Chase the Dawn Read Free

something … anything! But there was nothing—just an abyss. She knew only that she was in a log cabin, that she was naked, that there was a man somewhere for whom that nakedness had become familiar. What had happened to her? What had he done while she was lying here, defenseless? But she knew what he had done. It was the only thing she did know. He had not harmed her, he had cared for her like a nurse with a baby, attending to her intimate needs. And Bryony wished she had died rather than wake to this shaming reality, peopled with only these recent and so mortifying memories.
    A creak and a square of bright light heralded the opening of the cabin door. She blinked as the dazzle struck her unaccustomed eyes, then the light was blocked for a minute by the bulk of a figure—an utterly recognizable figure. She retreated behind closed eyes.
    Leaving the door open, Benedict crossed to the bedstead and stood looking down at its occupant. The girl had her eyes tight shut, but there was something about her posture beneath the blanket, about the sudden mobility of her face, that told him not only was she awake, she was finally fully conscious. He knelt down beside the bed. “Open your eyes, Bryony.”
    Bryony! Her eyes shot open, meeting the intent scrutiny of a pair as black and resonant as ebony. “Isthat my name?” She forgot the agonies of shame for the moment in this all-important question.
    The breath whistled through his teeth as he absorbed the implications of the question. “Can you not remember?”
    She shook her head, wincing as the soreness rubbed against the pillow again.
    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