That night, Grace sat up in bed, not able to concentrate on anything. She had already walked the house, absentmindedly cleaning and fixing things, thinking about Ben, who had gone off to make sure that the troops were performing their drills properly. He wasn't usually like this, but this decision had been rash, one made in anger, and one that would be difficult to undo. Caleb. She had to talk to Caleb the next day. If anyone could convince Ben not to go through with it, he could. As soon as Ben came in, she started trying to make him see reason.

"Is there any way you could reconsider this?" Grace asked, keeping her voice level. Maybe being reasonable would help, but she doubted it.

Unbuttoning his boots, Ben told her flatly that, "Caleb is going to talk terms tomorrow. I've chosen him as my second."

"Ben, please, think about this. This is against everything that Washington taught you -"

"They need to be put in their place. Making an example of this man will ensure that the other soldiers do not continue to harass and insult you in the camp," he explained as he continued to get ready for bed. "Defending your honor is the only solution."

Grace moved to sit at the end of the bed, watching him. "Making an example of a few men has gotten too many people killed already. And you don't need to defend my name. I know what I am worth, and I know what true honor means. It's not something that can be taken away by the men calling me names."

"That's the problem," he told her, going to the dressing table to wash his face. As he poured water into the basin, he continued, "It is not just your name that I have to defend. We are practically married, which means I have my name to defend as well as yours. I know they only call you Mrs. Tallmadge out of respect, but you are, and you will be, a Tallmadge, which means I have my own name to defend on that field. And I must defend the woman I love, even if it kills me."

Taking a deep breath, Grace had to drop a bomb on him. "Ben, if you get yourself killed out there trying to prove something like this, I will still love you. I know I will always love you. But it will be tempered with the knowledge that you so brashly, so willingly, deprived me of years of life with you. And if I ever forgive you for that, I will have to live with it even then."

Ben spun around, taking her by the shoulders and looking into her eyes as he replied, "I am doing this because I love you, and because I cannot let them continue to insult and degrade you among themselves. Socially and militarily, it may mean little, but this is about the proper courtesy that should be given to you as an officer's wife, an officer's fiancee. If I do not defend my name and yours, the men will realize that they can get away with things like this, and they will make stronger and stronger moves until I have no authority at all. I am defending you, but I am also defending my name, my rank, my title, all of it. I must do this, or I will effectively lose everything that I have worked for for so long. I don't care if you do not understand it, but I am going out to that field if Caleb cannot negotiate a proper apology from Lieutenant Davies, and there is nothing you can do to stop me."

"Very well," Grace resolved, thinking that the next night, on the eve of their duel, she would would come to him in tears if Lieutenant Davies was not swayed. She stood, making her way to her side of the bed. "I can only pray that Caleb and Lieutenant Davies' second can come to a peaceful resolution and that no blood will be shed." As she laid down, she had a brief idea to go directly to Washington, but she feared what he would do if he found out.

A few minutes later, Ben joined her, blowing out the candle and taking his side of the bed. He made no attempt to reach out for her, instead rolling over and closing his eyes, thinking of how he would have so much to do the next day - talk to the doctor about coming to the dueling ground, see what Caleb and Davies' second had come to (though he doubted they would be able to resolve the situation), write his father, write Grace a final letter (no matter how much she tried to stop him or how angry her pleading made him), talk to the chaplain… there would be a lot to do before the duel, in addition to his regular duties and drills.

The next afternoon, Grace went to find Caleb, knowing that Ben was out with his regiment, drilling them in the field. After hunting through the camp, she found him working in Ben's tent. "Hey there, Gracie."

"Caleb, you have to stop him." She wasted no time sitting down next to him, telling him everything. "Ben's going to get himself killed if you don't, and all over something ridiculous. I know his command won't suffer if he doesn't duel, but he's so wound up in all of this that he thinks his life will fall apart if he doesn't resolve this. There has to be something you can do."

Caleb shook his head sadly, recounting how he had spent his morning. "I already talked with Davies' second, a man named Corporal Deerwester. Now let's see if I can get this right - he says that Davies says that he refuses to apologize for what he said, because the rest of camp all says that it's true, and that he was the only one brave enough to say it in Tallboy's face. I know we both tried, but they're meeting on the dueling ground outside of camp tomorrow. Neither one of them will back down."

"There has to be something you can do," Grace begged. "It's a rash decision, and he's not looking beyond the insult to me and to his character. Please, you have to talk to him and make him see that he shouldn't be dueling. He's an officer, and he knows what Washington thinks about dueling. Caleb, please. You have to save your best friend."

"I have to stand there and help my best friend tomorrow," Caleb told her, looking to the door of the tent to be sure that Ben hadn't returned. "Gracie, believe me, I've tried. We ain't gonna convince him of anything. Tallboy's got a mind of his own, and he's resolved to do this."

Grace and Ben were uncharacteristically quiet at supper, Lafayette reading something between them. He and Hamilton had joined them for dinner, since Washington was in a meeting, but they said nothing on the subject and just continued talking about the promise of French aid. As soon as they were upstairs, Ben turned to her and apologized, but it was not the apology that she had been looking for. "Grace, I'm sorry that I have to do this. I'm sorry that I might wound a man tomorrow."

"You still have time to call it off."

"You know I can't do that," he reasoned. "It's far too late."

"You've been practicing, haven't you? You smell like gunpowder."

"I have," Ben confirmed, "and I have been getting much better."

Grace pursed her lips, not quite knowing what to say. There was nothing she could say that would convince him to go back on his word now, but still, she hoped that there would be something, some way she could keep him from getting hurt. So they went to bed, Grace holding onto him because even though she still had reservations about the duel, she knew that this could very well be the last time they were together.

It felt like she woke up only a moment later, especially since it was before sunrise when Ben got out of bed, giving her a kiss before going to get ready. He dressed in his full military uniform, taking a look at himself in the small mirror on their dressing table before coming back, giving her a last kiss and setting a letter on the bedside table for her to find. "I love you, Grace. I promise I'll come back."

"Love you," she mumbled, pretending to be half asleep. As soon as he had left and she heard his footsteps descending the stairs, though, she jumped out of bed, getting ready as fast as she could. She knew where the dueling ground was, and she, Mary, and Anna had resolved to go and try their hardest to convince the men to stop.

The three women met outside of the house, walking together towards the dueling grounds. They waved to the man on guard duty, telling him they they had business outside of the camp. He shrugged it off, letting them pass. The sun was getting close to rising now, Grace telling them to hurry as they turned into the woods. She guided them towards the dueling ground, only slowing when she heard the men talking. "Major Tallmadge has the first shot," she heard, Grace looking at the others.

"We have to do something."

Mary grabbed her arm, confessing, "When Abe and Simcoe dueled, they refused to stop until shots had been fired. They are honorable men… they should aim to miss."

"He made this decision in anger, and I'm sure he will -" Grace was cut off by a gunshot, turning to see that Ben had hit a tree, just above Lieutenant Davies' shoulder.

Anna took Grace's hand, Mary grabbing the other one as she concluded, "Now Lieutenant Davies has to fire… we cannot stop him, or the duel cannot finish, and neither one of them will be willing to walk off of that dueling ground."

"This is absurd," Grace said, shaking her head. She watched as Lieutenant Davies readied himself to take his shot. Normally, she would want to pray in a situation like this, but she was too focused on the scene, and could hardly think of the words to any of the prayers she had been taught as a child. "Ben, turn. There's no shame in giving him a smaller target. Oh, please, just turn…" She winced as Lieutenant Davies fired, but he missed wildly, hitting a tree about three feet to the left of where Ben was standing. As the men went to reload, Grace broke from the others, running over to the field and intercepting them. "Ben, you have to stop this. You've fired your shots, that's enough. Please, you have to -"

Ben looked sternly to his friend, who was making sure his pistol was loaded properly. "Caleb."

"No!" Caleb nodded silently, handing the pistol back and pulling Grace away from him despite her protests. "No, Ben, you can't… please, you can't fight to the -"

"Gracie, he's not stopping now," Caleb told her, holding her by the arms as Anna and Mary caught up with them. "I've tried talking to him, and you know it. He's not going to stop until one of them is bleeding."

"Ben, you're going to get yourself killed!"

"Caleb, shut her up," Ben called as he paced, the doctor he had brought out dutifully looking away so he could deny everything if anyone was injured.

Caleb held onto her tightly, whispering, "I'm gonna have to gag you if you aren't quiet, Gracie. I'd hate to have to do it, but I just might have to. Don't break his concentration now."

Lieutenant Davies' second cleared his throat, announcing that, "Major Tallmadge has the first shot."

Struggling against Caleb, Grace knew that there was no way he would let her go or say anything unless she moved quickly. Ben turned on his heel from the spot he had paced to, taking a deep breath and trying to judge how best to take his shot.

"Ben, if you shoot him, I will never be able to marry you!" That got his attention, Ben and Lieutenant Davies looking over to where Caleb was trying to plead with her to stop talking. "You heard me. I love you, Benjamin Tallmadge, but if you shoot that man, I know you value your honor, whatever remains of it after you draw blood, more than you value me. I will know you value your name more than everything you have achieved, and that you value your surname more than you value our names - Grace and Ben, the two young people from Setauket who grew up together and wanted to get married. I will know you value that surname more than you value the two of us, what we were and what we've grown to be. And I could never marry a man who cares about that more than he cares about his own wife and the life that he promised her."

The dueling ground was silent, Ben thinking over what he was about to do. So much flashed through his mind: The day they had met, when they were five or six years old and starting school. The day he realized that the girl who sat with Anna, two rows in front of him in class, was someone he wanted to get to know. The day they had first had a conversation without the rest of the group. The day they had first sat up late, talking about a revolution sweeping the colonies, and what it would mean for Setauket. The first time he had kissed her, how nervous he had been before and how he had felt like he was melting when he finally did it, and how he had realized he wanted to do that a lot more. The moment he had first realized he was in love with her. The moment he had decided to ask her to marry him, and how the moment she had said yes was worth all of the stress of talking to her father. The moment he had read the letter she had sent him, saying that she still wanted to be together even after years of separation. How he had thought of her when he had been injured, and how sometimes, in the thick of battle or when he had been badly injured, the idea of seeing her was the only thing that kept him from giving up. The plans they had made for the future, how he wanted to spend his life with her by his side. How she had held onto him all night, when he couldn't sleep, and how comforting her presence had been. How, even then, he longed to hold her.

He glanced at her, Grace begging for him to stop before it was too late. "Please, Ben, you can't. You mustn't."

Slowly, he lowered his pistol. He stepped forward, extending his hand to Lieutenant Davies. Grace couldn't hear what they said to each other, but they ultimately nodded, shook hands again, and moved towards their seconds. Caleb let her go, Grace running to meet Ben. She wrapped her arms around him, Ben kissing her cheek and whispering, "I'm sorry. I was angry, angry at all of the things I had heard being said about us for months, and Lieutenant Davies bore the brunt of it. The men will know I'm serious about it now, though. I will admit, Grace, that was the most frightened I've been in a long time."

"Come on, we're taking you home," she told him, grabbing his hand and starting to lead him back towards the others. "And I'm not letting you out of my sight."