but he had known that he could not leave her.

She was alive, but for the last twenty-four hours she had drifted in and out of consciousness, caused more by the blow to her head when it had struck the cobbles, he suspected, than by the burns on her back. The latter were not as severe as he had feared and were healing with the sureness of young, healthy skin, although, judging by the soft moans as she moved on the cot and when he dressed them, they were sufficiently painful to cross the boundaries of unconsciousness.

He strolled through the trees to the banks of the narrow creek that ran into the broad reaches of the James River some two miles along. The creek was clogged with bullrushes and swamp grass, navigable only by canoe, and Benedict’s only companions were the curlews, pipers, and their like rising to circle above the marsh. Raising his musket, he sighted, squeezed the trigger, and the dark shape fell from the sky. It was a plump plover that would make good eating, and he was in need of a substantial dinner. He had been living off dry stores since the raid on Trueman’s, unwilling to leave the girl alone for the time it would take to hunt his supper until he was sure she had rounded the corner. Slinging his musket across his shoulder, the bird dangling from his hand, he made his way back to the cabin.

Bryony became aware of the soreness first, as always. It seemed to be a part of her, exacerbated to stinging rawness by an unwary move, so that, even in sleep, she seemed to move with care or not at all, lying still until her motionless limbs cried out for relief. The muzziness was still in her head, and when she opened her eyes, she looked through a blur as if viewing her surroundings from underwater. It was too much of an effort, so she closed her eyes again, flexing her toes in the hope that her cramped legs would be satisfied with the activity of their extremities. It was a vain hope, and with a groan of sheer misery she inched herself onto her other side.

“Are you awake?”

It was a voice she knew, one that had punctuated her sleep-waking; it went with the hands that soothed her hurts, held the cup of water to her parched lips, lifted
her on and off the tin pot with a gentleness that did its utmost to avoid unwary contact with her sores. She did not know to whom it belonged—that did not seem to be of the least importance. Through the watery blur of her vision, she had once in a while registered a bearded face, brightly sharp eyes, but then she had slipped away again into the warm darkness.

“I think so.” Her voice sounded strange, an unfamiliar croak, and she realized that she had not spoken for as long as she could remember. Panic flared. “Where am I? Who …?”

“Hush, lass. You haven’t the strength yet to get yourself into a fret.” The soft voice gentled as his hands moved her onto her belly. She felt a sudden coolness as the blanket was drawn back, then the wonderful, now familiar sensation of the healing oil smoothing into the hurt skin of her back and legs. Her heart swelled with gratitude. The flash of panic receded, and she slept again.

When Bryony next awoke, it was to a world of sharply clear objects, of lucidity of thought, of complete awareness of her body, of its lines and contours, of its place and shape in the world. She lay still, taking inventory, trying to separate confused memories. Her back still hurt, and when she turned her head restlessly on the thin pillow, a bruising soreness stilled her instantly. But she was awake, and she could see without mist, and she could hear without the buzzing in her ears. What she could not do was remember where she was, or why she was here, or how she had hurt herself, or—dear God, she could not remember anything beyond the bewildering turmoil of the last however many days she had lain here, drifting, cared for by some strange man. A
memory took shape, sharpened. Slowly, almost fearfully, she placed her hands on her belly, moved them up and down. She was as naked as the day she had been born. She raised the blanket, and her eyes confirmed her touch.

Bryony hastily dropped the blanket and lay staring up at the rough-hewn, smoke-blackened clapboard roof. Her mind stretched to remember, something … anything! But there was nothing—just an abyss. She knew only that she was in a log cabin, that she was naked, that there was a man somewhere for whom that nakedness had become familiar. What had happened to her? What had he done while she was lying here, defenseless? But she knew what he had done. It was the only thing she did know. He had not harmed her, he had cared for her like a nurse with a baby, attending to her intimate needs. And Bryony wished she had died rather than wake to this shaming reality, peopled with only these recent and so mortifying memories.

A creak and a square of bright light heralded the opening of the cabin door. She blinked as the dazzle struck her unaccustomed eyes, then the light was blocked for a minute by the bulk of a figure—an utterly recognizable figure. She retreated behind closed eyes.

Leaving the door open, Benedict crossed to the bedstead and stood looking down at its occupant. The girl had her eyes tight shut, but there was something about her posture beneath the blanket, about the sudden mobility of her face, that told him not only was she awake, she was finally fully conscious. He knelt down beside the bed. “Open your eyes, Bryony.”

Bryony! Her eyes shot open, meeting the intent scrutiny of a pair as black and resonant as ebony. “Is
that my name?” She forgot the agonies of shame for the moment in this all-important question.

The breath whistled through his teeth as he absorbed the implications of the question. “Can you not remember?”

She shook her head, wincing as the soreness rubbed against the pillow again.

Those hands, with remembered gentleness, turned her head to one side, parting the blood-stiffened locks of raven-dark hair, feeling the lump. “You took a blow to the head to fell an ox,” he said, sighing. “I suppose it is not surprising. But it is a damnable complication.”

“How do you know I am called Bryony?” Her voice shook a little, as much with disuse as anxiety.

“It was embroidered on your handkerchief and on all your undergarments, what remained of them.” He stood up, turning away from the cot, so he did not see the scarlet wave flooding her cheeks. Taking a small ceramic pot from a shelf carved into one of the horizontal logs that formed the wall, he unscrewed the lid and came back to the bed. “Lie on your belly, lass, and I’ll dress the burns on your back.”

Bryony stared at him in mute refusal for a second, then shook her head gingerly. “It is all right, thank you. I do not feel them anymore.” There was a note of pathetic dignity in her voice, pathetic because of the undisguised appeal that lay beneath.

“You are being foolish,” he said quietly. “If those burns become infected, they will mortify.”

“Then I will do it myself,” she countered in a choked whisper.

Benedict frowned. She could not possibly manage such a thing, and it was a task that had to be done.
However, perhaps it would be best if she discovered that for herself. He could see little to be gained by coercion, easy though that would be. Shrugging, he placed the pot on the blanket beside her. “As you please. I will bring you something to eat in a few minutes.”

The door swung shut behind his departing figure, and Bryony struggled to sit up in the welcome dimness, shafted by bars of sunlight sliding through the gaps in the logs where the moss and clay filling had come loose. She dipped her finger in the oily, aromatic cream and reached a hand behind her. Her blind fingers brushed roughly against the weals, and tears sprang into her eyes. She tried reaching over her shoulder, then upward from her waist, but it was impossible to do more than skim patchily over the burns.

The creak of the door again drove her back beneath the blanket, and the ceramic jar fell to the earthen floor. Benedict placed a steaming bowl on a three-legged stool by the hearth and wordlessly picked up the ointment, replacing the lid. Looking down at her, he quirked a well-drawn eyebrow but said only, “I have some broth for you. Are you hungry?”

The rich, savory aroma from the bowl filled the cabin, and Bryony realized that she was famished, even as she realized that her body was making another, imperative demand, one that would interfere with her pleasure in food if it was not satisfied. “I have to go outside first,” she said, blushing furiously at renewed memory.

Benedict sighed, recognizing the shape of the battle. “I do not think you are strong enough, lass. I will bring the pot.”

“No!” With near-superhuman effort, she sat up,
tucking the blanket around her breasts, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed frame.

He stood and watched her, impassive, yet with no unkindness. Indeed, he felt more than a hint of admiration for this dogged determination. If she could be this resolute in the face of such odds, what would she be like when well and strong? It was an intriguing thought, but for the moment he would simply wait in resigned patience for the odds to tell and bring her to her senses.

Gritting her teeth, Bryony put her feet to the earthen floor and carefully stood up. But her legs would not bear her weight, and the room spun like a top, bringing a dizzy nausea to tug at her belly as her head pounded viciously. She grabbed the side of the bed with a convulsive movement that loosened the blanket so that it fell with a rustle to the floor.

The tears of weakness, of frustration at her helplessness, rolled down her cheeks, but she made no further protest when he lifted her gently onto the pot. When he helped her up again she put her arms around his neck, clinging in defeat, like a small, wounded animal, to the masthead of his strength.

Benedict simply held her, imparting comfort and reassurance with his body even as he wondered at himself. It was a woman’s body he held, and beautiful in its clean-limbed youth, for all its wounds and weakness. The skin under his hands was soft as silk; the raven’s-wing hair tickling his chin was richly luxuriant, for all that it was in sore need of a wash. Until now, he had been aware of her only as a responsibility, the consequence of a self-indulgent whim—a consequence to be mitigated at the earliest possible moment. Once healed, she was to have been transported blindfolded to a point
close to home and left to make her own way and tell her own story. She would have laid eyes only upon him, and would never see him again. But now that plan lay in ruins—ruined by this amnesia caused presumably when he had flung her to the cobblestones of the stableyard, smothering the flames with his cloak. And its ruin left a gap, a gap that these unwelcome recognitions of her femininity, and of the essence of the awakening personality, rushed to fill.

With grim determination, he pushed these disquieting reflections aside and placed her on the bed, on her stomach. She made no protest this time as, in silence, he anointed her back, his fingers brushing delicately down the long, narrow length, across her buttocks, and over her thighs. For some reason, he seemed to have become acutely aware of the slender indentation of her waist, the flare of her hips tapering to the long, creamy slimness of her thighs. Try as he might for a return to the untroubled objectivity of the past, it remained elusive. Then there was a moment when she stirred beneath his touch. He would have staked his life that it was an involuntary movement, and it was not a flinching from the pain of her burns, either.

Bryony did not question the ease with which she now submitted to the intimacy of his touch. Her earlier protestations seemed simply ridiculous. He was only doing what he had been doing for days, and only a fool would protest the ministrations that brought such wondrous relief. How many days? she asked herself, leaning against his broad chest as he sat behind her, supporting her so that the bowl of broth could rest on her knees. It was delicious, but after a few spoonsful her shrunken belly was sated, and she lay back with a sigh of repletion,
too contented to worry about an answer to the question. Time enough after she had had another sleep.

Benedict took the bowl and laid her down on the bed again. “By tomorrow, you will be able to do things for yourself, Bryony. Then we must try to jog your memory.”

Bryony responded with an inarticulate mutter and turned on her side—a maneuver accomplished with only a twinge of discomfort. Sleep, warm and welcome, enfolded her.

It was full night when next she opened her eyes. Gradually, the seemingly impenetrable darkness gave way before her accustomed vision, and she was able to make out the shapes of the simple furniture—the plank table and three-legged stools; shelves simply cut out of the log walls; the unglazed aperture that served as a window. Tonight it let in the soft, moist air of a Virginian summer night and the milky illumination of starlight, but the cabin would be bitter in winter, even with the wooden shutters fastened.