Chase the Dawn

by Jane Feather

  Now that William knew Ben was in town, he would round up the others and they would congregate in the loft above the baker’s, ready for whatever emergency had provoked his coming. It had been agreed that they would have no contact for two weeks after the raid on the armory, except in the case of emergency. The weapons were still hidden beneath the straw in Joshua’s barn, waiting for the hue and cry over the raid to die down before they would be transported to the Patriot armory up-river, on the plantation of Paul Tyler—the man who provided the overt rallying point for Virginia Patriots. For those whose work for the cause was as yet covert, Benedict Clare provided leadership.

  Benedict strolled around the town, an inconspicuous figure whose ever-open ears and eyes would not be remarked upon. He had no need of the commodities offered in the shops, and little coin with which to purchase them even had he the need. Escaped bondsmen tended to be impecunious. What he could not hunt, catch, or fashion for himself, he acquired by barter with the Indians and with those farmers and tradesmen who could use the skills of an educated man. Beneath the earthen floor of the log cabin lay a pouch of gold sovereigns and those possessions of Benedict Clare that could be turned into hard currency when the right moment came; it was an inheritance that his mother had pressed upon him in those minutes of farewell, as agonizing as they were brief, before he had been dragged back to the stinking jail to be held, shackled among the rats, until the vessel that would bear him into slavery set sail for Charleston, South Carolina.

  A rich yeasty fragrance rose on the air outside the baker’s shop, steaming in enticing, aromatic invitation through the door that stood open to the street.

  “I give you good day, Bart,” Benedict greeted the broad back bent over the enormous brick oven set in the wall beside the stone chimney.

  The baker turned, his usually ruddy face scarlet, hands coated with flour. “Good day to ye, Ben.” He wiped his hands on his apron. “I’ll join ye abovestairs just as soon as I’ve taken this batch out.”

  Ben nodded easily and went up the rickety stairs set in the corner of the shop. The small loft contained six men, all of them showing signs of varying degrees of agitation.

  Ben greeted them casually and perched on a corner of an upturned barrel. “Let us wait for Bart,” he suggested, seeing William about to launch into speech. “There is nothing amiss.”

  “Oh, but there is!” exclaimed William. “Summat dreadfully amiss. I was coming to ye tonight if ye hadn’t come to town.”

  “True enough, Ben,” one of the younger members of the group put in. “Jack here only found out yesterday eventide and we’ve not known which way to turn, waiting for dark to bring ye the news.”

  “Well, now I am here, so you need wait no longer.” Ben smiled, the smile that generally soothed and reassured as it reminded them that he was in control, that he had never yet met a situation he could not handle, never yet let them down in a moment of crisis.

  “It’s that girl,” William pronounced. “I told ye no good would come of it.” The rather bovine features settled in an expression of morbid satisfaction as he looked around the room. “Should have left her to take her chance at Trueman’s. I always said so.”

  “Yes, William, so you did.” Ben sighed with ill-concealed irritation. “However, I chose to do otherwise.”

  “And we’ll all have cause to regret it—”

  “That is enough, William!” The crisp, incisive tones reduced the blustering blacksmith to silence. They were tones Ben rarely used with this group, accepting that his position as leader was by democratic decision and depended entirely on his continued success at preserving their safety and accomplishing their goals. He had no authority but that which they gave him. However, there were times when he was forced to exert the natural authority of his breeding and education.

  “Jack?” He turned to the man with the information. “Enlighten me, pray.”

  The vintner scratched his head with both hands, clearly in vigorous search of an active louse. “I was making a delivery up at Carter’s plantation last even. A butt of fine canary,” he added, as if the matter were of some relevance. “Anyways, there was talk in the kitchen about a Miss Paget gone missing from Trueman’s. Seems her father—Sir Edward, he be—has come to town in a great taking. They couldn’t turn up nothing at Trueman’s plantation, so there’s to be a proclamation by the criers in the town square—a reward for any information.” Tale told, Jack subsided against the wall and returned to his head-scratching.

  Bryony Paget. Benedict felt the cold bitterness seep into his veins. Almost any other identity would have been easier for him to accept—even if she had been the Crown governor’s daughter. No wonder she had that Irish coloring, although he’d lay considerable odds that she had almost no knowledge of his homeland. The Pagets were one of the wealthiest absentee landlords in that beleaguered country, denying their own heritage, even as they milked the land and their tenants of their life blood in order to maintain themselves in luxury in England—and here in the Colonies, too, presumably. He felt sickened as he always did when he thought of the abuses visited upon the peasant farmers whose cause he had fought for, turning against his own kind and ultimately against his king—a traitor who had not paid the traitor’s penalty but had still paid dearly at the hands of Sir Edward Paget and his like. Bryony Paget—the daughter of a man who embodied everything Benedict Clare had sworn to fight, everything against which he had sworn vengeance; the daughter who had presumably imbibed contempt for the Irish peasantry together with the Loyalist cant of a true blue Englishman from her first waking moments!

  “She’s got to be got rid of.” William spoke again, with even greater truculence than before. “If ye’re too squeamish to do it, then I’ve no such qualms.”

  “Do not be ridiculous!” Ben snapped. “I’ll not have gratuitous killing. I’ve told you before.”

  “William’s right, Ben.” Bart appeared at the head of the stairs. “She was at the armory, saw us all….”

  “And saved our bacon, as I recall,” Ben said sardonically.

  “But she didn’t know who she was then,” Jack pointed out. “What happens when she remembers? She’ll run to her pa with a fine story. There’s Joshua’s farm and the cabin, Trueman’s barn, the armory, and every one of us.”

  Benedict shook his head. “You’ll have to trust me. She’ll not betray us, I promise you that.”

  “The only way to be sure of that is if we still her tongue for good,” William muttered. “Ye can’t keep her with ye for always, stands to reason. And she can’t go back home to her folks, knowing what she does.”

  “She’ll not betray us,” Ben repeated with absolute conviction. Sickened though he was at the knowledge that she came from a family who embraced everything he most detested, he knew instinctively that she would be loyal to him and to the memory of their time together, regardless of any opposing loyalties and principles she might hold.

  “It’ll be more than your head that’ll roll if she does,” Bart said. “We can’t risk it, Ben.”

  “What are you suggesting? That I cut her throat while she’s asleep and throw her body in the river?” He raised his eyebrows as if the idea were laughable.

  “Easy enough,” said William with a shrug. “We know she’s been keeping yer bed warm, so I’ll do it for ye, if she’s made ye softhearted.”

  “I said no.” He spoke very softly now, his eyes narrowed with anger and purpose. His hand drifted casually to the pistol in his belt, and a slight ripple ran through the men in the loft. “I take responsibility for Miss Bryony Paget, now and at all times. And she is not to be harmed.” The hawk’s eyes roamed slowly around the circle, stabbing each face until the owner dropped his gaze under the glittering black challenge.

  “What’s to be done, then?” Bart asked with a resigned shrug. He, for one, was not prepared to pick up Ben’s gauntlet. The younger man was all too handy with knife and pistol, and he’d never given them the least cause to mistrust either his loyalty o
r his ability to fulfill his promises.

  Ben stood up. “It is time Miss Paget was returned to her own,” he said with a briskness that hid his pain. “It was in the hopes of discovering her identity that I came here today.” He went toward the stairs, then paused. “I say again, none of you have anything to fear. I have never yet given you cause to mistrust my word, have I?”

  Again, he scanned the circle of faces, and slowly the heads nodded in agreement, William’s head last, but none the less definite.

  “Then, I bid you farewell. I’ll send word when we’re to move the arms from Joshua’s to Tyler’s.” His hand lifted in a parting gesture, and he sprang lightly down the unstable staircase, through the bakeshop, and out into the street. The afternoon air was heavy and humid, adding to his feeling of oppression as he made his way to the forge, where Joshua’s cob waited. Dust rose, dry and thick from the streets, under the wheels and hooves of carriages and horses traversing the town that a short time ago had been the seat of government of King George’s colony of Virginia; but the business of government was for the moment in abeyance as the king’s men battled throughout the thirteen colonies for the continued right to govern the king’s colonies.

  The same oppression hung over the clearing, rendering Bryony languid and depressed throughout the hours of waiting for Benedict’s return. The morning’s conversation had crystallized one important fact for her: she did not want to leave Ben, wanted no other life but this secluded woodland intimacy. Yet, the realistic Bryony Paget knew that such a want was not achievable, even had Ben been less resolute in his statement that it could not be. He did not belong in the woodland for longer than he needed the seclusion for his present purposes. He would soon leave to fight the battle in the open, and there was no place on the battlefield for the loving play of fantasyland. So, what was to be done?

  She had found no answer to the tormenting question by the time Benedict finally returned, appearing without warning at the edge of the trees. The minute she looked at him, Bryony knew that something was seriously amiss. He held himself taut, without the rangy ease to which she was accustomed. The black eyes were somber, and the light that usually sprang to life in them when he saw her remained dimmed.

  “What is it?” Hesitantly, she approached him, her bare feet curling in the grass, one hand pushing her tumbled hair away from her face in a curiously nervous gesture.

  “What is what?” he responded with the wraith of a smile. “How is your bellyache?”

  “Better.” She looked at him closely. “Something has occurred to trouble you.”

  “I have been into Williamsburg.” He strode toward the cabin. “I had better skin that rabbit if we are to have any dinner.”

  Bryony found herself trotting after him—like a spaniel pup hoping for a pat or some such sign of affection, she thought with self-denigrating unease. Ben disappeared into the cabin, presumably to fetch their as-yet-hirsute supper, and she followed him inside, standing by the door uncertainly as he filled a beaker with cider from the stone jar, drinking deeply before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and setting the beaker down on the plank table with a gesture indicative of finality. He spun on his heel and regarded her gravely.

  “You have discovered who I am.” Her voice was low.

  “Aye.” He nodded, picked up the rabbit from the table, and moved toward the door. Bryony stepped aside hastily and followed him outside.

  “I did not think it would upset you quite so much,” she said. “I know my father is a fervent Loyalist and that—”

  “You know?” Ben dropped the rabbit and swung around to face her, his eyes seeming to impale her so that she stood motionless, pinned in the doorway.

  “I remembered everything the night of the raid on the armory,” she said in the same low voice, aware that she was suddenly afraid, but she did not know of what. “You are not angry with me, are you?”

  Benedict sighed. “You could have saved me a journey and a somewhat tiresomely acrimonious meeting. Why did you not tell me before?”

  “I suppose because I needed to become reacquainted with myself first,” she said slowly. “And … well, I had hoped that I would turn out to be a stalwart Patriot.” She gave a nervous little laugh and shrugged. “A vain hope, as it happens.” Ben did not respond and turned his attention to the rabbit. Bryony looked down at the bent copper head touched by a finger of late-afternoon sun, the strong column of his neck rising from the open collar of his shirt, the long-fingered hands performing their bloody task with such efficiency. A lump of tears clogged her throat, and she swallowed hard. “I do not, myself, seem to hold any strong opinions on the matter, but even if I did, you know I would not betray you, Benedict.”

  “Yes, I know that.” He wiped his knife on the grass. “I am going to wash my hands and fetch water for the pot.”

  “I picked a basket of mushrooms this afternoon,” she offered. “I think they are the right ones this time.” Her last attempt at mushroom picking had been a lamentable failure since she had had no idea that mushrooms could come in a poisonous variety as well as an edible one.

  “I had still better look them over before they go in the pot.” He walked off in the direction of the creek, swinging the iron kettle, and Bryony realized forlornly that he had not looked at her properly since she had made her disclosure. It would have been better if she had told him herself, she realized now. Keeping her returned memory a secret, obliging him to hear of her identity by accident, had been an unfair deception.

  She wandered in his wake down to the creek, feeling somehow as if she had been cast adrift from her moorings. “I should have told you before, Ben. Will you forgive me?”

  He was squatting on his heels at the edge of the creek, washing the blood and debris from his hands with almost exaggerated care. “I am not sure that there is anything to forgive. I would have preferred you to tell me, certainly, but your reasons for not doing so were your own and strike me as sufficient.”

  “Then why are you so angry?” She touched his back between the shoulder blades, and he seemed to recoil as if from a burning brand. Tears sprang into her eyes. “You cannot be this angry just because I am the daughter of an Englishman and a Loyalist.”

  And the daughter of one of the abusers of his homeland, of the same breed that had convicted him of treason and sentenced him to bondage because he chose to champion those whom they exploited. But he could not tell her that. It was a past he could share with no one in this new life. “I am not angry with you, lass.” He stood up, trying to make his voice light as he cupped her face with his wet hands, brushing his lips over hers. Her eyes were wide with distress and incomprehension, and a wash of remorse swept through him. “Come, let us talk no more of this for now. I am much in need of my dinner. On a full belly, we will be able to look at the situation with more clarity.” Taking her hand in a firm clasp, he hefted the now full kettle in his other hand and led her back to the cabin.

  “What did you mean about an acrimonious meeting?” asked Bryony, washing the mushrooms that had been declared edible.

  “Your identity, Miss Paget, has caused some alarm amongst the men,” he told her dryly. “They were all for cutting your throat and throwing your body in the creek.”

  Bryony gasped. “They think I will betray them?”

  He shrugged. “In all fairness, why should they think otherwise? Had you not included yourself in the raid on the armory, they would have been less alarmed. But you do know some rather incriminating facts about this operation.”

  “But I could only tell someone about you by incriminating myself,” she pointed out. “And I warned you about the soldiers.”

  “True enough. But that was a Bryony with no allegiances except those she had formed in the very recent past. Amnesia and captivity would be considered sufficient excuse for any aberrational behavior on your part.”

  “You are not going to do it, are you?” She regarded him warily, and for the first time since he had returned, Benedict laughed.r />
  “No! I don’t think you deserve such a fate.”

  “And I will not betray you,” she reiterated with sudden fierceness.

  The laughter died from his face. “No, I know you will not. But the fact remains that we must contrive some explanation for your disappearance that will satisfy your family and any other inquisitive souls, who, I rather imagine, will be legion.”

  “I do not want to go back, Benedict.” She plucked at the hem of her tunic with agitated fingers. “If it were not for my father, who must be out of his mind with worry, I would stay disappeared.”

  “You are being a little childish, if you don’t mind my saying so.” His tone was calmly neutral—a schoolmaster correcting an erring pupil—and Bryony flushed, recognizing the truth in the reprimand.

  “If I return, I will either have to marry Francis Cullum or expose him … his …” She stumbled wretchedly, unsure how to describe delicately what she now knew about her betrothed. “I will have to expose him to my father, because Papa will not accept any excuse for my withdrawing from the contract except the truth. Not after all these years,” she added. “Perhaps two years ago, if I had said the marriage was distasteful to me, instead of simply asking for a grace period, he would have agreed to break off the betrothal. But after everyone has been so accommodating to my”—her tone unconsciously imitated Eliza Paget—“to what Mama refers to as my self-indulgent whim, it would be unthinkable of me to cry off at this point.”

  Benedict frowned, absorbing as much of this somewhat jumbled speech as made sense. “I am all at sea, lass,” he said after a long, frowning silence. “To what self-indulgent whim was your mother referring?”

  “It’s all a little complicated.” Bryony plucked a long stem of grass and began to suck it thoughtfully. “Francis and I have been betrothed from our cradles. He is also an only child, and there is a large inheritance. Sir Francis and my father decided it would be a good idea to merge the two inheritances.” Shrugging, she chewed the succulent stem. “It’s not exactly an unusual arrangement.”