“God help me. What a bloody fool. What a bloody little fool,” he breathed. “Deborah Samson. Dear God.”
And then he did the most unexpected thing of all.
He drew me to his chest and embraced me.
I gasped and my knees buckled, but he held me up.
I had never been embraced. Not once in my memory had I been cradled in another’s arms, but John Paterson clutched me to his heart like the prodigal son come home.
I did not return his embrace. I couldn’t. My arms were folded over my bosom, keeping my heart in my chest, protecting the secret he already knew.
“Please don’t send me away,” I choked. “I will go back to the ranks. I’ll play the fife or beat the drum. But don’t make me go.”
“Can you play the fife, Miss Samson?” he asked, and his voice shook, the same as mine.
“No. But give me a day or two to learn, sir. I’m certain I can master it.”
I was sincere, desperately so, but his chest rumbled beneath my cheek. I’d made him laugh with my bravado.
But I could not laugh. I could not even breathe.
“I have been shot at,” I hissed. “I have been wounded, and I have killed. But I have served valiantly—is not valiance the most important trait of all?—and I have served well. I have earned my right to be here. Please don’t deny me that. Please don’t take that away from me. When this war is over, God willing I survive, then I will have to find my place in the world. But right now, my place is here. At your side. Grippy said I was one of you now. Please let me finish what I have begun. Please let me see it through.”
My throat ached with the need to weep, but I stood within the circle of his arms and awaited his verdict. He held me a moment longer, his embrace tight and his cheek resting against my hair. Then he set me away from him and left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
I bound my breasts, dressed, and made my bed. Then I sat in my chair, too afraid to venture out and too confused about what had just occurred to form a plan. John Paterson had not insisted I go. He had not said I could stay. I could no more interpret his embrace than I could his abrupt exit.
He had left my diary sitting beside the candle that still burned. The flame was wobbling and weary, the wick a long, charred line.
I opened my book and saw my words through a new lens, reading each entry as John Paterson must have read them. It was not what I said that condemned me, though I’d foolishly mentioned Nat and Phin and Jeremiah in one entry. It was the greeting to Elizabeth in Deborah Samson’s hand that must have jarred him awake. Once he’d made the connection, every careful word would have reinforced the realization.
“Oh, Elizabeth,” I whispered, trying not to weep. “What should I do?”
I should gather my things and go. But . . . I was enlisted. I couldn’t simply leave. If I did, I would be considered a deserter. I had not been discharged. General Paterson would have to do that, and no doubt when the morning came, he would present me with my papers and send me away. I didn’t believe he would tell anyone or seek to press charges. He would just release me, and I would go. And I would never see him again.
That was the worst part of all.
Worse than private shame, worse than public censure, worse than having no future and no home. To never see John Paterson again would be unbearable.
I turned to a clean page, prepared my quill, and began writing, holding nothing back, not even to myself.
April 2, 1782
Dear Elizabeth,
You must forgive me. I did not mean to love him. Not this way. I admired him—I’ve admired him for so long—and was so fond of him. But this is not fondness or admiration. This is agony in my chest and fire in my belly. You are his wife. His beloved and my beloved. And my feelings shame and alarm me. But I cannot deny them.
The ache in my heart is the same as it was the day I learned that you were gone. The disbelief, the betrayal, the loss of my hope, and most of all, the gaping emptiness of a world without you in it. But now it is magnified by the guilt that I have betrayed you and John both, not just with my actions, but with my feelings.
I wish you could give me a bit of advice like you used to do. Remind me of the power and blessings of our sex—weren’t those the words you used? I must return to womanhood, and I am not ready. It is not that being a man is a marvelous thing. The truth is, I am not one and never will be, nor do I even want to be one. It was never about changing myself. It has always been about freeing myself. Now here I am, bound, heart and soul, to a man who does not love me, who cannot love me—how could he?—and one I will likely never see again when I leave here.