A.N.: Happy Christmas to everyone who celebrates! If not, have a good Monday!
Ben was waiting when her ship arrived at the port, waiting to see her and welcome her back to Philadelphia, which was a rebel stronghold still. Grace took her valise, walking down from the ship and into the harbor, taking her first step in the colonies in a very long time. She had every intention of heading back to Peggy's household, which had long since moved to another mansion when Peggy had seemingly given up on the soldier that she had been so in love with, instead planning to marry the Continental General Arnold, who himself was trying to secure a command at West Point. She had hardly gotten out of view of the ship in Philadelphia harbor when she was stopped by someone calling her name.
"Ben! How have you been?" Grace smiled as he took her bag.
"Alright. I've still got all of my limbs, now don't I?" he joked, giving her a hug. He was dressed like any other man would be at the port, looking like someone coming to pick up goods that they had ordered to be shipped to the port.
As they passed through the crowd gathering around a passenger ship, Grace laid out what she had found. "I'm going to work in the Arnold home, Ben. Peggy's going to marry him - she told me of their engagement right before I left, and the journey took longer than I thought, so the wedding is getting closer and closer. But I don't trust that man at all. Something about the way he locks himself away and lets no one in his study. He won't even let the other servants clean in there, or so they tell me in their letters. He's keeping secrets, Ben. Big ones."
"He's a general," Ben reminded her as they walked, "with an important command in Philadelphia, soon to be an important command in New York. All officers have their secrets. I know we do."
Grace shook her head, frowning. "Something about it… I don't trust. He's consulting with a British soldier, I know that much. The others have written me, saying there's a man he writes to all of the time - John Anderson, who he writes almost weekly. They say it looks like he writes in codes, and who would encode a letter besides a spy? It could be a commision from General Washington or one of his other generals, but the handwriting looks nothing like Hamilton's, from what I've heard. Some of them can read well, and I trust them."
"It is possible," Ben admitted as they walked. "We can look into it, but I don't think we have a lot to worry about." In reality, he had had his suspicions from the beginning about General Arnold, a man who everyone knew to be bitter at being slighted for promotions and commands in favor of younger generals and foreign ambassadors of goodwill. They turned out of the harbor, headed for one of the main roads.
Grace turned to look at him, stopping him in the street. "Now I was talking with Peggy before I left, and thinking things over, when I realized what I had been denying myself for a long time - a real conversation with you. A real, frank conversation about what we left behind in Setauket."
"Well, I'm afraid that is going to have to wait. I have to meet with a few generals within the hour. But I will have that conversation with you," he promised. "I am staying at the Warren Tavern. Now I know you have more than a day before you are expected back with everything, so I will see you later on. I've got a set of rooms there for my men. Take your pick, and you may have it."
Despite wanting to stop him, Grace watched Ben go, jogging off to make a meeting at the courthouse. She sighed, turning to find the tavern, where she set her things in a room and went to find dinner, being greeted warmly by the tavern owner's wife. "Ma'am, you are one of the patriots, are you not?" she asked frankly.
"I am," Grace nodded. "But I am not - I am merely a friend of one of them, Major Tallmadge. I'm nearing the end of a very long journey across an ocean and back to Philadelphia."
"Isn't the entire ocean controlled by the British?" the woman asked, sitting down at Grace's table.
"It is, but that's not for me to worry about. My sympathies do not matter to those I work for, and they do not really matter to anyone, after all. As a woman, I'm sure you are familiar with the feeling," Grace answered.
"Well, my husband and I are on your side, no matter what I am permitted to say or not by my - our - station," she assured her. "But that's not what's troubling you, is it? Oh, come now, I can tell when someone's got something on their mind. You've been thinking something ever since you checked in with my son."
Grace sighed, leaning closer to tell her, "I love a good man, a man I was engaged to marry five years ago, but it is all hope that I've strung out for what may be far too long. We have grown close, but I don't know if it will be enough to get back to where we once were."
"And Major Tallmadge is that man, I assume. He's paying your bill, after all. Well, I would say you need to talk to him. Perhaps you two can salvage what once was. And -"
"Barmaid, more ale here!" a man called, the tavern owner's wife sighing and excusing herself while Grace continued to eat.
It was late that night when Grace heard a knock on her door. She had been sitting up, reading in the firelight while she waited. She'd played the conversation over and over in her head, but it would never go according to plan. Setting her book aside, Grace stood, opening the door and letting Ben in. "Sorry I'm so late. I've been tied up at the courthouse all day. I was going to suggest that we speak outside, but I see you've already starting to prepare for bed." He took a seat in the chair that had been placed by a writing desk in the corner, shedding his coat. "Now that I'm back, however, I am willing to listen to whatever… whatever you wish to discuss."
"Ben, I've been thinking quite a lot, about us. About what we once were, five years ago." She stood, going to look out of the window over the harbor. People were still out and about, walking with lanterns to deliver messages and get to their posts, or to stumble on home from the tavern. The moon reflected on the water, casting shadows from the ships that had docked in the last few weeks. "About all of the time we spent together, all of the secret meetings to discuss the freedom of our colonies, about how close we were before your father and the rest of Setauket disowned you. And while I was away, I realized how much I missed that. How we had never gotten to speak plainly about it, because we were almost always in the company of others. And when we were alone, we didn't discuss it. We talked, and we got closer, but we've never talked about where we were back then, and where we are now. Ben, I've missed you, and I've missed what we were to each other, and I've often wondered, truth be told, if you missed them as well. I wish I could have asked earlier, but… well, we had already been separated by time and circumstance. I regret so much, and I do not want to regret not having a frank talk about it."
"So you mean to say I'm not the best option anymore? Or that you have reservations?"
"No, Ben, I…" She took a deep breath, wiping at her eyes. "It has always been you. It should have always been you. I should never have let you go in the first place, Ben. I should have followed you, but I was all my family had left in Setauket after my father died - the year after they forced you to break off our engagement. I should have followed once my mother moved to be with William and Henrietta, and I should have followed when Selah Strong was arrested and I went to work for Judge Woodhull. I regret that I did not."
"And I regret that I did not write, that I went silent when I took over as the head of intelligence gathering. I also regret not talking to you sooner, but I thought… I thought you had made your position clear once you stopped writing. I wish I had spoken up earlier, much earlier, as soon as we had all started working together, our old group of friends. I wish I would have prioritized getting close to you again. We did, but not quickly, not back to where we were years ago." He had joined her by the window, taking Grace's hand gently. "I must apologize. I've dreamt about it quite a lot, about how our lives could have been. I'm sorry I didn't see to it that they were."
Biting her lip, Grace turned to look at him, asking, "Does this mean that you would like to… to pick up where we left off with our lives, and not where we've grown them to be? That, even though so much has changed, you miss the way things were between us, back in Setauket, in the days when all we had to worry about was you getting caught by your father with all of that Sons of Liberty propaganda?"
Boldly, Ben leaned forward and kissed her, lingering close enough to whisper, "I would. I have missed them very much."
"Are we… are we engaged to be married again? Since my father is not around to ask permission from," She asked, turning to wrap her arms around him.
"If you still wish to be, then we are," he nodded, kissing the top of her head. "I wish to be."
"I would very much like that."
"But we must wait," he cautioned, Grace guiding him to sit down with her on the end of the bed as they talked. "We must wait until the war is over. Please, if only for the sake of my command and for the army. I -"
"I understand," she assured him. "I understand your duty to the army, to General Washington, to this country. And you're right. I have a duty to the army as well. I have to keep an eye on General Arnold and everyone else he comes into contact with for you. But you might just find some more letters for you to keep for yourself instead of passing everything on to General Washington."
Squeezing her hand, Ben insisted, "We will get married one day, when this bloody business is over. I can promise you that. But for now," he sighed, standing, "we have work to do."
"Ben? Can you… can you stay?"
He frowned, reminding her that, "You know how improper that would look."
"Not if we are engaged. Besides, your room is the next one over. And I'm not asking you to do anything but sleep by my side. Ben, I've missed you. Please, I'm asking as your fiancee."
He smiled a bit, saying, "Let me hang my coat in my room, and I will be back in a moment."
As the clock struck one in the morning, Grace turned over in bed, feeling Ben move a bit to keep his arm around her. He mumbled something in his sleep as she looked at him, glad that she was finally able to hold him again. Ben had always been there for her, and this was what should have been. What was right. She smiled to herself as he mumbled a few more words, leaning close to give him a kiss. "You're a good man, Benjamin Tallmadge. The right man."