Chapter 12 Baiting the Hook #2
Her eyes cut toward Benjamin, and his heart plummeted, throbbing with a harsh, fearful ache as she was dragged before Edwin.
“This is her, Major General,” Oliver crowed. “What do you think, sir?”
Edwin appraised all present company with an unreadable frown. “What were you doing beyond our campgrounds?” he demanded.
“I intercepted a letter from one of our couriers,” Oliver explained.
“The note said Miss Boyd was unattended in Lower Manhattan, and that this might lead to a good opportunity. So I intervened and promptly grabbed her. I know I should’ve come to you first, sir, but I decided to take matters into my own hands.
She was quite the fighter at first, but now she’s docile as a lamb.
See?” As if to demonstrate, he pinched Clara’s cheek.
Putting on a show for their ruse, which, admittedly, wasn’t too difficult, she jerked and bit his fingers. He howled and retracted with a snarl. “You…you doggess!”
“Keep your filthy rebel hands off me!” she seethed. “All of you!” Furious, she spat at their feet.
Francis clocked her across the face, her body hurtling to the ground from the mighty blow.
Benjamin moved to assist, but Amos caught his arm. It wasn’t wise to show his feelings toward an enemy had changed. He knew that, yet rage simmered beneath Benjamin’s skin as he watched Clara snivel and curl against the grass.
“There will be no striking the prisoner,” Edwin barked. Nodding to Oliver, he added, “You may escort her to the stockade. Once we’re ready to contact the Boyds, I will send for your assistance.”
Oliver bowed. “Thank you for entrusting me with her welfare, sir.”
Edwin offered a bow in reply, then both Francis and Oliver gathered up Clara’s weeping form. As she was escorted from the tent, she didn’t so much as glance in Benjamin’s direction. Her revulsion stung.
Ignoring Amos’s eyes on him, Benjamin reeled with the new flood of information and exhaled.
If Clara was being held in camp, then as a mere private, he wouldn’t be permitted to speak with her, nor oversee her care.
He couldn’t let Clara face this alone, not when he was the direct cause of her torment.
For this reason, he announced, “Major General, sir? I…I would like to accept your commission. That is, if I am still welcome to be captain?”
Bemused, Edwin’s stern expression softened into pleased acquiescence.
“Of course, Hoskin,” he agreed. “You’ll be given a troop under the command of Colonel Travers.
He’ll see about your uniform.” As Benjamin bowed and turned to leave, he added, “Oh, and Hoskin? You were right. Thus far, your reports have been sound, and I’d be a fool to ignore this lead. Just remember, we can’t save everyone.”
With a tight smile, Benjamin offered another bow, then excused himself into the early evening sun.
Clara’s new lodgings were nothing short of hell itself. She was being kept in a barn, of all places, manacled to a post while she sat amongst nickering horses.
This was all Oliver’s fault. Despite his vow of protection, he didn’t once intervene and keep that vile aide from striking her. Now that it was mid-evening, the lump on her cheek had faded to a tender bruise.
“You comfortable there, Miss?”
Glowering at the soldier on guard, Clara curled her lip before turning to face the front.
“You too good to talk to me?” he asked, approaching with a threatening swagger. “I asked you a question.”
Clara swallowed, her heart pounding.
“Listen here, you rich, Tory doggess. I’ll—!”
The stockade door opened, and Clara and the soldier jerked before glancing toward the intrusion.
A man with a tray stepped inside, and despite her rage and frustration toward him, Clara was never more relieved to see Benjamin in all her life.
Bedecked in a blue coat with buff facings and a gold epaulet on his right shoulder, a pristine white waistcoat, red wool officer’s sash, and buff breeches with a saber at his hip, he cut quite the formidable figure.
“Er…Captain Hoskin!” the soldier spluttered. “Wasn’t expectin’ you here. I was told—”
“You were told to obey orders,” Benjamin snapped, “so kindly obey mine. You are dismissed.”
Leery of the fiery look in the other man’s eyes, the soldier nodded, then sidestepped him to make his leave.
Once the barn door slid shut, the tension in Benjamin’s posture softened, and he looked toward Clara with glassy, mournful eyes. “I’m so sorry.” When all she did was glare at him, he sighed and stepped forward. “May we speak candidly?”
She scoffed, resentful as the urge to weep welled within her throat.
“You lied to me,” she accused. “You lied to my family. We took you in, and cared for and trusted you, and yet all you have to say is you are ‘so sorry?’” She laughed, the sound sharp and derisive.
“Is that ‘candid’ enough for you, Captain?”
Benjamin winced. “I deserve that,” he murmured. “You’ve no reason to trust, nor even like me, but I swear to you, Clara, my feelings for you and your family, or at least, you, were completely genuine.”
Clara snorted. “How can I believe that? Everything I knew about you has turned out to be a lie, Captain Benjamin Hoskin.” Upper lip curling, she looked him over in disdain. “If nothing else, that traitorous uniform becomes you.”
Benjamin swallowed, approaching with the tray of food. “I didn’t intend for you to find out this way. Had I been given more time…”
“You would’ve told me the truth? Just like the first two times you were given the opportunity?”
Avoiding her gaze, Benjamin gestured to the tray in his hands. “You should eat,” he deflected. “I was hard-pressed in gathering something for you, so these are my personal rations.”
Clara glowered at him. “Those are yours?”
“Yes.”
“They are no one else’s?”
“No, of course not.”
Grudgingly acquiescent, Clara held out her hands and Benjamin smiled, sinking to his left knee. Though once he held out the food in offering, Clara furiously smacked the tray from his grasp, sending the stew splattering across the dirt.
“I hope you starve,” she seethed. “If you think for one minute that I will ever accept anything from you, even something that will save my very life, you are sadly mistaken!”
Rattled, Benjamin gathered the discarded wooden bowl and returned it to its tray. “Clara, you must eat.”
“Miss Boyd.”
He squinted. “I’m sorry?”
“Miss Boyd,” she coolly reminded him. “You are not my familiar. You are not my equal. Therefore, you must address me with the proper respect.”
Benjamin’s heart lanced painfully at the contradiction, and gritting his teeth, he wobbled while rising from the ground. “Very well,” he agreed. “My apologies, Miss Boyd.”
“Don’t act like you’re the victim here,” Clara hissed. “You came into my life under false pretenses, so you have no right to behave as though I owe you anything.”
Benjamin winced. “I am aware of this, but—”
“There is no ‘but!’ You destroyed what we could’ve been the moment you decided to pose as Lottie’s betrothed!”
“Then…you do admit there could’ve been something?” Benjamin regarded her through wide, hopeful eyes, and Clara gaped at him in shock.
A tension throbbed between them, long and silent, before she furiously spat onto his boots. “Get out,” she growled at him. “Out, and go to the devil! If Providence is kind, I will never have to see your face again!”
Benjamin dizzily stepped backward, each barbed arrow slinging from the bow of her lips leaving him wounded and reeling. “Very well,” he choked. “I’ll have someone bring your food in the morning.” He bowed his head. “Good day to you, Miss Boyd.”
He hesitated as though he wished to say more, hunched his shoulders, and then promptly left Clara to cry into her hands.