“I want to be here with you,” I confessed in a rush.
“That doesn’t make it better,” he roared. “Goddammit!” He shoved everything from his desk, swiping at it like a great bear. His inkpot shattered against the wall and his ledger slid drunkenly to the floor, pages splayed.
I stood and walked briskly toward the door, thinking it might be better for me to retreat. I was clearly not helping matters.
“Stop this instant! I did not dismiss you,” he commanded, rounding his desk like he’d been shot from a cannon. I had never seen him so overwrought. John Paterson always had a firm hold on his temper and his words, and both were applied with precision instead of passion.
I froze, my back to him, my hand on the handle. He crossed the room in three strides, and slammed his hands against the door, his chest to my back.
“I do not want you to go,” he said, and his anger had suddenly become anguish.
“Then I won’t,” I whispered, and for a moment we simply breathed together, harsh inhales and rasping exhales, standing pressed together against the door. Then he tugged on the tie that bound my hair and let it fall to the floor. Cradling my head between his hands, he tangled his fingers in the shoulder-length strands, gathering it into his fists.
I did not protest. Or breathe. Or even dare hope.
“How does no one see it?” he asked, bleak, and he dropped his brow to rest it on my head.
“See what, General?” I asked, composed. Calm. Pretending nothing was amiss.
“How does no one see you?” he whispered. “You, Deborah. Your skin. Your eyes. Your mouth. The length of your neck, the wisdom in your words. You are a grown woman. How does no one see it?”
He was so close. His lips and hands were in my hair, his length pressed to my back, and I closed my eyes, trying to find my shield and my strength. But I found nothing but naked longing.
“I don’t want them to see me . . . to see the woman,” I whispered. “I am a soldier in Washington’s Continental army, and an aide-de-camp to a great general.”
“And what else?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
He inhaled deeply, as if summoning his own strength, and on the exhale, he asked, “Do you have feelings for me, Samson?”
It did no good for me to deny it. It was there between us, the tension that I’d called kinship. The knowledge that I’d insisted was trust. The intimacy that I’d convinced myself came from shared suffering and near escape. It coiled in my breasts and burned in my belly, and he knew it.
“Yes, sir. I am in love with you.”
The shudder that ran through him coursed through me. It was like cold water down my parched throat, and I reveled in the relief of my confession.
“So bloody brave,” he whispered.
He released my hair, and I turned toward him, raising my face to his. Triumph and torture warred in his eyes. He pressed his forehead to mine, ground it there, like he wanted to push me from his thoughts, but then his mouth descended, and his lips caught mine.
It was not a sweet press of mouths or a stamp of approval like I’d received from Nat. It was not a pursed peck or a careful aligning of our noses. It was immediate warfare, and it didn’t matter that I had not battled thus before. The kiss—if it could be called that—was as instinctual and guttural as an infant’s first cry. We wrestled with our mouths, a desperate duel of lips and longing, panting and pursuing, clutching at each other, bowing and bending, until my head collided with the door, disconnecting us.
I gasped and he cursed, and we immediately broke apart. The general took a step back like I’d slapped him or he’d inadvertently caused me pain. It was not pain; I had no name for what I felt.
“We will leave in the morning for Philadelphia.” He wiped the kiss from his mouth, and I wanted nothing more than to make it wet again. I was reeling. Reeling and aching.
“And I will go with you,” I insisted.
“Yes.” He nodded once. “Yes. You will come to Philadelphia with me . . . as my aide. But I am dismissing you as soon as the situation there is resolved so that you don’t have to return to the highlands. It will be an honorable discharge. The war is all but over. It is time, Samson.”
“But . . . I want to be with you.”
“No.” He shook his head, vehement. “No. I can’t be around you. I should never have allowed you to stay.”
He’d tricked me. He’d asked me if I had feelings for him, and I had readily confessed. Now he was punishing me for it.