Chapter 23 The Sweet Sting of Poison #3
Benjamin choked back his nausea and peered at her through the sallow lighting. “Like what?” he rasped. For a moment, his eyes flickered with hope, and he clamped his hand around her wrist. “My laudanum? Do you have it?”
With a pained cry, Clara yanked herself free and rubbed the affliction.
A hot, nettled ribbon of agitation stitched through her heart, but that quickly dissolved into guilt as she looked away.
“No,” she murmured. “No, of course not, but I do have something to offer that’s always helped.
” She looked to him in earnest. “May I?”
Benjamin gazed at her distrustfully, then offered a slow nod. He appeared so lost, so helpless, and the sight of his mussed and sweaty queue, small, constricted pupils, and overgrown stubble left a dip in her stomach.
With a rush of breath, Clara turned toward him and crossed her legs, indicating that he pivot. “Sit here,” she entreated. “When my sisters and I were younger, we would braid each other’s hair before bed every night. It might seem silly to you, but it always made me feel safe and loved.”
Benjamin snorted. “You mean to tell me a servant didn’t braid your hair?”
Ignoring his scorn, she agreed, “Perhaps at first, yes, but that was one thing my sisters and I wished to learn for ourselves. Angélique taught us. She was only a child, herself, at the time.”
Expression softening in defeat, Benjamin shivered and turned toward the neighboring wall.
With careful, gentle passes of her fingers through his hair, Clara undid his queue and attempted to remove the mass of tangles by hand. “Where is your comb?” she asked.
“Over there,” he grumbled. “By my washbowl.”
Rising to fetch it, Clara grabbed the wooden comb and returned to his side, her pulse quickening as she seated herself behind him.
There was something intimate about viewing Benjamin in this way.
He was defenseless here, unguarded, and Clara took the utmost care as she drew the comb through his knotted strands.
Benjamin flinched every so often, but as the tangles became few and far between, his posture relaxed, and the tension in his shoulders lessened.
Rolling his head toward his chest, he hummed softly, and Clara felt a twinge of fulfillment since it was a sound of pleasure and not pain.
Chewing her lip, she rebraided his hair with practiced, tightly-woven overlaps. “I was thinking we could go for a walk tomorrow… Perhaps in the afternoon?” she asked.
Benjamin’s spine went rigid. “You know I can’t walk.”
“No, I don’t,” she countered. “All I do know is you have a sort of mobility, and the potential to care for yourself.” Frowning, she continued plaiting his hair. “Have you tried?”
“No…” Agitation evident, Benjamin mumbled, “My fear is that after all this time, I won’t be able to.”
Clara huffed. “So you’d rather not try at all, and ensure you won’t ever walk again, as opposed to taking a chance?”
“I don’t want to build myself up for that kind of disappointment,” he growled. “I don’t expect you, a woman who’s always been given whatever her heart desires, to understand.”
Clara flinched. “Since you are in pain, I’m going to ignore that asinine remark,” she said. “Ben, you don’t understand. I—”
“No, you don’t understand!” he thundered.
Shaking her off, Benjamin snapped his head in her direction and nailed her in place with his wild, desperate eyes.
“It’s so easy for you to speak your thoughts, to give your unwanted opinions when you, yourself, have never hurt this way!
” He heaved a dry, unfeeling laugh. “What, so you think that after all this time, I can just get up and walk? Run? Kick my heels and dance around the room?”
Clara drew back, her eyes glassy with hurt. “No, of course not,” she said. “But Ben, surely you—”
“Surely, you aren’t so ignorant that you believe you can help me!” he snarled. “Unless you have a tincture in your hands, I don’t want to hear another word!”
“Ben…”
“Get out,” he growled. “Out, damn you!” Snatching his comb off the bed, he fiercely lobbed it across the room.
As it struck the wall, Clara recoiled and staggered to her feet.
“You can’t drive me away, Captain Hoskin,” she choked.
Chin quivering, she curled her hands into fists.
“You can maim me, call me names, spit at me, but I am not leaving this house. Not until you’re well again!
” Drawing a shuddery breath, she swept a hand toward her chest. “You should know you’ve changed me.
Being away from my home, being out here with a bunch of rebels…
I quickly realized I can be so much more than who I am, who I was.
That even a woman can raze the walls that bind her and be whomever she wishes to be…
that the fight for independence isn’t just for men.
It’s for me, too.” She blinked back tears.
“Granted, I am not fighting against my king and country, but I still feel as though I am fighting—to be seen, to be heard, to be respected. And somehow, someway, I’ve found all of that here in this sleepy, inconsequential little town by your side.
And maybe I’m wrong, but I think that makes you far from useless. ”
Benjamin’s molten gaze turned wet and he leaned onto his palms, clawing at his bedding with quivering, talon-like fingers. “You’re wrong,” he hissed. “If I was so useful, Bishop would’ve requested I return to the field.”
“Your self-worth does not hinge upon your superior,” Clara snapped.
“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that true merit isn’t determined through perception, but how you help people?
How you touch their lives?” She breathed a maudlin laugh.
“Ben, you may not realize it, but you have saved me; and with God as my witness, I am not leaving this house until I save you, too.”
With tears spilling freely down her cheeks, she grabbed her candle and stormed from the room, leaving Benjamin sitting there in stunned disbelief.