“My entire brigade will leave for Philadelphia first thing in the morning,” General Paterson informed Joe, the stablemaster, when we swung from our saddles back at the Red House. “Agrippa and Colonel Kosciuszko will travel with us as well, and Kosciuszko—and his mount—will not be returning at all. Our horses will need to be ready before dawn.”
Joe nodded, never a man who needed much instruction, and led Lenox and Common Sense toward the stables, mumbling to them as they clopped along beside him.
“What do you need me to do first, General?” I asked.
“Come with me, Samson,” he clipped. His stride was long, and he tugged at his neckcloth as he walked, as though the heat of the day had finally gotten to him. It was loose before we reached his office, and he tugged it off as he tossed his coat aside and began to roll his sleeves.
I walked to the pitcher and poured him a glass of water, catching a glimpse of my face in the mirror above the cabinet. It didn’t look too bad. No swelling. No deep discoloration. I doubted it would last longer than a day or two. I’d looked worse.
The general took the glass without a word and drank it down before he stepped to the basin and washed, giving a terse assent when I excused myself to briefly wash as well. He sat down in his chair and opened his ledger as I left, but when I returned only minutes later and sat down across from him, he continued to stare out his window, his elbows on his armrests, his hands steepled beneath his chin.
“General?”
“Yes?”
“What’s bothering you, sir?”
He inhaled deeply. “I do not like what was insinuated by Private Dornan,” he said, his voice low and hard.
I didn’t need to ask which insinuation. I knew. It had bothered me too. Embarrassed me. It had also given me the burst of anger I’d needed to knock him flat. But I was surprised the general had confessed his feelings so easily. I typically had to wheedle and wait him out, but he continued, still staring into the gathering dusk. The sun was setting and the clouds were violet against the green crags, but I didn’t think the general was arrested by the purple sky.
“General Washington doesn’t spend five seconds worrying about who his officers select as their aides,” he muttered.
“Sir?”
“Von Steuben’s predilections with his aides are well known, but he is a brilliant military man, and I have no doubt God sent him to us, all the way from Prussia. That is what matters to General Washington.”
“So why are you so upset?” Turmoil billowed around him, heated and confused.
He turned his head then, pinning me in his gaze. “Do you expect to survive this adventure, Deborah?”
I was so taken aback by the question, I simply stared at him, but he supplied his own answer.
“I don’t think you do. I think that is part of the reason you are so bloody brave and so damned competent that it stuns me. I’ve watched you now for more than a year, continually doing things that would terrify anyone, not to mention a woman who had never before seen or engaged in battle. But you don’t seem afraid of anything. I think it’s because you expect to die, and you are at peace with that ending.”
“I have survived this far because I’ve had your protection for much of it.”
He shook his head, rejecting my answer. “No. That’s not true. You don’t give yourself nearly enough credit, and that’s not an answer.”
I tried again, being as honest as I was able. “I resolved, in the very beginning—when I saw men stripped down at the whipping post and tied together to be shuffled onto prison ships—that I would end my life before I allowed myself to be captured or publicly exposed. I would rather die. As for an ending . . . I do not think about it. I do not want to think about it. I am only here. In this moment. And I do my best to think of nothing else.”
He began to shake his head, slowly at first, and then more adamantly, his eyes never leaving me. “I cannot do this anymore,” he said.
“General?”
“You are so dismissive of your own life, so unbothered by your own safety.” He slapped his hands on his desk. “Well, I can’t be. I have lost Elizabeth. I won’t lose you. And I cannot do this anymore,” he repeated, punctuating each word.
“You are angry with me,” I summarized, bereft.
He covered his mouth with his palm, gripping his cheeks like he was holding himself back. When he spoke again, I could barely hear him behind his hand.
“I am angry because I should not feel this way. I am angry because I should not need you. I am angry because you are here, and I know you should not be. I should have sent you to Lenox long ago. But instead, I have kept you here with me.”