by Jane Feather
This time, Ben knew that the clearing contained no mischievous watcher in the trees. He could feel the emptiness, the absolute solitude as he stood listening under the dying rays of the evening sun. So certain was he that he did not even bother to call her name, turning instead to the cabin in search of some sign of her whereabouts. Everything was as he had left it that morning, except that the covers had been straightened on the bedstead and some attempt had been made to tidy up. But it seemed to have been a halfhearted attempt. He shook out the damp, scrunched ball of towel lying on the plank table and took it outside to dry. Where the devil was she?
A minute search of the immediate wood and creek produced no clues, and by nightfall Benedict’s iron control had yielded to the terrors of uncertainty. There were perils aplenty in the forest for the unwary, particularly after dark, and he greeted the appearance of his Indian friends with undisguised relief.
“Run off again, has she?” one of them said with a shrug that seemed to imply, What else could you expect of such an unpredictable creature? “She needs a leash, if you ask me.”
Ben refrained with difficulty from replying that he was not asking for such advice, instead requesting quietly, “I’d be grateful for your help in tracking her. If she’s lost in the woods, there’s no knowing what could have befallen.”
Somber nods of agreement ran around the small group. With one accord, they loped off into the trees, Ben this time accompanying them. They picked up Bryony’s trail easily enough, following it to the outskirts of the forest.
“Reckon she took the road.”
“Aye,” Ben concurred tersely, turning back into the trees. “There’s nothing more to be done. My thanks.” The set of his shoulders and the angle of his head indicated to his friends that he did not wish for further company, and they melted into the woods, leaving him to make his solitary way back to the cabin.
Had she left him deliberately or by accident? Not that it mattered either way, he thought with a light shrug. She had gone and that was the only significant fact. It would have happened within a day or so, anyway, but at least if it had been planned there would have been some ceremony, some dignified rounding off of the loving idyll, instead of this jagged ending where the rawness of this morning’s horror still pulsed, only half healed.
News of her safe return would run like wildfire through the district, and once he had heard it for himself, then he would be able to put Bryony Paget behind him and devote his undivided attention to the vital business that had never before left the forefront of his waking mind.
Benedict Clare went into the log cabin and slammed the door on the deserted clearing and the star-filled sky. The nightshirt that Bryony had made her own lay on the sea chest. He folded it carefully and put it back in the fragrant cedar interior, beneath the pile of shirts.
A few hours earlier, Francis Cullum, on the Williamsburg road, had struggled to find his wits. “What do you mean, you do not know?” He sprang down from his horse. “Are you hurt, Bri? Where have you been? Why on earth are you wearing that tunic?” The questions tumbled over themselves. He took her shoulders and pushed back her hair as if to assure himself that she really was the missing Miss Paget.
Bryony continued to shake her head in apparent bemusement, although her brain was racing. Of all the damnable ill luck! At no point had she given thought to the story she would tell if and when she returned to the bosom of her family—to have concocted an explanation would have emphasized the finite nature of the idyll, and she had not been ready to face that. But now it was upon her, and Francis was staring, his green eyes puzzled, anxious. Amnesia was a familiar enough state for her to be able to feign it convincingly, which would at least buy her time.
“Am I called Bryony?” she asked blankly. “I do not appear to remember.” The deep blue eyes widened as if with the effort of thought. “I don’t remember you, either, sir, for all that you seem to know me.”
Francis swore softly. He had known Bryony Paget since the dawn of memory, and it seemed utterly inconceivable that she should be looking at him in that blank, featureless fashion—particularly after their last meeting. He could feel a dull flush stain his cheekbones at the thought and wrenched his mind away to deal with the problem at hand. It was clearly incumbent upon him to restore this sun-browned gypsy in her Indian tunic to her father with no more ado. Let Sir Edward deal with the situation from then on. It would surely not be beyond his powers. Indeed, Francis doubted whether anything would be beyond Sir Edward’s powers.
“Your name is Bryony Paget,” he said gently. “I am Francis Cullum and I am going to take you home.”
A frown fluttered over the smooth wide brow. “Home?”
For answer, Francis took her by the waist and lifted her onto his horse. He swung up behind her, circling her waist as he reached for the reins.
“How do I know that you are not kidnapping me?” his passenger inquired in stricken tones. “Why should I believe—” She began to struggle and he tightened his grip.
“For heaven’s sake, Bryony, be still! You’ll have us both off!” he expostulated. “Dirk is no pony!”
Bryony became prudently still, deciding that she had put up sufficient protest to be convincing. Francis was no fool and knew her too well to be deceived by her present ploy if she overstepped the mark. She would have to be careful with her father, too—the slightest exaggeration and he would instantly smell a rat. “Where are you taking me?” she asked in a small, hesitant voice.
“Home,” he replied, “as I told you. Your parents have been frantic since you disappeared.”
“When was that?” Bryony swiveled on the saddle to look at him with what she hoped was convincing curiosity.
“Six weeks ago,” her companion told her. “You vanished from Trueman’s on the night of the ball.” He frowned at her upturned face, his voice suddenly intense. “Are you sure you have no memory of that, Bri?”
Bryony dropped her eyes hastily, turning to face forward again as she murmured a soft negative. The agonizing memory of that evening was obviously as vivid to Francis as it was to herself. “I have been with the Indians,” she offered as the story sprang ready-made to her lips. “I woke up one day in a hut in a village. They said they found me wandering in the woods. I had a bump on my head … but I don’t know how I got it or why … I remember nothing before waking up. They were very kind to me….” She allowed her voice to fade a little, then to pick up as if with sudden resolution. “I went for a walk this morning and arrived on the road by accident.” That, at least, was God’s truth, Bryony thought. The nearer she could keep to the truth, the better would be her chances of pulling off the deception until she could safely appear to regain her memory.
“Dear Lord,” Francis muttered. “What a tangle!” Sir Edward was going to have a fine time worrying at it, and he wouldn’t let go until it was unraveled. The English aristocrat was as tenacious as a bulldog once he got his teeth into a puzzle, particularly when matters concerned his precious daughter.
They rode in silence for a while—a silence that Bryony welcomed, as it gave her the opportunity to take stock and plan her next moves. The thought of Ben was a dull ache, one that she knew waited only for solitude before it blossomed into pain, but she could not allow it to intrude now; she needed to keep all her wits about her. It took her but a few minutes of serious reflection to acknowledge that she would not be able to deceive her father with the pretense of amnesia. Her own desire to see him was too strong for her to pretend convincingly not to know him at the moment of reunion, so she had best recover her memory under the shock of that reunion. There was no reason, however, why the events that led to her disappearance should not remain lost to memory as a result of the bump on her head, just as there was no reason why she should be able to retrace her steps to the Indian village where she had supposedly been cared for in the intervening time. The woods were vast and Indian settlements plentiful. So long as she could swear that she had come to no harm, her story would produc
e no demand for action.
Bryony was not prepared, however, for her reaction as Francis turned his horse onto the long driveway leading up to the Paget mansion. The great house stood a mile from the road, but in sight of it, high on a hill. It was served both by the road at the front and the river at the rear, and Bryony had never been able to decide which view of the house she preferred. Both front and back of the large, square, two-storied brick building were distinguished by their imposing entrances, pillared and stepped, neither one obviously the superior.
She had always loved the house, and now, as they rode up the drive between the sweeping lawns and terraced gardens hedged with boxwood and lilac, her heart filled with nostalgia. She wondered why she had not missed her home while she had been living in the log cabin, but it was a question all too easily answered. Her surroundings were of no importance beside the loving companionship of a certain Patriot, and if a wave of her hand would cause this elegant, solid grandeur to disappear, a log cabin and Benedict put in its place, she would gladly have waved.
She shivered suddenly. Francis’s arm tightened around her waist. “What is it, Bri?”
“I am afeard,” she said slowly, realizing that she spoke only the truth. The prospect of the imminent meeting with her mother and father was terrifying in the depths of emotion that she knew would accompany it. How could she keep her head clear? Benedict’s life, as well as the lives of the others, depended on her ability to maneuver her way through the maze. One false step and her father would wrench the truth from her. He was the only person capable of doing so, but he was capable.
“There is no need to be,” Francis said gently, and Bryony felt a sudden stab of regret at the twists and turns of fate. He had always been a good friend to her, and if things had been different they probably would have dealt with perfect amity in marriage. But now such a prospect was inconceivable—the original impediment compounded by her knowledge of what passion, love, lust, and friendship combined really meant. Such a knowledge precluded the acceptance of its counterfeit. So, what was she to do?
Sir Edward Paget walked to the long window of his study at the front of the house, gazing almost absently out onto the broad gravel sweep before the landward entrance. He recognized Cullum’s horse immediately and wondered with a snap of irritation what could have brought the young man here to this grieving house. Then an icy stillness enveloped him as he stared fixedly. There was no mistaking that blue-black hair cascading over her shoulders, no mistaking the set of those shoulders, the proud angle of her head. A strange sound, half sob, half expletive, broke from his lips, and he flung himself out of the study into the central hall, which ran through the house to connect its two fronts. He was through the door and on the steps above the sweep as the horse and its two riders reached the entrance.
“Papa!” Bryony tumbled from the horse and into Paget’s arms. Father and daughter clung together in the afternoon sun, heedless of the now bemused Francis, who remained mounted, uncertain quite what he should do next. Bryony appeared to have recovered her memory somewhat abruptly.
“Where have you been, child?” At last Sir Edward drew back to look at the returned wanderer, disbelief, wonder, and amazement all mingling on the lean, aristocratic face.
“I found her on the Williamsburg road, sir,” Francis offered diffidently. “She had lost her memory, but …”
“I remember now,” Bryony said hastily. “It must have been the shock of seeing Papa that made all the pieces fall into place again.”
“Yes, I expect so,” Francis agreed, wondering why he was not convinced. “I will leave you now, sir. You do not need intruders on your joy.” He took off his hat with a courtly gesture. “Perhaps I may call upon Bryony in a day or so, when she has quite recovered from—”
“Call upon me tomorrow, Francis.” Bryony went swiftly toward him, extending her hand. “There is really nothing from which I must recover, you know. I am perfectly well, just a little confused. But tomorrow I will be able to thank you properly for your kindness.”
Francis leaned down and took the proffered hand, examining her face intently. Something was lurking behind that innocent smile, he decided. She’d best have a care if she wished to keep whatever it was from Sir Edward. “Until tomorrow, then,” he said blandly. “Pray accept my congratulations, Sir Edward.”
“Yes … yes,” said the Englishman with a degree of impatience at these elaborate courtesies. “I owe you much. By all means, call upon us tomorrow, when I have discovered the truth of this tangle. Lady Paget, I know, will be glad to welcome you. Bryony, come inside. Your mother has been out of her mind these last weeks, and I am much in need of an explanation.”
Bryony cast a backward glance at Francis as her father hustled her indoors. She could not resist a mischievous wink, which she knew Francis would interpret correctly. Sir Edward Paget was never at a disadvantage for many minutes; not even the miraculous return of the daughter he had presumed dead could disturb his self-control for long.
An excited crowd of slaves stood chattering in the doorway, witnessing this extraordinary reunion, and Bryony was instantly engulfed as they exclaimed over her and touched her as if to convince themselves that she was indeed flesh and blood. Sir Edward sent them about their business tersely, propelling his daughter into the relative cool of the hall, where the loftier members of his household, the paid staff who ensured its smooth running, were gathered in wide-eyed astonishment.
Eliza stood on the stairs, one hand pressed to her bosom, shock and disbelief on her face. She had not believed the housekeeper who had rushed in upon her where she knelt at the prie-dieu as she had been doing continuously once hope had finally left her, praying for forgiveness, for salvation, for knowledge, at least, to bring an end to the agonizing uncertainty. Mary had gasped that Miss Bryony and Mr. Cullum had just ridden up to the door, that Sir Edward had run out, and that it was a heaven-sent miracle that the poor child was restored to them. The old woman’s eyes had rolled incredulously, her hands clasped tightly at her heart, and Eliza had been obliged to move the rapt figure bodily from the doorway before she could venture forth herself to discover the truth of this marvel. Now she looked upon the miracle and, with a mother’s instinctive knowledge, knew that her daughter was unharmed though she had lived through some life-defining experience.
“Mama.” Bryony moved away from her father, toward her mother, reading the agony of the past weeks in her face and feeling a wash of remorse that she had not put an end to that agony sooner. In fact, if it were not for the accident of finding the road and Francis, she would still be in the clearing with Benedict, still clinging desperately to the last shreds of a fairy tale. Benedict … oh, Ben, she thought with her own agonizing wrench as the ache threatened to blossom. Why could it not have been different? Then she had her arms around her mother, who was crying. Her own tears began to fall, and she could no longer distinguish who or what it was for which they fell.
That night, she lay in her own big poster bed, the light summer hangings drawn back to allow what little air there was some freedom of movement. There had been more tears, a little laughter, endless questions, so that her head spun with the effort to keep her story straight, the continuity accurate. But there had been no serious questioning of the truth of her tale. Eliza had wanted to summon the physician from Williamsburg, but Bryony had protested so vociferously, had demonstrated so clearly that she was as healthy as she had ever been, that her mother had yielded. However, when she had tucked Bryony into bed as if she were again a little girl, she had sat beside her, taking her hand, and had gently probed into the details of her life among the Indians.
Bryony flung herself on her back, kicking off the sheet. The feather mattress was somehow smothering after the hard, resistant surface of the straw mattress on Ben’s bedstead, and even the slight river breeze drifting in through her opened casement was no compensation for the unutterable loneliness of an empty bed.
Was she doomed to spend the rest of her life in this
emptiness? To condemn a body that had known the glory of fulfillment to eternal deprivation? Having known Ben, she could not imagine sharing the glory he had taught her with anyone else. And what had her mother suspected? Not the truth, surely? That her daughter was a spoiled virgin, no fit bride for Francis Cullum or for any other young man.
The thoughts circled, viciously relentless, and the great well of grief at the suddenness of her loss, the denial of the time to draw matters between them to a civilized close, swallowed her in abject wretchedness. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself as if they could replicate the hold that had carried her through sleep for the last six weeks, and finally she fell into an exhausted oblivion as the dawn crept into the sky.
The rich, familiar fragrance of hot chocolate brought Bryony out of sleep. She blinked bemusedly in the brilliant sunlight, her first thought that it must be sinfully late and Ben would greet her appearance with an eyebrow raised in admonition and some wry comment about slug-a-beds who neglected their allotted tasks. And then Mary’s face, beaming and hovering over her, filled her vision, and she remembered.
“Dead to the world you were, Miss Bryony,” Mary said, plumping up the pillows behind her young charge, who was struggling to sit up. “Your mother said to let you sleep, but it’s all of three o’clock in the afternoon!”
“It cannot be!” Bryony stared in horror, pushing back her tumbled hair as Mary placed a silver tray on her lap. “I cannot have slept so long.”
“Well, you did,” Mary affirmed stolidly. “I’ll have your bath prepared in no time. Sir Francis and young Mr. Cullum are bidden to dinner at four o’clock.”
Bryony poured the dark, richly scented stream of chocolate from the silver jug into the shallow, fluted cup and sipped appreciatively, watching as Mary bustled around the large sun-filled chamber, pouring steaming water into the porcelain hip bath before the empty hearth. Every piece of furniture in the room, as elsewhere in the house, had come from England, carefully chosen for the elegant simplicity of master cabinetmakers, bearing the hallmarks of Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite. A Wilton carpet of deep rose covered the floor, matching the hangings at the bed and windows, and on the walnut chest of drawers reposed the heavy silver-backed hairbrushes and combs that had been her betrothal gift from the Cullums.
