Chase the Dawn (22 page)

“What are you brewing, Benedict?”

“Oh, a most powerful potion, my friend; one of wormwood and gall, fire and brimstone.” Ben chuckled and rubbed his hands. “I shall require a little help, however.”

Tyler refilled their glasses. “I am at your service. Whatever I am able to do, I will.”

“I need to turn some articles into hard currency,” Ben said directly. “For obvious reasons, I do not wish to be identified with the transactions, so I need a broker. Will you act for me in this?”

Tyler nodded. “Am I to be a party to your plans?”

“But of course.” Ben sat down on a velvet-covered chair and picked up his glass. “Listen well, Paul….”

Half an hour later, Paul Tyler, momentarily rendered speechless, stared at his companion. “You are run mad, Ben! It will put your head in a noose.”

“Only if I am discovered prematurely,” Ben replied calmly. “There is no reason why that should happen.” Tyler knew nothing of Bryony Paget’s sojourn with the Patriots, and Ben deemed it unnecessary to tell him of it at this late stage. It would only add to his concerns. “You must admit it is a sound plan. Dangerous, I grant you, but one does not achieve much by risking little.”

“And it is time you came out of the woods,” Tyler mused, almost to himself. “I had not imagined quite
such a dramatic reentry, but perhaps, knowing you as I do, my friend, I should not be surprised.”

“And you will help?”

“Without question.”

The two shook hands and Ben slipped out of the house by the side door, making his way, just another shadow in the gloom, down to the river, where his canoe was tied. Paul Tyler was the only person living who knew that Benedict Clare, scion of one of Ireland’s oldest families, was also a runaway bondsman from Georgia. And it was to Paul Tyler that Benedict owed his life and his continued freedom. The filthy, emaciated, fever-ridden man, his back a mess of infected sores, whom Paul Tyler had stumbled upon on the riverbank nearly three years earlier, bore but superficial resemblance to the man now paddling his canoe through the network of creeks that would take him back to his own run without venturing onto the main river highway.

He owed Paul Tyler his sanity, too, Ben reflected. The planter had taken him in, healed his body, asked no questions until the day Benedict, his strength regained but the soul’s agony still as raw and infected with bitter hatred as ever, had attempted to take leave of his benefactor. Ben had shouldered the chest that contained all his worldly goods and his history, to which he had clung throughout his flight with all the desperation of a limpet. He had had no plans beyond the conflicting needs to keep running and to exact vengeance. Tyler, with quiet resolution, had called in his debt, demanding to know Benedict’s full history.

Benedict stopped paddling for a moment, allowing the canoe to drift over the dark water. When he had placed his trust in Paul Tyler, he had taken the first step
on the road back to spiritual health. It was Tyler who had suggested he pull together the disparate threads of his life by serving the Patriot cause, doing what he had done in Ireland, fighting the same enemy for the same cause, though in different form. He would turn his hatred to good use, channel the destructive energies to serve the political ideals he had held for so long, and in the destruction of the colonial world, he would achieve his own revenge for the wrongs visited upon him.

Ben dipped his paddle in the water again, a soft, slicing motion that sent the small craft skimming ahead. From the moment he had taken up residence in the clearing in the wood, had begun the task of recruiting the undercover soldiers for the Patriot cause, had carried off the first successful raid, he had found himself again whole and strong in mind and body—the only lapse that dreadful moment with Bryony when past and present had merged, triggered by the black mood brought on by the knowledge of her albeit innocent ties with the two strands of his hatred.

God, how he missed her! How he ached for her with an unremitting need. He was longing for the impossible, but how could he pass up the opportunity to see how she was, how she was managing, discover whether she had solved her problem with her betrothed? He would allow nothing to endanger her position, but one final meeting was surely not too much to ask for—the chance to tidy up the threads so rudely torn apart, to close the episode with grace. It was surely something she needed, also, even after all these months.

* * *

“How many guests do you expect this weekend, Mama?” Bryony walked into the small parlor at the rear of the house, where Eliza conducted her household business. “Mary is getting in a great fuss about sheets. She says that she will have to use darned ones for some reason.”

“Oh, that is absolute nonsense.” Eliza rose hastily, smoothing down her lawn apron. “There are a dozen pairs of fine cotton sheets but newly made in the linen press. She knows that perfectly well. Sometimes I think she does it deliberately to add to my burdens!” She bustled out in search of the housekeeper, leaving Bryony chuckling to herself at this familiar domestic pattern.

“Where is your mother, child?” Sir Edward spoke from the open doorway. “I wish to ensure that she understands the music must be interrupted at the ball tomorrow night in order for Major Ferguson to make his speech.”

“I am sure she understands, Papa,” Bryony said reassuringly. “At the moment she has sheets much on her mind.”

“Sheets!” Sir Edward looked nonplussed. “What have they to do with anything?”

“It is customary to put them upon the beds before people sleep in them,” she explained with an innocent smile.

“Impertinent miss!” But his eyes twinkled. “I trust your mother is intending to accommodate Major Ferguson and his party in the guest house?”

“I believe so,” Bryony said. “Also those in Lord Dawson’s party. The lesser folk must fight for bed space within the house.”

“There is no shortage,” rumbled Paget. “The youngsters may bundle in usual fashion.”

“I hope you do not expect me to do so,” Bryony stated. “My own bed to myself seems little enough to ask for in the face of all the other disturbances.”

“I expect you to make sacrifices for your country as everyone else is doing,” came the sharp response.

“By all means.” Bryony smiled, but her eyes held a glint of determination, which her father recognized well. “I will cheerfully sacrifice my bed and sleep in the hayloft, so long as I may do so without company.”

“Bryony! You must not talk to your father in that fashion!” expostulated a shocked Eliza, pausing in the doorway as her daughter’s clear tones reached her on her way through the hall.

“She always has done so,” said Paget. “I do not think you will stop her now, my dear wife.”

“I think it is for you to stop her,” said Eliza, greatly daring.

Her husband simply laughed. “Since I do not appear to have felt the need to do so before, madam, I cannot see why I should now. However”—he shook a warning finger at the smiling Bryony—“there’ll be no sleeping in haylofts, miss.”

“La, husband, she would not dream of doing such a thing!”

Paget regarded his wife with a degree of resigned compassion. “You do not know your daughter as well as you should, wife. If you did, we might perhaps have avoided the incident of last summer.” With that, he stalked from the room.

“Oh, Mama, I am sorry.” Bryony hugged her mother as the tears stood out in Eliza’s eyes. “He does not really
mean to be unkind. It was not your fault. Papa knows that.”

“It
was
my fault,” Eliza said bitterly. “I should never have permitted you to leave the house at that hour.”

“But you did not permit me,” Bryony told her logically. “How could you have? You didn’t know of it.”

“No, but if I had been a proper mother to you, you would never have dreamed of going out on your own in the middle of the night. I know of no other well-bred young lady who would have done such a thing.”

“No, they would have been in fear and dread of a whipping.” Bryony smiled. “And Papa would never permit such a thing, and I do not think you would have been capable of it, either. So don’t pretend that it’s all your fault that I am such an undisciplined creature and such a disappointment to you.”

“Oh, dearest, you are not a disappointment.” Eliza smiled mistily. Bryony could always manage to return matters to correct perspective. “I wish only …”

“That I would get on with becoming a respectable matron and provide you with a quiverful of grandchildren,” Bryony finished for her soberly.

“Why will you not?” Her mother made no attempt to deny the statement. She looked closely at her daughter, who stood very still, a certain dark shadow in the deep blue eyes. “It has something to do with what happened to you when you disappeared, does it not?”

Bryony tucked a stray wisp of hair into the ribbon that banded her forehead and wished that she could confide in her mother, could drop the burden for just one minute, could describe the glories of that loving idyll, the ache of loss, and the whole glutinous mess with Francis. But, of course, she could divulge none of
it. Eliza would not survive such shocks, and it would be unforgivably selfish of Bryony to unburden herself at the expense of her mother’s peace.

“I think that perhaps such a strange experience took its toll,” she said now, carefully. “I find it hard to contemplate a major upheaval again. It feels so safe here at home.” So safe, so wrong, and so boring! Bryony despised herself for the twisted truth even as she saw with relief that it had served its purpose.

Her mother’s face cleared and she patted Bryony’s shoulder. “I understand, dearest. But Francis is no stranger, and he will look after you, I am sure of it.”

“Yes.” Bryony nodded, suddenly brisk. “Of course he will. I would like to wait until Christmas, that is all. Sir Francis has agreed, I understand. Should we not put talk of weddings behind us for the moment and concentrate on this gala entertainment that the Pagets are about to host? The first guests will be arriving in an hour or so.”

“Great heavens, is that the time!” Eliza threw up her hands in horror. “Will you wear the cherry-striped taffeta with the embroidered petticoat? It is so becoming.”

“But if I wear that tonight, how shall I follow it for tomorrow night and Sunday?” Bryony teased. “Should one not save the best for last? Was that not the point of the parable of the wine at Canaan?”

“Oh, be off with you! I do not have time to bandy words, child. You are worse than your father.”

“Not worse, surely! Simply an apt pupil!” Bryony kissed her mother and left, satisfied that matters between them were returned to their usual footing.

Mary was too busy to offer her usual assistance with Bryony’s toilet, although she popped in and out of the
bedroom to give crisp orders to the young maid who was deputizing for her. Bryony, who would have preferred to be left to dress alone, swallowed her irritation, knowing that the girl would assume she had been at fault if her mistress sent her away.

It promised to be a tedious weekend, one with a dual purpose—to offer three days of lavish hospitality to the prominent county families, and to give the leading Tories the opportunity to wring support for the king’s cause from any hangers-back. There was to be a rousing speech from Major Ferguson at the ball tomorrow night, the ball that would be the high point of the occasion. There would be conferences and informal discussions as play alternated with the serious business of the war effort, and Bryony would be expected to play as hard as any of the other young unmarried girls—except that she was nearly two years older than the oldest of them. Her peers for the most part sported swollen bellies and a clutch of nurslings. At least she was respectably betrothed, so she escaped the pitying glances accorded the old maids who remained on the marriage mart beyond their nineteenth year.

The first carriages arrived as the little maid was fastening the delicate silver filigree fillet that held the rich black mass of hair away from Bryony’s face while allowing it to fall unconfined in soft ringlets to her shoulders, which rose, bare and creamy, from the scalloped neckline of the cherry-and-white-striped taffeta gown. Her hooped petticoat was embroidered with a fantastic design of wildflowers, twisting and twining their delicate shapes and colors in glorious profusion. A chased silver pendant to match the fillet in her hair nestled in the cleft of her bosom. Similar bracelets encircled her wrists.

“Lordy, Miss Bryony, but you look so beautiful!” the young maid gasped, surveying her handiwork. “It’s a wonder Mr. Cullum hasn’t carried you off long ago…. Oh, I beg pardon!” Her hand shot to her mouth and she gazed in wide-eyed distress.

Bryony laughed easily. “That is all right, Bridget. I am complimented, and you should be, too. It’s all your good work, after all.” She moved to the door of her bedchamber, bracing herself for a long afternoon and evening.

At the head of the gracious, curving staircase leading down to the central hall, she paused, listening to her parents’ voices raised in welcome. She heard Lord Dawson’s unmistakable drawl as she moved lightly down the stairs, one hand running over the polished banister, the other holding up her skirt. She reached the bend in the staircase and peered down at the group in the hall. A voice as soft as spring raindrops was responding to her mother’s greeting. Her feet in their pink-and-white-striped satin pumps froze in mid-step. Her breath froze in her lungs.

Benedict Clare turned from her mother, turned slowly to look up at the stairs. Black eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, locked with hers in glittering warning.