by Jane Feather
“Lass, where did it come from?” Ben sat down and laid his hand over hers, which was poised to begin cutting up the prize. “What do you mean, you worked very hard for it?” His voice was softly insistent, and she could feel the flush creeping up the back of her neck.
“Well, I did not sell myself, if that is what you’re afraid of.” She tried to laugh airily, but neither the laugh nor her casual shrug could make up for the fact that she would not meet his eye. “Ned and I coaxed and cajoled and pled starvation. But you do not want to hear about that.”
Benedict sighed. He didn’t want to picture the scene where his wife and the child who was also his responsibility had to go begging. The idea that Sir Edward Paget’s daughter was roaming the countryside like a mendicant, cadging and cozening to put food on a Clare’s table, filled him with a dull anger, but he knew he could not reasonably forbid it; there seemed no other way to ensure an adequate food supply.
Bryony read his thoughts with little difficulty. “Please, Ben,” she said softly. “Enjoy it. Ned and I were so happy, and now you are spoiling it.”
“I am sorry.” He took a mouthful, but it tasted like ashes on his tongue. He chewed and swallowed and tried to smile, but the attempt fooled no one. Neither Bryony nor Charlie made any attempt to stop him when, the meal over, he pushed back his chair and went out into the night.
“That damned, stiff-necked Clare pride!” Bryony exclaimed in frustration. “It is hardly his fault that we have so little money. If it’s anyone’s, it’s mine. I made him spend so much on the march.”
“I don’t think he begrudged it, Bryony.” Charlie stacked the wooden platters. “There’s another meal on that carcass, I reckon.”
“Yes,” she said, as if the subject was of little interest. “I can boil it for soup.”
“Why don’t you go and find him.” Charlie gave her braid a friendly tug. “I’ll clean up in here.”
“You will have to take Ned to the privy before he goes to bed. He is afeard to go on his own in the dark.”
“But he is using it in the daytime now?” Charlie glanced at Ned, who, sublimely indifferent to the goings-on around him, was sitting on the floor by the hearth, playing with a set of pegs and a board that Ben had made for him.
“Not unless I’m watching him.” She chuckled, forgetting her sorrows for a minute. “He doesn’t seem to see the point … not when there are all those bushes.” Still smiling, she went out to the deserted lane.
“What has amused you?”
“Oh!” She jumped. “You scared me, Ben. How could you tell I was smiling? You couldn’t see my face.”
“I don’t need to,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “You smile with your whole body when you’re amused.”
“Oh, Charlie and I were just laughing about Ned and his antipathy for the privy.” She leaned into the cradling arm. “We have to try to civilize him, or I don’t know how we shall manage when things become normal again.”
“What is normal?” Ben asked into the darkness above her head.
“Well, houses and proper privies and baths … things like that.”
“And sufficient food upon the table.”
Bryony chose not to respond, and there was a short silence as they stood in the lane in the January cold, the sky clear and bright—the same sky that also watched over another world, an ordinary world; the same sky that had watched over them both in the other world; the same sky that would watch over the future world, wherever and however it was fashioned.
“Enough said.” Benedict turned her into his embrace, holding the fragile line of her jaw between finger and thumb. “There is only one thing I wish for at this moment. Do you know what it is?”
Bryony nodded, her eyes gleaming mischievously in the starlight. “The cottage to ourselves. It is so frustrating not being able to make any noise.” She looked around speculatively. “Do you think we will get the rheumatics if we stay out here?”
“We will on the grass.” The black eyes were dancing responsively now. “It’s icy cold and very damp. However …” He took her hand and marched with her into the churchyard. “There is a good broad oak tree over here.”
“We cannot make love in a tree,” Bryony protested, although her feet tripped along beside him.
“Not in it,” he said with another wicked gleam. “Against it.”
“Like a whore on the waterfront!” Bryony could not hide the ripple of excitement in her voice, even as she exclaimed in feigned shock at such an outrageous suggestion.
“I won’t ask what you know of whores and waterfronts,” Ben said, standing her firmly against the broad trunk of the tree. “But you have the right idea.” He pulled her skirt up and her drawers down in one movement, and Bryony felt herself begin to tremble as the deep recesses of her body moistened. She pressed herself against him with low murmurs of urgency, wanting him with a sudden, wild outpouring of lust, impatient as he freed himself from his clothes. She took him in one hand, stroking, squeezing, expressing her need, before guiding the erect, throbbing shaft within her hungry body, receiving him with a soft cry of pleasure.
“Sweet heaven!” Ben murmured. “To be inside you, my love, is to be buried in sweetness.” His hands were on her shoulders, holding her skirts up against them as he pressed deep within her, their eyes locked in wonder in the dim starlight.
“Nothing matters when we have this, does it?” Bryony whispered. “Nothing could ever matter, could it?” Her eyes sought affirmation in his—affirmation that the trivialities of pride were as nothing compared with this magical combination of love and lust with which they were blessed.
“Nothing,” he said. His lips took hers, and she felt the rough bark of the tree rasp against her scalp under the possessive pressure of his mouth. Then the maelstrom took them and she shuddered against him, spent but fulfilled.
It was two days after their miraculous joining in the churchyard that peace was shattered, and all the affirmations in the world were rendered powerless against the force of an explosion that tore apart the fragile edifice of love, exposing the skeleton in all its grinning inevitability.
Benedict was standing outside headquarters, deep in conversation with Harry Lee, whose legion of Virginian cavalry held undisputed position as the army’s crack band of raiders and scouts. The two men had much in common when it came to skills and styles of warfare, and Harry was a frequent visitor to the cottage by the churchyard. It was a sunny morning, freakishly warm, and Benedict was feeling remarkably at peace … until the sounds of commotion broke upon them.
Ben instantly identified Ned’s high-pitched shriek. He swung round to look down the street. The child was running as if all the devils in hell were after him, yelling at the top of his voice, and, indeed, pounding after him was a burly trooper whose virulent curses and scarlet face were ample evidence of Ned’s need to flee.
“What in Hades …?” Ben ran forward and collared the screaming Ned, whose legs continued to race even while he was held fast.
“Light-fingered little varmint!” The trooper, breathing heavily, came to a stop beside them. “That’s my cheese, ’e’s got! Whipped it outta my pack, quick as a flash, ’e did. Born to thievin’, ’e is.”
“It’s for Bryny!” Ned shrieked, still kicking. “It’s for Bryny!”
The elusive pieces slowly drifted and fell into place, forming the complete, horrible picture. “Give it back, Ned,” Ben commanded quietly. “And say you are sorry for taking it.”
With obvious reluctance, the child handed over the piece of cloth-wrapped cheese, since the hand on his collar was making a very definite statement. He mumbled words that could have been taken as apology, and Ben offered his own as simply as he could in the face of his hideous embarrassment. Everyone in Charlotte knew that Colonel Clare had two dependents, his wife and a stray child. It would not take many minutes for the story to be around the town. He could only hope and pray that the incident would be put down to an understandable aberration of
childhood and the blame not laid where it was due—at least, not by anyone but himself.
“He needs a good wallopin’, if you ask me,” the soldier said, recovering his property.
Not he, Ben thought with savage emphasis. How could she have been so blind to every personal consideration? To his position? To the child’s outlook? Still holding Ned by the collar, he stalked off in the direction of the cottage.
Bryony was darning a much-darned stocking of Ben’s when the cottage door crashed open. Ned began speaking, the words tumbling from his lips. “I got some cheese, Bryny, but Ben made me give it back.”
“And if you ever again take anything that does not belong to you, my friend, I’ll skin you alive!” Ben said with a quiet ferocity that could not be ignored. “Go outside, but you are not to leave the garden.” He sent the boy through the door with a smart tap on his rear and shut the door, turning slowly, placing his back against it, to look at Bryony.
She was rather pale but laid down the stocking, saying, “He was only trying to help. It is not his fault.”
“I am well aware at whose door to lay this!” His black eyes were pinpricks of fury. “Do you know the punishment for thievery and looting in this army?”
She did. “Thirty lashes. But I am not in the army.”
“But I am!” he rasped.
“Ben, listen to me.” She spoke quickly now, sensing that they were teetering on the brink of an abyss of some unknown depth. “I have done nothing that is not routinely practiced.”
“Why do you think Greene is imposing such harsh penalties?” demanded Benedict. “Because it has become an epidemic.”
“And with good reason.” She continued to find her words easily, to speak calmly, explaining the position as she saw it—unpleasant, certainly, but unarguable. “Some people have food, Benedict, and they will not share it. I cannot pay what they ask for even one egg, after I have bought milk. It is robbery of another kind. I have merely evened the score.”
“You have wantonly deceived me!” The voice did not sound like Ben’s. She had seen his anger in various manifestations but never this naked blade that she knew with a sick conviction would strike at the jugular. “You have forced my connivance in a crime.”
“It is not a crime in the ordinary sense,” she cried, losing her calm. “We were hungry.”
“God dammit, my wife does not steal to put food on my table!” He seized her upper arms, forcing her to her feet, and Bryony felt the quickening of real fear.
“It is our table,” she said.
Outside, Charlie Carter stood for a minute, a bleak look on his face as the raised voices carried. Ned’s hand slipped into his, cold and small. Charlie looked down at the child and saw fear of the unknown standing out in his eyes. “Come on, Ned, let us go for a walk.”
“It is my table.” Ben’s fingers bruised her arms, bringing tears to her eyes. “I have said that I look to my own. And I will do so.”
Something snapped. Whether it was the anger and fear brought on by the fact that he was hurting her, whether it was the injustice of it all, the blind refusal to acknowledge reality, she didn’t know. But she hit back. “You do not have the wherewithal to look to your own.” She regretted the words the instant they were spoken.
“You think I am not conscious of that?” His voice grated, and he shook her with each word, almost as if he were not aware of her as living flesh. “You would throw such a failure in my face! Well, let me tell you that while you remain as my wife, you will have to manage on what I can provide! It may not suit a Paget, but I fear that this Paget will have to learn her place as the wife of an indigent soldier! Do you understand me?” He let her go with an abrupt push that sent her reeling against the table. She stood looking at him, arms crossed over her breasts as she rubbed her bruised flesh, her eyes wide with shock.
Grim-faced and breathing heavily, Ben fought to bring himself under control, and the silence stretched between them, throbbing with the raw emotion of the last few dreadful minutes. “I beg your pardon, I did not mean to hurt you,” he said in a deadened tone. “When Cornwallis comes within marching distance, I will send you over to your father. Until then, you must make do with what is available.”
Every word was a stab to the heart. “I do not wish to leave you,” she managed to say at long last, through a throat dry as if clogged with sand. “I wished only to play my part. It does not seem reasonable that you should carry the full burden alone.”
“You are my wife,” he said, as if that was answer enough. “If you find that you do not care for what that means in its entirety, then you must leave.”
“And may a wife not attempt to share her husband’s burdens?” she asked quietly. “The role of parasite sits uneasy in my craw.”
“Your misguided actions have simply added to my burdens,” he told her with cold, flat finality. “In future, I would be grateful if you would confine your aid to those areas in which I request it. And you will account to my satisfaction for everything that comes into this house.”
“And what of later? When this damnable war is over and we must make a life together? What then, Benedict? Must I sit in a corner and twiddle my thumbs because your damned pride will not allow you to accept aid from those in a position to give it?” She heard her voice as if from a great distance. She did not wish to be following this path, not now, when Ben was this cold, angry stranger. But they had somehow found themselves upon it, and it had to be faced at some point. There was so much anger and hurt between them already that maybe it could not be worsened by this related issue.
“And whose aid do you have in mind?” he asked, his eyes opaque, his body very still. “I was under the impression that you had thrown in your lot willingly with a vagrant who has neither family nor fortune to protect you. Did you perhaps not fully understand what that would entail?” Mockery laced his voice. “I have no plans for when this war is over—if I am still here to make plans. But I do not foresee a life of ease, in the great house on a large plantation, for myself or for my wife.”
“I do not ask for it.” She swallowed, trying to find the right words. “I pledged myself to embrace your life and your cause, Benedict. But that does not have to mean that I can bring nothing of my own, does it?” A spurt of flame from the fire lit the dim room for a minute, and Ben looked at her, seeing the worried eyes, the taut leanness of her body, the rough skin of her hands, the broken nails, the ragged gown. She did not even have a decent pair of shoes!
“And what have you to bring?” he demanded, his voice harsh. She was not to know that the harshness was directed at himself for having reduced her to this pauper’s state.
“I am an heiress—” She stopped as all trace of color left his face and he looked as if felled by a body blow. Summoning every vestige of courage, she continued. “When this war is over, I can make peace with my father.”
“You think for one minute that I would accept Paget blood money?” His voice shook and he took a step toward her. Bryony shrank back against the table. “Money that is wrested from the pores of those wretches …”
“I am sorry,” Bryony whispered, feeling the hard edge of the table pressing into her thighs as she bent backward, desperately trying to put some distance between herself and this livid stranger. “Please, Ben, let us not mention it again. I only thought that perhaps when it was all over you would feel differently.”
He gripped her jaw, and his eyes, no longer opaque, were sword points of contempt. “I do not understand how you could have thought such a thing, after everything that I have told you. You are no different from the rest of your breed, Bryony Paget. You imagine such things as I have told you can be banished at will in the interests of expediency?” He flung her face from him with an expression of disgust and left the cottage, the door slamming in his wake.
Bryony turned and crouched over the table as sobs wracked her, welling, it seemed, from the depths of her stomach, filling her whole body to overflowing. One day he would have to lose the hat
red or be forever corroded by bitterness. She had thought, oh, so foolishly, that this war would exorcise the demon—had almost done so. But never before had he looked at her like that. Even when she had got in the way of his hatred, she had known that it was not really her he was seeing with such bitter distaste. Today, it had been her.
“Whatever is it?” Charlie, his voice resonant with distress, stepped into the cottage. He came over to her, stroking her back as she huddled bent over the table. “Bryony, what is it? Do not cry like that. You will do yourself some harm.” Helplessly, he continued to pat her back, but the weeping would not stop, shuddering the slender frame. Ned began to wail in fright at this collapse of one of the props of his existence, and Charlie swore, violently but uselessly. Ben had caused this, whatever it was, and Ben was going to have to put it right.
Charlie stormed out of the cottage, for once furious with the man whom he loved and admired as if he were an adored elder brother. Bryony’s stealing at this juncture in the reestablishment of regular army discipline had been enough to make anyone annoyed; Charlie was more than willing to concede that, but Ben must have done something dreadful to cause such piteous distress.
Benedict was in the churchyard, and there was nothing about his countenance to encourage confidence, but Charlie was not deterred. “What did you do to Bryony?” he demanded without preamble.
Ben frowned as if the younger man were an impertinent subordinate. “I fail to see what business it is of yours.”
Charlie flushed angrily. “She is weeping as if her heart is broken, and now Ned has started. You must have done something.”
Ben sighed with weary irritation. “What are you accusing me of, Charlie—beating her?”
“Of course not.” Charlie shuffled his feet restlessly on the grass. “It’s none of my business, and she should never have done it, I know. But I am sure she just did not think—”
“Charlie, that is not really the issue. While I appreciate your concern for Bryony, I must repeat, I do not welcome interference in my affairs.”
