Chase the Dawn (49 page)

“What in Hades …?” Ben ran forward and collared the screaming Ned, whose legs continued to race even while he was held fast.

“Light-fingered little varmint!” The trooper, breathing heavily, came to a stop beside them. “That’s my cheese, ’e’s got! Whipped it outta my pack, quick as a flash, ’e did. Born to thievin’, ’e is.”

“It’s for Bryny!” Ned shrieked, still kicking. “It’s for Bryny!”

The elusive pieces slowly drifted and fell into place, forming the complete, horrible picture. “Give it back, Ned,” Ben commanded quietly. “And say you are sorry for taking it.”

With obvious reluctance, the child handed over the piece of cloth-wrapped cheese, since the hand on his collar was making a very definite statement. He mumbled words that could have been taken as apology, and Ben offered his own as simply as he could in the face of his hideous embarrassment. Everyone in Charlotte knew that Colonel Clare had two dependents, his wife and a stray child. It would not take many minutes for the story to be around the town. He could only hope and pray that the incident would be put down to an understandable aberration of childhood and the blame not laid where it was due—at least, not by anyone but himself.

“He needs a good wallopin’, if you ask me,” the soldier said, recovering his property.

Not
he
, Ben thought with savage emphasis. How could she have been so blind to every personal consideration? To his position? To the child’s outlook? Still holding
Ned by the collar, he stalked off in the direction of the cottage.

Bryony was darning a much-darned stocking of Ben’s when the cottage door crashed open. Ned began speaking, the words tumbling from his lips. “I got some cheese, Bryny, but Ben made me give it back.”

“And if you ever again take anything that does not belong to you, my friend, I’ll skin you alive!” Ben said with a quiet ferocity that could not be ignored. “Go outside, but you are not to leave the garden.” He sent the boy through the door with a smart tap on his rear and shut the door, turning slowly, placing his back against it, to look at Bryony.

She was rather pale but laid down the stocking, saying, “He was only trying to help. It is not his fault.”

“I am well aware at whose door to lay this!” His black eyes were pinpricks of fury. “Do you know the punishment for thievery and looting in this army?”

She did. “Thirty lashes. But I am not in the army.”

“But
I
am!” he rasped.

“Ben, listen to me.” She spoke quickly now, sensing that they were teetering on the brink of an abyss of some unknown depth. “I have done nothing that is not routinely practiced.”

“Why do you think Greene is imposing such harsh penalties?” demanded Benedict. “Because it has become an epidemic.”

“And with good reason.” She continued to find her words easily, to speak calmly, explaining the position as she saw it—unpleasant, certainly, but unarguable. “Some people have food, Benedict, and they will not share it. I cannot pay what they ask for even one egg,
after I have bought milk. It is robbery of another kind. I have merely evened the score.”

“You have wantonly deceived me!” The voice did not sound like Ben’s. She had seen his anger in various manifestations but never this naked blade that she knew with a sick conviction would strike at the jugular. “You have forced my connivance in a crime.”

“It is not a crime in the ordinary sense,” she cried, losing her calm. “We were hungry.”

“God dammit, my wife does not steal to put food on
my
table!” He seized her upper arms, forcing her to her feet, and Bryony felt the quickening of real fear.

“It is
our
table,” she said.

Outside, Charlie Carter stood for a minute, a bleak look on his face as the raised voices carried. Ned’s hand slipped into his, cold and small. Charlie looked down at the child and saw fear of the unknown standing out in his eyes. “Come on, Ned, let us go for a walk.”

“It is
my
table.” Ben’s fingers bruised her arms, bringing tears to her eyes. “I have said that I look to my own. And I will do so.”

Something snapped. Whether it was the anger and fear brought on by the fact that he was hurting her, whether it was the injustice of it all, the blind refusal to acknowledge reality, she didn’t know. But she hit back. “You do not have the wherewithal to look to your own.” She regretted the words the instant they were spoken.

“You think I am not conscious of that?” His voice grated, and he shook her with each word, almost as if he were not aware of her as living flesh. “You would throw such a failure in my face! Well, let me tell you that while you remain as my wife, you will have to manage on what I
can
provide! It may not suit a Paget, but I fear that this
Paget will have to learn her place as the wife of an indigent soldier! Do you understand me?” He let her go with an abrupt push that sent her reeling against the table. She stood looking at him, arms crossed over her breasts as she rubbed her bruised flesh, her eyes wide with shock.

Grim-faced and breathing heavily, Ben fought to bring himself under control, and the silence stretched between them, throbbing with the raw emotion of the last few dreadful minutes. “I beg your pardon, I did not mean to hurt you,” he said in a deadened tone. “When Cornwallis comes within marching distance, I will send you over to your father. Until then, you must make do with what is available.”

Every word was a stab to the heart. “I do not wish to leave you,” she managed to say at long last, through a throat dry as if clogged with sand. “I wished only to play my part. It does not seem reasonable that you should carry the full burden alone.”

“You are my wife,” he said, as if that was answer enough. “If you find that you do not care for what that means in its entirety, then you must leave.”

“And may a wife not attempt to share her husband’s burdens?” she asked quietly. “The role of parasite sits uneasy in my craw.”

“Your misguided actions have simply added to my burdens,” he told her with cold, flat finality. “In future, I would be grateful if you would confine your aid to those areas in which I request it. And you will account to my satisfaction for everything that comes into this house.”

“And what of later? When this damnable war is over and we must make a life together? What then, Benedict?
Must I sit in a corner and twiddle my thumbs because your damned pride will not allow you to accept aid from those in a position to give it?” She heard her voice as if from a great distance. She did not wish to be following this path, not now, when Ben was this cold, angry stranger. But they had somehow found themselves upon it, and it had to be faced at some point. There was so much anger and hurt between them already that maybe it could not be worsened by this related issue.

“And whose aid do you have in mind?” he asked, his eyes opaque, his body very still. “I was under the impression that you had thrown in your lot willingly with a vagrant who has neither family nor fortune to protect you. Did you perhaps not fully understand what that would entail?” Mockery laced his voice. “I have no plans for when this war is over—if I am still here to make plans. But I do not foresee a life of ease, in the great house on a large plantation, for myself or for my wife.”

“I do not ask for it.” She swallowed, trying to find the right words. “I pledged myself to embrace your life and your cause, Benedict. But that does not have to mean that I can bring nothing of my own, does it?” A spurt of flame from the fire lit the dim room for a minute, and Ben looked at her, seeing the worried eyes, the taut leanness of her body, the rough skin of her hands, the broken nails, the ragged gown. She did not even have a decent pair of shoes!

“And what have you to bring?” he demanded, his voice harsh. She was not to know that the harshness was directed at himself for having reduced her to this pauper’s state.

“I am an heiress—” She stopped as all trace of color left his face and he looked as if felled by a body blow.
Summoning every vestige of courage, she continued. “When this war is over, I can make peace with my father.”

“You think for one minute that I would accept Paget blood money?” His voice shook and he took a step toward her. Bryony shrank back against the table. “Money that is wrested from the pores of those wretches …”

“I am sorry,” Bryony whispered, feeling the hard edge of the table pressing into her thighs as she bent backward, desperately trying to put some distance between herself and this livid stranger. “Please, Ben, let us not mention it again. I only thought that perhaps when it was all over you would feel differently.”

He gripped her jaw, and his eyes, no longer opaque, were sword points of contempt. “I do not understand how you could have thought such a thing, after everything that I have told you. You are no different from the rest of your breed, Bryony Paget. You imagine such things as I have told you can be banished at will in the interests of expediency?” He flung her face from him with an expression of disgust and left the cottage, the door slamming in his wake.

Bryony turned and crouched over the table as sobs wracked her, welling, it seemed, from the depths of her stomach, filling her whole body to overflowing. One day he would have to lose the hatred or be forever corroded by bitterness. She had thought, oh, so foolishly, that this war would exorcise the demon—had almost done so. But never before had he looked at her like that. Even when she had got in the way of his hatred, she had known that it was not really her he was seeing with such bitter distaste. Today, it
had
been her.

“Whatever is it?” Charlie, his voice resonant with
distress, stepped into the cottage. He came over to her, stroking her back as she huddled bent over the table. “Bryony, what is it? Do not cry like that. You will do yourself some harm.” Helplessly, he continued to pat her back, but the weeping would not stop, shuddering the slender frame. Ned began to wail in fright at this collapse of one of the props of his existence, and Charlie swore, violently but uselessly. Ben had caused this, whatever it was, and Ben was going to have to put it right.

Charlie stormed out of the cottage, for once furious with the man whom he loved and admired as if he were an adored elder brother. Bryony’s stealing at this juncture in the reestablishment of regular army discipline had been enough to make anyone annoyed; Charlie was more than willing to concede that, but Ben must have done something dreadful to cause such piteous distress.

Benedict was in the churchyard, and there was nothing about his countenance to encourage confidence, but Charlie was not deterred. “What did you do to Bryony?” he demanded without preamble.

Ben frowned as if the younger man were an impertinent subordinate. “I fail to see what business it is of yours.”

Charlie flushed angrily. “She is weeping as if her heart is broken, and now Ned has started. You must have done something.”

Ben sighed with weary irritation. “What are you accusing me of, Charlie—beating her?”

“Of course not.” Charlie shuffled his feet restlessly on the grass. “It’s none of my business, and she should never have done it, I know. But I am sure she just did not think—”

“Charlie, that is not really the issue. While I appreciate your concern for Bryony, I must repeat, I do not welcome interference in my affairs.”

Charlie, thoroughly discomfited, could only mutter an apology and walk away with as much dignity as he could muster. When he returned to the cottage much later, it was to find Bryony white-faced and red-eyed but perfectly composed. Ned was subdued but showed no other ill effects of the morning. Benedict greeted them all in neutral tones when he came in, his face showing neither anger nor pleasure.

Supper was a meager, cheerless meal of watery broth and a heel of rye bread that Bryony had toasted over the fire. She toyed with her soup and gave her share of the toast to Ned, whose appetite was unimpaired by the day’s events. Ben’s lips tightened as he saw her slip the bread onto the child’s platter, but he said nothing. They lay that night, side by side as always, beneath the same blanket. But the distance between them was like a frozen tundra—icy and infinite.

The following morning, Nathanael Greene revealed the plan for his first move against the British. It was breathtaking in its audacity, and most certainly guaranteed to take Cornwallis by surprise.

“We go west and you go east,” announced Daniel Morgan with a rich chuckle at the end of the exposition. “You reckon the earl will divide his own forces, Nathanael?”

“What would you do?” Greene’s eyes gleamed. “Unless I very much mistake the matter, he will send Banastre Tarleton after you—a small force, for why would he need an army against such a puny strength? If
you can deprive him of his light corps, then our sinews will be much braced.”

“To horse, gentlemen.” Morgan stood up, a hard, sturdy rock, radiating energy. “We’ll crack a whip over Colonel Ban, I swear it.”

Only Benedict Clare showed no responsive enthusiasm, and Charlie knew well the reason. What was to be done about Bryony and Ned? Horses would be found for Ben and Charlie, but the army could not be expected to mount a man’s family.

In the evening, they went back to the cottage in silence. The march westward into South Carolina would begin at dawn. Greene would take the rest of the army along the heights of the Pee Dee River, some one hundred forty miles to the east. There would be no place for an unmounted woman and child with that force, either.

“If only Cornwallis were closer.” Ben spoke his thoughts, startling in the heavy silence. “Her father is with him.”

“Is that what she would wish?” Charlie ventured hesitantly.

“Wishes have little relevance at the moment.” There was no sharpness in the comment, and Charlie realized that it was not meant as rebuke. “If I leave them here, at least they have a roof over their heads. We can perhaps scrounge some provisions from the stores, and, after all—” he gave a short laugh that did not convey humor “—my wife is not unable to care for herself.”

Bryony listened in silence as Benedict told her of the situation. He spoke to her as if he were briefing a troop of soldiers, calm, matter-of-fact, explanatory. It was not the way a man would propose a separation of untold hardship to his wife. When he had stopped talking,
waiting for a response, his face without expression, she got up and went over to a portmanteau in the corner. She drew from it the little velvet pouch that she had taken from her bedroom in another life.