Chase the Dawn (9 page)

He went down to the creek, leaving Bryony to wrestle with recalcitrant vegetables, and to reflect that, in truth, she still knew very little of the man. His history was as closed to her as her own, and was likely to remain so if Benedict had anything to say about it. It was a history that had scarred him, and she was somehow convinced that the worst scars were those she could neither see nor touch.

A
stray wisp of raven’s-wing hair was tickling Ben’s nose. Smiling, he moved it aside and rolled over to examine the hair’s sleeping owner. Miss Bryony was, he decided complacently, a little too good to be true. Long summer days in the sun had kissed her complexion with a delicate gold and produced a most surprising scattering of freckles over the bridge of her small, slightly upturned nose. A certain deep contentment, engendered by the soul’s peace and the body’s fulfillment, lent a suppleness to her features, a translucency to her skin, a languid grace to her movements. The slight hesitancy of the unsure had yielded to the full, rounded beauty of the mature woman—one who took as much pleasure in the giving as she did in the receiving.

His smile broadened as he slowly drew the blanket down her body, carefully because he didn’t want to wake her just yet; he wished to savor the moments when her body lay in all its sensual beauty, for the moment uninhabited by the vigorous spirit, the bubbling energy, the eagerly inquiring mind that led her to plunge into
new experiences, from baiting fish hooks to making love in company with the fish in the creek. The lady’s soft and so very white hands were now brown, the nails broken and not always perfectly clean.

It was near impossible to look and not touch, Ben decided, teasing himself with his restraint as he allowed his hands to imagine that they were globing the small, soft hillocks of her breasts, now flattened over her rib cage as she lay on her back, arms flung above her head, hands curled like those of a sleeping child. Just the lightest flick of his fingertip, and the sleep-tight buds of her nipples would lift and harden and her hips would writhe in sympathetic arousal.

He allowed his gaze to roam with lazy anticipation over the delineation of her ribs, the slender curve of waist and belly, the soft flare of her hips, the raven-black fleece at the apex of her thighs. With a little sigh of resignation, he yielded to the inevitability of needy passion and placed his hand at that apex, fingering the mound beneath the silky fleece, one questing finger pursuing its own course until she stirred, her hips lifting, a contented little moan escaping her lips, parted in the relaxation of sleep.

Bryony luxuriated in the twilight world of half sleep, where nothing existed but this dreamy arousal as lips nuzzled, a tongue stroked hot and demanding, teeth nibbled with playful intensity, and hands possessed every inch of her sleep-warmed skin until the prickles of pleasure ran like wild fire, connecting every nerve ending, until she was forced to abandon all pretense of sleep and enter the world of powerful sensations that refused to be denied.

He rolled her onto her side, her back to him, molding
himself against her curved shape so that he could continue to play, to probe, and to stroke over the exquisitely sensitive center of her arousal as he slid within her moist, welcoming chamber. His breath rustled against her neck on an exhalation of supreme joy when his turgid flesh, in throbbing intensity, found its home. Bryony whispered her own pleasure, moving backward against him, her bottom warm against the taut flatness of his belly as she held him within the enclosure of her body.

“I’ve a powerful need, sweeting,” he murmured into her hair. “Bear with me.”

She smiled, a woman’s secret smile at the knowledge of her power to arouse and of her unique ability to satisfy that arousal. Her body softened, welcoming his release, and she drew her own pleasure from this moment of giving, knowing in her newfound wisdom that the pleasures of loving came in many and varied forms and it was not necessary for two always to share the same form at the same moment. Her own moment came, as she had known it would, when the inexorable spiral of sensation coiled her body beneath his fingers, clamped the muscles in belly and thighs, and her blood sang in the joy of expectancy; then the spiral burst asunder, the coil unraveled, and utter languor flowed like butterscotch through her veins.

Later that morning, Bryony, according to instruction, was husking ears of Indian corn. Benedict, a preoccupied frown corrugating his brow, paused in the process of untangling a fishing line that she had earlier contrived to snarl in the branches of an overhanging tree by the creek. “There is going to be a slight disturbance in the even tenor of our existence, lass.”

Bryony looked at him curiously. The announcement had been made in that soft, determined tone that she knew meant business and certainly would not permit objections. Did it mean that he was expecting her to object to whatever he was about to say? “A pleasant disturbance?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not really. But tonight I have something planned—something that means I must put you in a safe place, in the care of one who will be able to look after you until you regain your memory in case I should find that I cannot.”

“If you’re killed or taken?” Bryony demanded directly. A small nod was her answer. “What are you going to do?”

“The less you know, the better, lass.” He frowned over a particularly recalcitrant knot in the line. “I must teach you to be a little less enthusiastic when you cast.”

“Oh, bother the fishing line!” she said with a gesture of impatience. “Why won’t you tell me what you’re planning? I know so much already, what difference can it make?”

“You know a great deal more than I am happy with,” he informed her in the same soft tones. “I am not about to add to the sum.”

“Then I’ll husk no more corn.” Bryony tossed the ear to the ground and glared at him.

“Then you’ll have no dinner,” he responded, serenely unperturbed. “After the dinner that you won’t be having if you refuse to do your share, I shall be taking you to the farm of a friend of mine. His wife will care for you until I return.”

“He, of course, will be going with you.” Bryony resumed work on the corn. She was always far too hungry
these days to contemplate going supperless over a pointless defiance that would not achieve her object anyway.

“That is so.” He smiled at her. “Don’t scowl, lass. If the wind changes, your face will be stuck like that, and it is not at all pretty.”

That made her laugh, as he had known it would. “My nurse used to say that to me.”

“What was her name?” He asked the question casually, hoping, as always, that this unexpected memory, produced so naturally, would start a chain reaction.

But Bryony shook her head ruefully. “I do not recall. But she did say it.”

“How can you be so sure it was a nurse and not your mother, perhaps?”

“I don’t know.” A look of desolation crossed the mobile countenance. “How long is this going to continue, Ben? It is so frustrating to have these little, tantalizing glimpses into the abyss and then … nothing!”

“Just give it time.” Ben smiled reassuringly as he stood up with the now untangled fishing line. “Come along. Let’s see if you can catch our dinner without catching a tree first.”

Bryony did what she could to put aside thoughts of the coming night. It was clear that Benedict intended to be no more forthcoming than he had been, which left her in possession of remarkably few facts and a wealth of anxious uncertainty. She did not want to be disposed of like a child in need of a caretaker, but neither did she want to spend the night alone in the cabin wondering if he would ever return. If only he would tell her what he was going to do, then the dread would at least have a shape, and she could perhaps calculate his chances of returning safely.

“You’re not concentrating,” Ben chided, standing behind her, holding her hands tight around the fishing rod. “What did I just tell you to do?”

Bryony nibbled her bottom lip. Even if she had not been preoccupied with her fears of the coming night, she would have found it difficult to concentrate in this proximity. The skin of her back was alive and rippling at the feel of his chest, bared and warm, pressed against her. Her eyes seemed riveted on his fingers, long and strong, linked around her hands. “Why don’t you catch the fish and I’ll sit on the bank and watch you?”

“Because you will never learn like that and you cannot spend your days in idleness. Just flick your wrist, like this.” Her wrist flicked under the tutoring of his fingers, and the line snapped across the surface of the creek in perfect order. “See how easy it is.” He released his grip. “Do it on your own this time.”

The attempt was a miserable failure, and she looked mournfully upward as the line took on a life of its own and doubled back into the branches of the weeping willow overhead, twisting itself with malevolent momentum round and round a branch.

Benedict sighed. “You are not trying, Bryony. At this rate, we are going to go very hungry.”

“Oh, why won’t you do it?” she implored. “I do not think I want to be a fisherman.”

“Well, this time you are going to have to untangle that line yourself,” he said briskly, picking up a second rod from the bank. “I will catch our dinner while you do so.”

Untangling fishing line was a most unpleasant task, Bryony discovered, her fingers slipping and sliding over the slick twine, which had a nasty habit of slicing
deeply into her hands when she was least expecting it. The cuts were tiny but bled copiously and hurt like the devil; only her innate stubbornness and a refusal to admit further failure to her effortlessly competent companion prevented her from throwing in the towel.

“Finished?” Ben glanced over his shoulder in inquiry. Two shining silver mullet flapped on the bank at his feet.

“Almost,” she said, wiping her bloody palms on the grass, swallowing a yelp of pain.

“What in the name of the good God have you done to yourself?” Ben exclaimed, dropping his rod and coming over to her. “Show me your hands.”

“There’s nothing the matter with them,” she said in emphatic denial, holding them curled against her sides. “See, I have almost finished.”

Benedict would not be distracted. He went down on one knee beside her. “Show them to me.”

Reluctantly, she uncurled her palms and turned up her hands for his frowning inspection. “Why on earth didn’t you stop?” He looked at her in exasperation, and Bryony’s mouth set firmly.

“I like to finish what I have started. I cannot help being incompetent, but I’m not going to admit defeat in a battle with a piece of twine.”

The exasperation in his features faded, and he chuckled. “Such an indomitable will is an unusual possession for a young woman of your kind. You are supposed to be submissive and accepting of your fate.” His voice was teasing, but Bryony had the feeling that he was at least half serious.

“I wonder why I am different, then?” she said.

“We shall find out soon enough. Go back to the cabin
and put some of that salve on those cuts.” He returned to his fishing, lips pursed thoughtfully. In his far-from-limited experience, young ladies of good parentage and substantial estate received only the most rudimentary learning, the main focus of their education being on acquiring the skills to equip them for marriage and motherhood—in short, to ensure that they were able to provide the necessary degree of comfort in a man’s life, whose life would form the pivot of their own. Miss Bryony, he had discovered, possessed a knowledge of the classics to match his own, and her skill at mathematics far exceeded the simple demands of housekeeping. She had an analytic turn of mind that had clearly been fostered by someone. She accepted nothing without question and gave in only when the odds were insuperable. He somehow doubted that she would willingly subdue her own needs and desires to those of another, be he her lord and master according to the laws and vows of matrimony or not.

The sickle of the new moon hung low in the sky, offering only slight illumination, when Benedict extinguished the oil lamp in the cabin and followed Bryony outside. He stamped out the last glowing embers of the fire in the stone hearth and took one final look around the clearing. The black eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, saw nothing untoward, and he gave a short nod of satisfaction. “Let us go. It’s an hour’s walk through the woods.”

Bryony, who had never walked in the woods at night, found herself prey to her vivid imagination. Every rustle, every whispering murmur made her jump. Her companion, on the other hand, strode unerringly along
almost invisible trails, no wider than the span of a man’s hand, where the undergrowth was barely trodden down. Bryony pressed on behind him, grateful for the hand he held at his back, into which her own occasionally disappeared, her fingers clutching convulsively around his. Benedict didn’t seem disposed for conversation, and since Bryony could think of nothing but the questions she wished to ask, questions that he would not answer, silence reigned supreme.

After an hour of this, they broke through the trees into a field. Across the field, the lights of a building winked in welcome.