Chase the Dawn Read online

  Those hands, with remembered gentleness, turned her head to one side, parting the blood-stiffened locks of raven-dark hair, feeling the lump. “You took a blow to the head to fell an ox,” he said, sighing. “I suppose it is not surprising. But it is a damnable complication.”

  “How do you know I am called Bryony?” Her voice shook a little, as much with disuse as anxiety.

  “It was embroidered on your handkerchief and on all your undergarments, what remained of them.” He stood up, turning away from the cot, so he did not see the scarlet wave flooding her cheeks. Taking a small ceramic pot from a shelf carved into one of the horizontal logs that formed the wall, he unscrewed the lid and came back to the bed. “Lie on your belly, lass, and I’ll dress the burns on your back.”

  Bryony stared at him in mute refusal for a second, then shook her head gingerly. “It is all right, thank you. I do not feel them anymore.” There was a note of pathetic dignity in her voice, pathetic because of the undisguised appeal that lay beneath.

  “You are being foolish,” he said quietly. “If those burns become infected, they will mortify.”

  “Then I will do it myself,” she countered in a choked whisper.

  Benedict frowned. She could not possibly manage such a thing, and it was a task that had to be done. However, perhaps it would be best if she discovered that for herself. He could see little to be gained by coercion, easy though that would be. Shrugging, he placed the pot on the blanket beside her. “As you please. I will bring you something to eat in a few minutes.”

  The door swung shut behind his departing figure, and Bryony struggled to sit up in the welcome dimness, shafted by bars of sunlight sliding through the gaps in the logs where the moss and clay filling had come loose. She dipped her finger in the oily, aromatic cream and reached a hand behind her. Her blind fingers brushed roughly against the weals, and tears sprang into her eyes. She tried reaching over her shoulder, then upward from her waist, but it was impossible to do more than skim patchily over the burns.

  The creak of the door again drove her back beneath the blanket, and the ceramic jar fell to the earthen floor. Benedict placed a steaming bowl on a three-legged stool by the hearth and wordlessly picked up the ointment, replacing the lid. Looking down at her, he quirked a well-drawn eyebrow but said only, “I have some broth for you. Are you hungry?”

  The rich, savory aroma from the bowl filled the cabin, and Bryony realized that she was famished, even as she realized that her body was making another, imperative demand, one that would interfere with her pleasure in food if it was not satisfied. “I have to go outside first,” she said, blushing furiously at renewed memory.

  Benedict sighed, recognizing the shape of the battle. “I do not think you are strong enough, lass. I will bring the pot.”

  “No!” With near-superhuman effort, she sat up, tucking the blanket around her breasts, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed frame.

  He stood and watched her, impassive, yet with no unkindness. Indeed, he felt more than a hint of admiration for this dogged determination. If she could be this resolute in the face of such odds, what would she be like when well and strong? It was an intriguing thought, but for the moment he would simply wait in resigned patience for the odds to tell and bring her to her senses.

  Gritting her teeth, Bryony put her feet to the earthen floor and carefully stood up. But her legs would not bear her weight, and the room spun like a top, bringing a dizzy nausea to tug at her belly as her head pounded viciously. She grabbed the side of the bed with a convulsive movement that loosened the blanket so that it fell with a rustle to the floor.

  The tears of weakness, of frustration at her helplessness, rolled down her cheeks, but she made no further protest when he lifted her gently onto the pot. When he helped her up again she put her arms around his neck, clinging in defeat, like a small, wounded animal, to the masthead of his strength.

  Benedict simply held her, imparting comfort and reassurance with his body even as he wondered at himself. It was a woman’s body he held, and beautiful in its clean-limbed youth, for all its wounds and weakness. The skin under his hands was soft as silk; the raven’s-wing hair tickling his chin was richly luxuriant, for all that it was in sore need of a wash. Until now, he had been aware of her only as a responsibility, the consequence of a self-indulgent whim—a consequence to be mitigated at the earliest possible moment. Once healed, she was to have been transported blindfolded to a point close to home and left to make her own way and tell her own story. She would have laid eyes only upon him, and would never see him again. But now that plan lay in ruins—ruined by this amnesia caused presumably when he had flung her to the cobblestones of the stableyard, smothering the flames with his cloak. And its ruin left a gap, a gap that these unwelcome recognitions of her femininity, and of the essence of the awakening personality, rushed to fill.

  With grim determination, he pushed these disquieting reflections aside and placed her on the bed, on her stomach. She made no protest this time as, in silence, he anointed her back, his fingers brushing delicately down the long, narrow length, across her buttocks, and over her thighs. For some reason, he seemed to have become acutely aware of the slender indentation of her waist, the flare of her hips tapering to the long, creamy slimness of her thighs. Try as he might for a return to the untroubled objectivity of the past, it remained elusive. Then there was a moment when she stirred beneath his touch. He would have staked his life that it was an involuntary movement, and it was not a flinching from the pain of her burns, either.

  Bryony did not question the ease with which she now submitted to the intimacy of his touch. Her earlier protestations seemed simply ridiculous. He was only doing what he had been doing for days, and only a fool would protest the ministrations that brought such wondrous relief. How many days? she asked herself, leaning against his broad chest as he sat behind her, supporting her so that the bowl of broth could rest on her knees. It was delicious, but after a few spoonsful her shrunken belly was sated, and she lay back with a sigh of repletion, too contented to worry about an answer to the question. Time enough after she had had another sleep.

  Benedict took the bowl and laid her down on the bed again. “By tomorrow, you will be able to do things for yourself, Bryony. Then we must try to jog your memory.”

  Bryony responded with an inarticulate mutter and turned on her side—a maneuver accomplished with only a twinge of discomfort. Sleep, warm and welcome, enfolded her.

  It was full night when next she opened her eyes. Gradually, the seemingly impenetrable darkness gave way before her accustomed vision, and she was able to make out the shapes of the simple furniture—the plank table and three-legged stools; shelves simply cut out of the log walls; the unglazed aperture that served as a window. Tonight it let in the soft, moist air of a Virginian summer night and the milky illumination of starlight, but the cabin would be bitter in winter, even with the wooden shutters fastened.

  She turned her head with the care of experience to look in the direction of the quiet, regular breathing. The man—for that was all she knew of him—lay peacefully asleep on a straw pallet beside the empty hearth. A rudimentary spit and cooking pots were in the hearth below the log-and-clay chimney.

  Something told her that this was no backwoodsman. She did not know what it was that convinced her of the fact, maybe an elusive knowledge based on a runaway memory. His voice, perhaps. That soft lilt was tauntingly familiar, though she had heard it so often in the twilight world of semiconsciousness that that memory could be explained. There was something about his hands that didn’t match this primitive lifestyle. They were callused, the fingernails squared, short, and practical, but the fingers were long, sensitive, elegant. How did she know that they were not the hands of a man accustomed to tearing his livelihood from the elements?

  Bryony frowned and wriggled into a more comfortable position. She did not know who she was; she did not know how she had arrived in this place; she did not know the day or the year or t
he month. But there were all sorts of things she did know. She knew about backwoodsmen, it seemed. She could add and subtract, multiply and divide in her head. She could remember lines of poetry and Latin verbs. She seemed to be able to reason perfectly well. She could give orders to her body, and they were obeyed—or, at least, she amended ruefully, they would be once she was physically stronger. In short, apart from some significant and clearly selective gaps, her memory seemed to be functioning perfectly well.

  She was wide-awake. Was it yesterday that she had had the soup, or just a few hours ago? Impossible to tell; time just ran along without dividing lines when all one did was sleep. The urge to see something other than this log-enclosed space grew inexorably until it would have taken an indomitable will to resist. Since Bryony could see no real reason why she should resist the urge, the battle did not last very long. Casting a wary eye at the sleeping figure on the pallet, she sat up. The room remained on an even keel and continued to do so even when she swung her legs to the floor and stood up with exaggerated care. Her legs rather felt like jelly, but they did not collapse. Clutching the blanket securely around her with one hand, she shuffled to the door, using her free hand to gain support from whatever solidly rooted objects appeared on the way. At the door, she looked again at the recumbent body. He must need his sleep, she thought with a considerate little nod. It would be most unfair to wake him up. And besides, maybe he would raise objections to this expedition. On that convincing thought, she lifted the wooden latch, biting her lip nervously in case the opening door should make some alerting noise in the night stillness.

  Nothing occurred to disturb the quiet, and Bryony found herself outside, the door closed softly behind her. She stood still for a minute, breathing deeply of the freshness laden with the scents of pine needles, honeysuckle, damp moss, and river mud. They were all familiar smells, she realized as she identified each one. The ground beneath her bare feet was soft and springy, and she curled her toes luxuriously into the mossy turf, relishing the overpowering sense of being alive—a sense that seemed to carry a curious overlay, as if it were a possession only just now truly valued. Had she nearly died, then, when whatever had brought her to this place had happened? Her mind stretched again, but again there was only an abyss where there should have been memory. At least that was one memory that the man could fill in for her.

  The sky was lightening as the first pale streaks of dawn, rose-tipped, showed in the east above the trees. Bryony made her way slowly to the edge of the clearing, sensing her returning strength with each step. Among the trees, her feet sank into the carpet of pine needles, which pricked the soles of her feet, and she jumped back with a little cry. The sensation had brought more than the simple ordinary sting. It felt like something else, something that now hovered as a dark, amorphous shape in the wings of her mind.

  Resolutely, she stepped forward into the trees, standing quite still on the prickly needles. All that happened was that her feet became used to the sensation. An owl hooted its farewell to night. A squirrel skittered across the ground in front of her and leaped at a tree trunk. A thrush twittered, and then the forest came alive as the dawn chorus ushered in the new day. The blanket-wrapped figure made her way through the trees in the direction of the water that she seemed to know instinctively was to be found within a few yards.

  Benedict awoke as always at the first note of the dawn chorus. He came awake with no intervening drowsiness, and his first action was to look toward the bedstead attached to the far wall. What he saw brought him to his feet in one fluid motion, a soft, explicit curse on his lips. Pulling on his shirt, he went outside. The tracks of her feet were visible indentations in the springy turf leading to the trees. He sighed with relief—at least there was only one set of footprints. At the trees, the tracks stopped. The pine needles were too thick and resilient to bear any mark of her progress. He swore again, tucking his shirt into the waistband of his britches. Wherever she had gone, she had gone alone. But he had no idea what condition she was in, whether her mind was functioning sufficiently to enable her to find her way back, whether she had enough sense to recognize her body’s limitations.

  “Bryony?” he called, softly at first, then with increasing power, although it went against all his instincts and experience to announce his presence in full voice. One could never be certain that there were no observers, no ears to hear. And Benedict Clare could afford neither. There was no answer, and he stood for a minute, listening intently for any sound that he would identify immediately as not indigenous to the woodland. Nothing. Collecting an iron kettle from the cabin, he made his way down to the creek in search of her, reflecting with customary pragmatism that he might as well kill two birds with one stone.

  He saw her at the water’s edge as he broke through the trees. The huddled, blanketed figure was sitting on the bank, chin resting on drawn-up knees, her raven’s hair falling forward to conceal her profile. She was rapt in contemplation of something, whether of the internal or external world he could not guess. Making no attempt to disturb her immediately, he simply went to the creek’s edge and bent to fill the kettle.

  “Good morrow, sir.” Bryony came out of her daydream as his figure filled her vision.

  He straightened, swinging the now heavy kettle easily from one hand, a little frown drawing the fine eyebrows together over glowing black eyes. “Good morrow, Bryony.” He trod across the grass toward her, each step seemingly invested with purpose. “You are somewhat restored, I gather?”

  “I find myself so,” she agreed. There was something a little forbidding suddenly about his expression, and she offered a tentative smile. “You do not object to my taking a walk, I trust?”

  He dropped to his heels beside her. “In future, you will do me the courtesy of letting me know before you decide to go awandering.”

  “But I am not a prisoner,” Bryony objected, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. If his statement had been a mere request, she would have felt no need to protest it, but there was a tension in the atmosphere, and the statement had been made in an authoritative tone that admitted no dissension.

  “That is perhaps a matter for definition at some later point,” he said evenly. “There is much that you do not understand.” He stood up and reached down for her hand. “Come, the damp bank of a creek in the dawn chill is not the ideal place for the ill-clad and but newly recovered.”

  Bryony allowed him to pull her up. “I do not understand what you have said.”

  “No, there is much that you do not understand,” he repeated. “And it is possible that you must remain in ignorance. For the moment, you must do as you are bid, I fear, and control your curiosity.”

  It was not a declaration to be accepted by anyone with a flicker of spirit, and Bryony possessed rather more than a flicker. “I do not think I can agree to that,” she announced. “Apart from anything else, I do not know your name.”

  “That is easily remedied,” he returned, sounding amused rather than annoyed by the stiffness of her voice. “My name is Benedict, and you may call me Ben, if you wish.”

  Ben … Benedict … She turned the name over in her head and found it pleasing. It suited him, somehow. Plain, yet elegant; strong, yet sensitive. Sweet heaven, she was becoming fanciful! Or perhaps she always had been? She had no idea what she was like, and no clues, either.

  “How did I come to be here?” The question followed the previous thought naturally.

  “When you have had some breakfast and I’ve had another look at your back, I will satisfy your curiosity as far as I am able. And we will see what we can do to jog your errant memory.”

  The anointing took place under a veneer of dignity maintained by an apparently indifferent silence that neither of them chose to break. Once Benedict was finished, remarking with quiet satisfaction that she was almost as good as new, she was rewrapped in the blanket, and they returned outside to the sun-drenched clearing. Bryony broached a subject at the forefront of her mind. “Do I have any clothes, Ben?”

/>   He shook his head. “Rags and tatters, lass. Not that they weren’t costly scraps,” he added. “Rose damask with a hooped petticoat, lawn and lace, and satin pumps.” He watched her for some reaction. “You were dressed for dancing.” When she looked at him blankly, he said, “What I would like to know is why, dressed like that, you were in the barn—presumably the hayloft, since we didn’t see you earlier—at three o’clock in the morning. The dancing at Trueman’s had been over long since.”

  Bryony shook her head helplessly. “I do not know. Are you sure my name is Bryony?”

  “Unless you were wearing someone else’s drawers, it is.” He chuckled. “I suppose it is possible that you dressed up in this Bryony’s clothes for the same reason that took you to the barn at that hour.”

  “What were you doing there?” There was challenge in both her voice and her pansy-blue eyes. “Did you set the fire?”

  Benedict chewed on a stalk of grass for a minute, then shrugged. “As it happens. But I was not to know the barn had an occupant other than the rats.”

  “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “My reasons are my own,” he told her in that soft, definite tone. “And they are not what concerns us at present. Does the name Trueman mean anything to you?”

  Bryony was inclined to reply that if he would not answer her questions, she did not see why she should answer his, but common sense told her that she would be merely cutting off her nose to spite her face. She thought, her expression twisted with the effort, but there was nothing there. “No.”

  “Bryony is an unusual name,” he mused, regarding her through narrowed eyes, hoping that the casual comment would trigger an automatic response. “Always assuming that you did not borrow it for some nefarious purpose.”

  She smiled a little at that and wondered if it could possibly be true. Somehow she hoped not. At least having a name that she believed was her own gave her some sense of belonging in the world. “It’s the name of a flower, is it not?”