Chase the Dawn by Jane Feather

education has been somewhat limited.”
    “I don’t think I have ever washed dishes before, either,” she declared, looking with distaste at her burdens.
    “New experiences never did anyone any harm.” He lay back on the grass with a contented sigh, gazing up at the sky, where the first stars were just beginning to appear.
    When Bryony returned from the creek with the now clean dishes, the sleeves of the nightshirt sopping wet where they had fallen over her hands as she had bent to her task, Benedict was on his feet with the air of a man on the move. “I am going to leave you for an hour or two,” he said without preamble. “And I want your parole before I do.”
    “My parole?” She stared, her eyes riveted on the pistols in his belt. “But I am not a prisoner.”
    “As I said this morning, that is a matter for definition.” This was the other Ben, the man who set fire to barns. “Since I will not permit you, under any circumstances, to leave the clearing except to go down to that one part of the creek, you might say that you are a prisoner.”
    “Why?” Bryony was suddenly angry. She owed him her life, but that did not give him the right to impose imprisonment for reasons that were not vouchsafed. It wasn’t as if she had done anything to deserve it; quite the reverse, since it was his fault that she was here at all.
    “My reasons are my own,” he replied quietly. “But they are sufficient. Will you give me your parole?”
    “Not unless you tell me why I should,” she said, her mouth taking a stubborn turn.
    “Because if you do not, I shall have to confine you as I did earlier, and I do not wish to do that.” There was patience in his voice, but it could not disguise the implacability of the statement.
    “Tie me to the bed?” She glared in disbelieving anger.
    “If you give me no choice.” He glanced up at the sky and frowned. “I must leave now. Your parole?”
    “No,” Bryony heard herself say. “Not without a reason.” She yelled as he lifted her as if she weighed no more than a kitten. But her twisting and writhing, the curses and imprecations, availed her not a whit. She was dumped in the middle of the bedstead and her wrist secured with the rawhide to the frame.
    “Give me your parole, Bryony.” He stood looking down at her, showing no satisfaction at his easy victory.
    It was her last chance, and as much as she feared being left alone and helpless in this degrading fashion, the stubborn refusal to submit to what she saw as clear injustice, a reaction that Eliza Paget would have recognized instantly, made her shake her head in mute denial.
    Benedict shrugged and lit an oil lamp on the table.
    “What if something happens to you and you do not come back?” she demanded through a throat of leather. “There are bears in the woods.”
    “I will be back within two hours.” Then he was gone.
    Bryony wrestled the knot with her free hand, but it was an intricate series of twists that evaded all her efforts. There was sufficient play in the strap to allow her to sit up, even to get off the bed, and to lie in whatever position she chose. Still, tears of angry frustration not unmixed with fright poured down her cheeks. At least she was not in darkness. Had he any cruelty in him, he would have left her alone without the comfort of thelamp. Instead, with an air of grim resignation, he had simply done what he decided he had to do. It was just another facet of the man, another piece of the jigsaw.
    She fell into a fitful sleep eventually, and woke with pounding heart at the sound of the door opening. But it was Benedict. He came over to the cot and unfastened the strap from the bed, although leaving it attached to her wrist. “Do you wish to go outside?”
    Bryony wished that she did not and could answer him by disdainfully turning away, but her body was not prepared to be accommodating. When she returned, he was standing quite naked by the table, trimming the lamp. Even in vexation, laboring