It wasn’t delirium—it was the truth.

Asa had always seen me.

February 1780

Asa’s condition worsened in the night. He disappeared into fever dreams—true ones—one moment arguing in French, the next issuing rambling orders to a ship’s crew.

I watched as Uncle Henry drew a lancet across his arm and let the blood pour into the bowl below. And let it pour and pour and pour.

“How much, Uncle?” I asked, my voice reedy.

“The draw is always in proportion to the strength of the patient and the violence of the disease.”

The disease was violent indeed. “What ails him?”

“I don’t yet know. He complained of a violent pain in his head a few days ago, then took to bed immediately. His laborious breathing leads me to suspect the inflammation began in his lungs.” Uncle Henry looked at me. “You really ought to go, Emmie. He needs quiet and rest, and as few attendants as possible.”

“Then I will be one of them,” I said.

Uncle Henry conceded. Miss Coates’s compassion toward the infirm was well known—and there was nowhere else for me to go anyway. No dinners, no assemblies. We were totally snowbound.

I ran cool washcloths over Asa’s feverish skin. I gave him a special tamarind liqueur when he was awake enough to drink. The rest of the time I read, prayed, or worried by candlelight.

After three days, the fever finally abated for good and I began to feel some hope. On the fourth, I was reading Plutarch’s Lives when Asa stirred at last and looked almost like himself.

“How are the great Spartans of old?” he rasped.

“Alcibiades was rotten. He betrayed everyone.” I rather related to him, in truth. I set the book aside. “How do you feel?”

Asa narrowed his eyes in thought. “I feel…electrified.”

I laughed, but it made me ache to see how much he’d weakened. I helped him sit up, arranging the pillows behind him; then I swept the hair from his forehead, tucking it behind his ears. He’d gone even sharper around the cheekbones, having barely eaten for a week, but the keenness was back in his eyes and the veins in his arms were thick with returning health.

Suddenly, I became aware of his quiet stare on me. “Do you want to sleep?” I added a fresh log to the fire, hiding my embarrassment. I’d spent days as his nurse, his body my charge. It couldn’t be so anymore. I returned to my chair. “Or I could read to you?”

Night would soon fall again. Lucy, Charlotte, and Liesje were braving the cold to go to dinner at Rebecca’s house—now Mrs. Rebecca Keyes. I had decided I’d give myself this time with Asa. As much of it as I could have, I’d take it.

“No…no more sleep. Perhaps we can we talk?” He leaned against the bed frame. “And perhaps you can do most of it?”

“What shall I do most of the talking about?”