A Girl Called Samson (98)

“Huh.” He chewed on his lip. “That sounds like him. Maybe that’s it.” He frowned at me. “You’d best not argue with him. He’s a gentleman, through and through, but a stickler for the rules. Once he’s decided, it’s done.”

I knew that to be true. John Paterson was a gentleman, and I had put him in a situation that was untenable. I was breaking all the rules, and he was abetting me. What was worse—and simultaneously wonderful—was that he claimed to love me, and I spent the hours traveling beside him in a state of thrilled horror at the thought.

The first night, I placed my bedroll as far from his as I was able and put his saddlebags near the opening of the small tent. I was half-terrified that he would walk all night to avoid me and alert Agrippa and anyone else paying attention that something was amiss, but he slipped inside when the camp was quiet and removed his boots before stretching out on the bed I’d made for him.

The next morning, I scolded him while I shaved his face, relaying what Agrippa had said to me. “He thinks I have upset you. He says you are on edge whenever I am near.”

“I am.” He raised his pale blue eyes to mine, and I removed the blade from his skin in case the tremor in my belly became a trembling in my hand.

The second night he dined with General Howe and returned when the moon was high. I’d been waiting for the camp to go to sleep and the night to deepen so I could retreat to the trees and visit the river. I rose and made to slip out as he watched.

“Samson?”

“I need to wash,” I said simply. “And there are other needs best attended to in the dark.”

“I will come with you and stand watch.”

“General . . .”

He raised one finger and hissed between his teeth, silencing me. “I will come with you.”

I waited obediently, clutching my washcloth and soap to my chest as he pulled his boots back on his feet. I’d removed the binding over my breasts so I could better clean myself, and wore only my breeches and my shirt. I would not submerge myself; my clothes would not have time to dry if I washed them.

I did not need to tell him how odd it would look for him to be standing watch over me, but he folded his arms and waited as I moved deeper into the trees to relieve myself, and he was still there, in exactly the same position, when I returned.

“I am continually amazed that you have managed so long,” he said quietly. “I shudder when I think what these last eighteen months have been like for you.”

“I chose to be here. Everything is easier when one chooses it.”

We walked to the shore and removed our shoes and I rolled my sleeves. The general shucked off his shirt, tossing it over his boots. Clearly he had decided to wash as well. I crouched beside the water and wetted my cloth, suddenly warm and a little breathless. I proceeded carefully, washing beneath the billows of my shirt while the general splashed away, unimpeded. He was muscled and long and lightly furred on his chest, with not an ounce of extra around his middle. I peeked at him as he finished and turned back toward his discarded clothing, shaking himself as he went.

“I will be just a minute more,” I murmured.

“And I will wait.”

“Will you step away?” I asked. I needed to wash my nether regions, and doing something so undignified, even beneath my clothes, was more than I could endure with him watching.

I heard him move up the bank, swatting at a mosquito and shaking out his shirt. It had been a wet spring and a hot summer, and the water drew the bugs. I loosened the ties on my breeches and managed to wash below my waist without dropping them. It was not a bath, but it would suffice. When I was finished and my cloth was rung out, I turned to see if he still waited. He was there, silhouetted and still, but he turned as he heard me pick my way up the bank.

My clothes were damp and sticking to my flesh, and my hair had come loose around my face. My shirt was so wet it was sheer in spots, and I covered my chest with one hand while my shoes swung from the other. I dropped them in the grass and shoved my feet into them, not bothering with the buckles, but when I straightened, his back was rigid and he was turned away. I plucked at my shirt, pulling it from my skin. I’d lost the tie for my hair.

“You must not let anyone see you,” he murmured, his voice strained.

I did not need to ask why.

He followed me into the tent and tied the flap closed with shaking hands.

And then he reached for me.

The ferocity of his embrace lifted me off the ground, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, chest to chest, and my shoes fell from my feet, landing with muted thumps.

His mouth against mine was immediately familiar and strange. I knew the shape of his lips and the sound of his voice, the rasp of his breath and the smell of his skin. I’d studied his features in detail many times, but kissing was another matter entirely, and we came together the way we’d come together before, frenzied and frantic.

“Dear God, Samson. What am I going to do with you? What the hell am I going to do?” It was a whispered wail against my lips, and he dropped his mouth to my throat, as if he needed breath or fought for control, but I could not bear to share his attention with that part of me, and I grasped his face and brought his lips back to mine.

“I do not know how to do this,” I said, and I tightened my grip so that he would teach me. “But I want to learn.”

I felt his jaw clench beneath my palms, a battle to slow down, to savor.