Chase the Dawn (54 page)

“Up!” Ben yelled. “Let me use your shoulders, man.” The soldier bent, and Ben leaped from his shoulders, over the wall and into the redoubt, the rest following his example. And then it was impossible to think of anything but the need to slash and not be slashed in a few moments of violent, hand-to-hand fighting that eventually cleared the redoubt.

Ben found Charlie bleeding copiously from a bayonet thrust to his thigh, but he was conscious and capable of a feeble grin, so he left him to await the surgeon, who was already being led through the darkness to attend to the wounded of both sides.

The second redoubt fell to the French in much the same manner, and in the gray light of the following dawn, a stunned Cornwallis stood on the parapet at Yorktown and stared at the new enemy siege line, a stone’s throw from the town. The bombardment increased in violence, and Bryony, in a weird trance that was neither sleeping nor waking, listened in the cave
throughout the day as finally it was agreed that matters had become unendurable.

Sir Edward, his face bleak, eyes sunken with grief, came over to her. “There is no hope left here. Cornwallis is going to attempt a retreat across the river to Gloucester. It seems the only way to avoid the mortification of surrender. I am bound to go with him in the second wave, but you stay here and await your husband.”

“I doubt he will welcome me,” she said wearily. “But I will not run from him.”

The first wave of men went across the river just before midnight, but they were the only ones to achieve the south shore. A freak storm blew down the river, whipping the water into a turbulent boil that made further sailing impossible. At sunrise, the bombardment began again, a hundred cannons ripping through the fortifications, forcing the embrasures closed, so that no offensive response was possible.

Cornwallis, in the headquarters cave beneath the cliff, faced the prospect of sacrificing the few soldiers left un-wounded or not sick of the fever, and he bowed his head in submission. Bryony felt and shared the aching grief in those desperate moments of acceptance. It showed on every haggard, disillusioned face. Six years they had fought to be brought to this moment. It occurred to Bryony, through the mists of her own exhaustion, that if Benedict Clare could have witnessed this scene, he would have found his revenge sweet. Was the appetite for vengeance insatiable? Would this satisfy him, leave him purged?

Benedict Clare was in the front line when the drummer boy clambered upon a British parapet and began the steady drumroll. The sound could not be heard above
the firing, and Benedict sent the word to silence the guns. Into the abruptly shattering quiet of a cold early morning in October, the call for parley sounded, the most beautiful sound that Benedict thought he had ever heard.

It was the next morning, however, before he was free to enter Yorktown. His eyes took in death and destruction on all sides as he looked fearfully in the craters, among the bodies for the shape that was imprinted upon his own. It seemed impossible to believe that anyone could be alive in this charnel house.

He saw her at the end of the street and knew that she had seen him, was waiting for him. His soul expanded to receive the rush of joy, of love, of unutterable relief as he walked steadily toward her. She brushed her hair away from her face in that gesture of uncertainty that wrung his heart.

A man appeared at her side. A man who stood tall in the face of defeat, the white hair shining in the cool autumn sunlight, the blue eyes as direct and fearless as his daughter’s. Paget laid a hand on her shoulder. A hand of reassurance or affirmation? Benedict wondered as he approached them. What would she say to him?

But when he reached them, he saw in her eyes that it was up to him to speak first. She had already spoken when she had told him of her need to make herself whole again. He had offered her nothing then. Now he held out his hand to her father, knowing that it was the only statement he could make.

“Sir Edward.”

“Clare.” The hand that gripped his was warm, dry, and firm—not the hand of a beaten man. And not the hand of an ungenerous man. “It seems that I must give
my daughter away in rather unusual circumstances.” An eyebrow quirked. He took Bryony’s hand and laid it in Benedict’s. “Go with your husband, daughter. It was the choice you made freely, and you must now return to his side. When there are no longer divisions, then we will come together again.”

“Come,” Ben said softly to her. “If you will.” She lifted her face in answer, to receive her husband’s kiss.

That night, as she lay in his arms in a tiny tent beneath a clear, star-decorated sky, in the amazing stillness that followed the battering of the last days, she said softly yet firmly, “I cannot go to watch the surrender, Benedict. I will return to Williamsburg and retrieve Ned. You can join me there when the formalities are done.”

He stroked her hair in the darkness, thinking of the scene that would be played out on the surrender field: the columns of British and German soldiers, marching to the drum that would beat the dirge of vanquishment, marching between the conquering lines of American and French to lay down their arms, regiment by regiment, following the inexorable rule of defeat; to return empty-handed between the same victorious lines, back to Yorktown to await disposition as prisoners. It was not a spectacle that he would witness with any satisfaction, he realized.

Tranquillity settled upon him, bright and gauzy as a blanket of butterfly wings. “I have neither need nor desire to be there, either, sweeting. We will return to Williamsburg together.”

B
ryony really should not be running around in this heat. And she does not even have a hat on.” Eliza Paget fanned herself vigorously. The May afternoon was hot, and the waters of the James River shimmered below the overlooking garden. “Cannot you do something about it, Benedict?”

Ben looked up from the chessboard. His opponent offered him a small, conspiratorial smile, which he returned before staring across the garden to where Bryony was instructing Ned in the intricacies of the croquet lawn. “I could try, ma’am,” he said. Sir Edward Paget chuckled, and then moved his bishop, uniting his rooks in preparation for a concerted attack on the queen’s file.

“Lass?” Ben called, his voice carrying easily. Bryony knocked her ball through the hoop and straightened up, swinging her mallet as she squinted against the sun.

“Do you want me?”

“Aye.” He crooked a finger and she crossed the grass, smiling, Ned at her heels, remarkably unwaiflike in his nankeen britches and pristine linen.

Ben could feel his mouth curving with pleasure, his eyes filling with his joy as he watched her approach. He had loved her as a bruised and battered stray with no identity; as the beautiful, cultivated daughter of the privileged; as the lean and hungry campaigner, dirty and tattered, yet always unbowed; and now, as the bearer of life, her skin translucent with an inner radiance, the inhabited eyes glowing, the unmistakable swell of her belly thrusting against the muslin of her gown, her breasts pressing, full and rich, against her bodice. He would never be able to decide which facet of his wife he loved the most.

“Your mama wishes you to sit in the shade and rest,” he told her with the utmost gravity. “It is a very hot afternoon.”

“Oh, pshaw! I have endured much worse than this, Mama!” Bryony expostulated.

“Yes, that may be so, but you were not then in a …”

“Delicate condition.” Bryony rescued her mother, who still could not manage to refer to intimate matters, even in this male company. “I am perfectly well and not in the least need of coddling.”

Benedict surveyed his options on the board and shook his head. “I cannot seem to avert a mate in two, sir.” He toppled over his black king with a flick of his finger, and held out his hand to his father-in-law. Then he turned back to his wife, a wicked gleam in the hawk’s eyes. “If you will not sit in the shade, sweeting, then I fear you must rest upon your bed during the heat of the afternoon.”

Her mouth formed a mischievous pout. “But I am not in the least fatigued.”

“Nevertheless, I must insist.” He rose from his chair.

“Yes, you are quite right to do so,” Eliza said with a nod of satisfaction, quite missing the laughter in her husband’s eyes, occupied as he was with the chessboard while he replaced the pieces.

“Ned, is it not time you returned to Mr. Blake?” Ben glanced down at the boy, who had clambered onto his vacated seat at the chessboard and was assisting Sir Edward in setting up the board, a frown of concentration on the small face as his fingers moved unerringly.

“I do not like Mr. Blake,” Ned announced in tones that could not be gainsaid. “He hurt my hand.” A small palm was upturned, revealing the blister of a ferrule.

“Oh, I will not permit that!” exclaimed Bryony, outraged. “Why did he punish you, Ned?”

The child’s frown deepened as he thought. Then he shrugged as if the matter were of no further interest. “Can’t remember.”

Ben chuckled. “Clearly it did not make a lasting impression. But I will speak to Blake later.”

“He will learn more by playing chess with me this afternoon than he will in the schoolroom,” said Sir Edward.

Since no one was inclined to argue with Sir Edward’s views on education, they left a contented Ned and an equally contented patriarch, and made their way to the guesthouse, where they had been in residence for the last few months, Benedict, for the moment, content to have it so. Bryony needed to reestablish much with her parents, and if she wished to give birth in her family’s home, the new, unburdened Benedict would not stand in her way.

“I have tried to explain to Mr. Blake that Ned is not an ordinary child,” Bryony said, her forehead puckered, as
they went into the cool, dim hallway. “He is not yet accustomed to the usual rules. But Blake cannot understand.”

“Then, we will find a tutor who can.” Ben flicked his fingertips against her bottom, encouraging her into the bedchamber. “Ned’s affairs are not uppermost in my mind at present.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows lifted. “And what could be more important, pray?”

Benedict did not answer the question, which was purely rhetorical, anyway. He unbuttoned her gown, sliding it off her shoulders before brushing away the thin straps of her underdress, baring her to the waist. His palms, gentle in their awareness of the tenderness of pregnancy, globed the full swell of her breasts. His lips pressed into the hollow of her throat as he pushed her clothes to the floor, a rich, lace-edged puddle around her ankles.

“Ben, there is something I have been meaning to ask you since this morning.” Bryony caught his chin and pulled his head up firmly. “I cannot concentrate until you tell me. My father wanted to talk about marriage settlements, and I did not know how to answer him. Did he mention it to you?”

“Lie down,” he instructed softly, stroking the round hardness of her belly.

“But did he?” Bryony insisted, her hand instinctively covering his as they both made contact with the life within. “I told him that he must talk to you alone, because it was something that lay between you and him….”

“Lie down!” An imperative crackle entered his voice, and he pushed her backward onto the soft featherbed.
The sweeping strokes continued over her belly, and his tongue dipped into her navel.

“Tell me!” She struggled to resist the creeping melt that would erode all clarity. Her fingers curled in the burnished hair, shining dark against the white of her abdomen.

Ben raised his head but cupped his hand over the moistening apex of her thighs. “I told your father that he should make whatever settlements he chose upon you, including the estate upriver. I would not, through selfish pride, oblige you to live as the wife of a pauper. I will manage the estate, but I will have nothing in my name.”

Bryony lay very still. It was only what she had expected, after all. But she had hoped for a yielding.

Benedict smiled and a finger probed with soft insistence. Her body stirred in response. “Your father said that he did not feel it appropriate for a man to be his wife’s pensioner. Particularly when the wife in question was as strong-willed as mine. A sad fact, for which your father confessed that he bore considerable responsibility.” A teasing note was in his voice, his eyes holding hers as the questing finger continued its work and he could feel the tension leave her. “He wished the man who will father Paget grandchildren to stake a claim on some part of his estate.”

“And …?” Breathlessly, she searched his face, saw only serenity, touched with amusement.

“And, lass, I said that if it would satisfy him, then I would lay claim to the Paget land in Ireland.” He bent his head to nuzzle the rosy crest of one breast, but Bryony pushed him from her, struggling upright.

“Do not play games with me, Benedict Clare. Not
about such matters!” Her eyes sparked fire, and he laughed softly.

“I am not playing games, sweeting. It struck me—belatedly, I will confess—that if I cannot cure the ills of a nation, I can, at least, ease the lot of some.”

Bryony examined it and found it good. “So, you will use the revenues to improve the lives of the tenants?”