“Praise God,” I whispered. “I feared you would confess all.”
He battled for control and lost it several times, his hand gripping mine, before he spoke again. “He said you begged him not to tell me. Why, Samson? Why would you do that?”
“I only wanted . . . to protect you,” I breathed, and he laid his head down on the bed beside me, his big shoulders shaking, and groaned into the mattress to drown out the sound of his own torment. I laid my hand on his head, needing to touch him, unable to do more.
“I thought you had run,” he cried. “I came back here, to Anne’s house, and you were gone. Anne and Stephen had left for Trenton, and the servants did not know where you were. And I . . . I was convinced I’d scared you away. Your uniform was gone. I thought you were gone too.”
“I do not scare so easily, General.” I tried to smile, to coax him to smile, but he did not lift his head.
“Why did you leave?”
“I wanted to walk about on my own. I have no freedom in a dress. I did not know I was ill . . . really ill . . . until it was too late.”
“My father died of yellow fever,” he whispered. “It hits fast. He fell unconscious, just like you. And he never woke.”
“I am so sorry, John.” It was the only thing I could say. And I was. Desperately, truly sorry. I was so weak I could hardly move, but my mind was clear, and I knew I would recover. I wasn’t sure the general would. He had not raised his head from the mattress, I could not see his eyes, and despair radiated from him.
“My uniform is gone,” I murmured. “They took it from me.” It was not the most important thing, but it signified something deeper, something we had to face. John was not wearing his uniform either.
“No.” He shook his head. “I have it. I knew you would want it. Grippy carried your things. I carried you. No one even saw us leave the hospital except for Dr. Binney. He was worried about what would become of you. He is a very . . . decent . . . man.”
The general had thought to retrieve my uniform. In that moment, I loved him more than I’d ever loved him before, and tears began to leak from the corners of my eyes and wet the pillow beneath my head. For several silent moments, I wrestled my emotions back the way I’d bound my breasts, wrapping them so tightly they would never expose me. But those days were done, and I had a new mission.
“What will become of me?” I asked after several minutes of weighty silence. “And what will become of you?”
Finally he raised his head. “I told Dr. Binney and Dr. Thatcher that I would see to your welfare and no charges would be brought. It felt like a betrayal not to claim you . . . or explain you . . . but I saw no benefit to either of us to make our relationship known or to expose you further.”
I studied him, eyes wet, hardly breathing. He stared back, his gaze bleak, his jaw tight.
“I have seen to matters here in Philadelphia. My work here is finished, and I requested a thirty-day furlough. But I will resign when it is up. And we will go to Lenox when you are well. If that is what you want. Is that what you want, Deborah? Am I what you want? Or have I simply trampled over your wishes to reach my own desires?”
“Oh, John,” I breathed. “You are the only man in heaven or earth that I want. But you cannot resign. You would never forgive yourself. And I would never forgive myself.”
“Why?” he gasped.
“I will not be the reason you break your word. You made a pledge to your men. You promised you would stay, all the way to the end. You promised Phineas.”
He rose from the chair, agitated, torment in his every step, and made a slow circle around the room, stopping to pull the night air into his lungs before he returned to my bedside.
“I have clearly made more promises than I can keep. I made one to you nine days ago, a promise before God. And you were taken from me the very next day. I cannot leave you, I can’t do it. Not now. I don’t have the strength. And you can’t come with me to West Point. Dr. Thatcher’s discretion will only go so far. He will not be silent if we try to continue as we have. A newspaper printed something very similar to our circumstances today, though names weren’t used.”
“Dr. Thatcher knew me when I was a child. He knew Deborah Samson. Yet he did not guess?”
John shook his head. “He did not.”
“So Grippy . . . is the only one who knows . . . everything?”
“Yes. He and Anne. She and Stephen returned today. I will let Anne handle the reverend, though at this juncture, he only knows that you’ve been ill.”