Chase the Dawn (29 page)

“Very little, as it happens,” replied Francis. “You appeared on the scene somewhat prematurely.”

“That I doubt,” Ben said dryly. “I should, however, be glad to know what little she did tell you.”

“I rather think that Bri intends marrying you, Clare.” Francis found that once the first shock had dissipated, not only did he have no difficulty with the idea, it seemed to take on an appropriateness, an inevitability, as if he had known all along. And he could not imagine why, once he himself was removed from the scene to Paget’s satisfaction, such an alliance should not receive society’s blessing. The Clare lineage was unimpeachable, after all. Ben inclined his head in invitation, and Francis went on. “She explained only that you and she were lovers. I find it hard to believe that such an extraordinary occurrence should have had its genesis in the last two days.” His eyebrows lifted. “Does it perhaps go back to last summer? I am well aware that something more occurred then than Bri has admitted.”

“Let us leave it at that for the moment, Cullum.” Ben drove his hands into his britches pockets. “Do you happen to know why Bryony decided to make this inopportune revelation?”

“As I said: she intends marrying you. Only there is one small impediment.” Francis could not help chuckling at the utter absurdity of the situation. “She is already betrothed to me. By informing me of her shockingly immoral conduct, she hoped to provide
me
with the only permissible excuse for breaking off our engagement.”

“And do you intend to use that excuse?” The question was asked quite calmly, but Francis was under no illusions as to the importance of his answer. As far as he knew, Benedict Clare assumed that he was in the presence
of a betrayed fiancé, one who might well seize the opportunity for revenge.

“Not without a great deal more persuasion that it is in Bri’s best interests,” he said with due consideration. “Sir Edward adores her, but I can’t see him becoming easily reconciled to the idea that his daughter is a fornicator. I suspect Bri’s plan is rather more elaborate and will involve the presentation of an alternative future that will satisfy her father—a future in which I assume you are to figure largely.” Again his eyebrows lifted interrogatively.

Ben sighed. “Do not misunderstand me, Cullum. If it were possible, I would have it so. But it is not.”

Francis’s eyes narrowed. “Why should it not be possible, Clare? You cannot mean to abandon her.”

A change came over Benedict Clare. His expression hardened, his eyes becoming flat and cold as ebony. “What lies between Bryony and myself, Cullum, now or in the future, is no concern of yours. You will do well to remember that, despite Bryony’s foolish attempt to involve you.”

“You forget that I am betrothed to her,” Francis snapped. “It seems to me that what lies between you two is very much my business.”

Ben shook his head, his lips tightening. “As I understand it, Cullum, your betrothal is in name only. Bryony could break it at any moment she chooses, if she were prepared to expose you to considerable unpleasantness.”

Francis paled. “She told you? I cannot believe she would do such a thing.”

The tight anger left Benedict, and both face and voice softened. “She told me a long time ago, Cullum, at a time when the possibility that you and I should meet was so remote as to escape consideration. It was a problem
much exercising her at the time. I don’t think you should consider it a betrayal. She had no such intention.”

Francis chewed on a knuckle for a minute, then he shrugged. “So be it. You may despise me as you please, Clare. It could hardly matter less.”

“I do not despise you,” Ben said gently. “Apart from the fact that I could never despise anyone whom Bryony holds so dear, I am not in a position to judge you in anything and would not presume to do so.” He paused, then continued in the same quiet fashion. “I would ask the same courtesy of you. Bryony will come to no harm at my hands.”

“And suppose you should get her with child? Not even Bryony’s ingenuity would be able to find a way around that.”

Ben scratched his head thoughtfully. “I suppose you have a right to ask the question, although it is somewhat personal. You may rest assured that I have become most scrupulous in ensuring that such a thing will not happen.” He did not add that, having had one stroke of good fortune in avoiding such a consequence, he had not been prepared to tempt providence a second time.

A dull pink tinged Francis’s cheekbones at this undeniably intimate revelation, but no suitable response seemed to come to mind, so he merely nodded.

“Then can we agree to let this matter rest?” inquired Benedict.

“As far as I am concerned,” replied his companion, “but I do not think Bri will be so easily put off.”

“I think you can leave that to me.” Ben held out his hand. “She will not suffer, I swear it.”

Francis took the proffered hand but said gravely, “She
may not suffer physically, but the wounds of the spirit are sometimes the worst.”

“Do you think I don’t know that, man?” Ben exploded with shocking suddenness. “In that we will both suffer. But there are times when one must accept the blows fate deals.” Turning, he strode off with the long, loping stride that gave physical expression to his surge of agitation.

Francis followed slowly. He could do nothing to resolve Clare’s problems, whatever they might be, which were keeping Bryony and her lover from the conventional consummation, but he could take into his own hands those problems that concerned him. If he were out of the way, Bryony would have one less impediment, and for the first time, Francis saw a solution.

B
en broke from the thicket and marched across the lawn, back to the house. A welter of emotions roiled in his head: anger with Bryony, and with himself because he should have known from experience that she would not meekly accept a proscription without just cause; anticipatory pain for both of them at the certainty of the grief they were going to feel when the time for parting came; sorrow at the nearness of that parting; and irritation at the knowledge that Francis Cullum now knew that there was more to Benedict Clare than met the eye. Inadvertently, Cullum might pass on this impression to others. Once the seeds of suspicion were sown, there was no knowing what monstrous crop they would produce.

He reached the terrace, his intention to seek out Miss Paget without further ado and express his opinion of her foolhardy action in no uncertain terms. But the voice, the voice from the nightmare past, shivered him into immobility. The bright day dimmed, and cold fingers
groped his spine, lifting the scarred skin of his back to the memory of horror.

Roger Martin, his nasal twang rising above Sir Edward’s even tenor, stepped out onto the terrace. He was sweating profusely in heavy broadcloth, an elaborately curled and powdered wig contrasting with the raddled cheeks, the pale blue eyes bloodshot as he raised his tankard of brandy and drank deep. “Those damn rebels have sent General Gates to take command of their forces in the South,” he boomed. “But he’ll do no better than Lincoln, you mark my words.”

“It’s to be hoped not,” Paget said. “I much appreciate your bringing us this news, Martin.” He saw Benedict, still standing at the edge of the terrace. “Ah, Mr. Clare, we have another visitor. Mr. Martin has traveled from Georgia to bring word to Major Ferguson from Cornwallis.” Smiling, Sir Edward introduced Benedict Clare to the man Ben had sworn to see dead.

Somehow, the icy death lock holding his muscles rigid began to relax, and Benedict stepped forward. His mouth moved and conventional words came forth. His eyes showed nothing. Martin frowned and shook his head as if puzzled by something. “Met before, haven’t we?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Ben replied without a flicker, the soft lilt in his voice rather more pronounced than usual. “I have not been in the South very long. In fact, I only arrived in the Colonies three months since.”

Martin shook his head again. “Must be mistaken.” He drained his tankard. “Somethin’ demmed familiar about you, though.” He turned away rudely as if Benedict Clare could hold no further interest for him and, espying Major Ferguson, bellowed a greeting and stalked off.

“Brandy this early in the day tends to confuse,” Ben murmured gently, and Sir Edward tendered a rueful smile.

“Martin works untiringly for the king’s cause,” he offered as if apologizing for the presence of such a one under his roof. Ben had little difficulty imagining Paget’s discomfort. The Englishman was courteous in the extreme, and transgressions of the rules of correct social congress would be bound to offend, even while, as host, he could not allow such a reaction to show. Roger Martin might be a vicious, boorish drunkard, but he was as much entitled to impeccable, unstinting hospitality as the most mild-mannered abstainer.

“D’ye mind missing Sunday prayers, Clare?” Paget asked now. “The ladies will attend, of course, but Martin’s news needs discussion, and Lady Paget will be most upset if the picnic has to be postponed for business. She has her heart set on it.”

Benedict made the correct response, and Paget went off to round up those others whose religious commitments could be as easily displaced. Ben, knowing that he must have a few minutes of absolute privacy in which to deal with this shattering turn of events—the arrival of his former master, the man who still legally owned his labor—went off in the direction of the guesthouse. Once he was able to absorb the shock, to bring the overpowering, destructive hatred under control again, he would be able to decide what steps were now necessary.

Bryony, making polite if abstracted conversation with a group of young ladies poring over the engraved illustrations of the latest fashions in an edition of
The Lady’s Magazine
, felt rather than saw Ben passing by the long drawing room window. She had been waiting for his
reappearance with mingled anxiety and eagerness. A confrontation was inevitable and she found herself unsure whether her anxiety to avert his anger was greater than either her own annoyance at his high-handedness or her eagerness to discover what had transpired between the two men. With a muttered excuse, she left the circle and went into the hall, sauntering with apparent aimlessness onto the terrace. There was no sign of Ben, but he had been going in the direction of the guesthouse, and she turned her steps unhurriedly along the same route.

Once round the corner, out of sight of all but a couple of gardeners trimming the box hedges, she saw him striding rapidly along the path ahead, the tails of his coat of blue superfine flying under the speed of his progress. Although hampered by her hooped petticoat, she hastened her step, almost running along the gravel. “Ben!” His pace did not slow, and she was afraid to call louder; her running in this fashion looked strange enough. He reached the low brick building with its gabled roof and went in through the open front door. Bryony pounded in after him. “Ben!” she called, breathless, her throat aching.

He turned in the small square hallway, his hand on the latch of the door that gave onto his own chamber. “Not now.”

He seemed to look right through her, Bryony thought with that now familiar tingle of dread. She put her hand on his arm. “Ben, I must talk to you.”

“Not now!”
The harshness grated, raw, flaying, and he shrugged off her hand, swinging away to enter his chamber, slamming the door.

Bryony stared at the closed door and swallowed the
threatening tears. He had withdrawn from her again, refusing to discuss what lay between them. It was a tactic that had had consistently bad results in the past. Stiffening her shoulder blades, she put her hand on the latch.

“Ben, we have to talk.” She spoke as she pushed the door open and then stopped, transfixed in the doorway. Ben stood in the middle of the room, his face a mask, wiped clean of all personality, all expression, the black eyes looking at something not in this quiet room—something that could have no possible existence in this quiet, well-ordered luxury. A miasma seemed to take shape around him, defiling all that her father’s peace and comfort stood for, and Bryony stepped back into the hall, closing the door softly behind her….

Ben was standing again on the dockside at Charleston, filthy, bearded, crawling with vermin from long months spent at sea, shackled hand and foot. He was indistinguishable from his fellow convicts except for the set of his head, which not the vilest degradation could lower, and the directness of his eyes, which met—with an arrogant defiance of his position—the appraising stares of those who had come to buy.

Roger Martin had examined him as if he were cattle and had laughed in his face when he had encountered the proud glare. He had demanded that he lower his eyes, and when Ben had refused, had cut open his cheek with the pony lash. The buyers knew only the number of years of servitude they were purchasing, had no interest in the crimes or the identities of the bondsmen. Thieves, murderers, political extremists—it mattered not a whit, so long as they could be drained of every last drop of strength in labor for those who bought them.
They could be used as their owners pleased. If they died in service, who was to ask why? Unlike slaves, who were a lifetime’s investment and needed the care one accorded such possessions, bondsmen were purchased for a limited period, and there seemed little point in wasting money on food, clothes, and a roof. It was cheaper to work them until they dropped; there were always more to take their places.