Page 10 of My Dear Hamilton

“I’m awaiting his return.” Hamilton frowned. “What the devil are you doing here?” At the moment, I was so shaken, I wasn’t sure. And when I didn’t answer, Hamilton guided me into the small space before a roaring fire, herbs drying from the rafters and copper pots hanging on the wall. And though it was clear he wasn’t pleased to see me, concern crept into his voice. “Miss Schuyler?”

“Is it right to torture a soldier like that?”

Realizing what I must’ve seen, he pinched at the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t give that order.”

My lower lip quivered. “I only asked if it was right .”

“Miss Schuyler, we must hold the army together.”

It was a coldhearted answer. And he must’ve known that I thought so. Because he couldn’t meet my eyes. He stared at his boots. And I stared at him, hoping he would use his influence, if he could, to remedy the situation.

Instead, at length, he said, “This morning I had the occasion to pass a private talking to his mates over a campfire. An Irishman, I gather. Not a wealthy soldier. Nor a learned one. Nor a statesman. Neither were his fellows. Indeed, they were a motley group of Yankees, Irishmen, Negroes, Buckskins, and whatnot. And do you know what they were discussing?”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t guess.”

“They were debating whether it was right to kill the Hessians on Christmas Day all those years ago. The men still feel sorrow over it because, they said, those Hessians had no choice to fight us. They were sent by a king.”

I just stared, wondering what point he meant to make.

“Remember. Not wealthy. Not learned. Not statesmen. And yet they came to the conclusion that they were fighting for the Hessians, too. They said they were fighting so that no one might ever again be sent to die as a slave instead of a free man.”

At those words, I took a sharp breath, much affected.

Hamilton came closer. “If we cannot hold this army together until springtime, that’s the end. We lose the war. We bow to the king. And every soldier who has fought and died in this war will have fought and died in vain. Our sacred rights erased from this earth.”

“You wrote that our sacred rights could never be erased by mortal power.”

Hamilton looked startled that I should remember the lines my sister recited, then made a dismissive sound at the back of his throat. “Well, I was an idealistic fool when I wrote that.”

“No,” I whispered, my eyes blurring with tears. I didn’t believe it. He was brave to write those words. Even if the army fell apart and we lost this war and those ideas perished from the earth, I would always believe he was right to express them.

At the visible evidence of my distress, Hamilton reached into his coat as if to retrieve a kerchief, and finding none, took the liberty of drawing me into his embrace.

I found unexpected comfort in his strong arms, and we stood like that for a long time, awash in sadness. Eventually, he murmured into my hair, “You are going to be the ruin of me, Betsy Schuyler.”

Still teary, I spoke words muffled by our closeness. “Why would you say so?”

“When last we spoke, I returned to headquarters so distracted I couldn’t remember the watchword.”

I could scarcely believe him or understand how it might be my fault. “And you lay that at my feet?”

“I’ve behaved very badly toward you,” he said, his arms still around me, warm and protective. “I am sorry for it. The truth is, Miss Schuyler, by some odd contrivance, you’ve found the secret of interesting me in everything that concerns you.”

Interesting him? “But you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Not enough, it would seem.” He stared at me so long I thought I’d beg him to go on, and then he did. “You aren’t the only good-hearted young lady of gentle breeding in Morristown, but you’re the only one who would ever come here. Which proves you deserve all I think of you and more, even if it’s become extremely inconvenient for me.”

“Inconvenient?” I asked, searching those blue eyes in an effort to understand the meaningful tone of his voice.

He sighed. “ Extremely . You see, our little military family is the only family I’ve ever known. And because Tilghman is besotted with you, I ought never to have looked in your direction. But now I cannot stop looking.”

With those words, he turned my world on its axis.

And while it was still spinning, he gave an exasperated little laugh. “Oh, banish those stars in your beautiful black eyes, Miss Schuyler. Even were it not for Tench, I fear we are playing a comedy of all in the wrong and should correct the mistake before we begin to act the tragedy. I’m no fit suitor for you.”

That he’d given thought to such a thing awakened something in me. “Because you’re an enemy of marriage?”

“Because I have no fortune. I have no family. And I’m a sinner.”

“Three things that can all be remedied by the right woman,” I said. It was, perhaps, the quickest answer I’d ever given in my life. And it seemed to take him off guard.

“I hadn’t considered it that way.” I wasn’t sure I believed him. He was the sort of man who seemed to think about all sides of everything . But the next thing he said made me realize that perhaps, in matters of the heart, he didn’t allow himself. Releasing me from his embrace, his face reddening with chagrin, he held me at an arm’s length. “I’m afraid there remains yet one defect in my character that cannot be wiped away. I was born on the wrong side of the blanket and have no right to my name. I am a bastard, ” he said, his lips curling with contempt of the word, or himself, I could not say. “Undeserving of a lady of your pedigree.”

I would never have guessed it of him. He seemed every inch the cultivated gentleman. “I—I’d heard rumor you were descended of Scots nobility.”

“Oh, I have better pretensions than most in this country who plume themselves with ancestry. I am the grandson of the Laird of Grange. Unfortunately, my mother was a divorced woman when she married my father. Unluckily, her divorce was later deemed to be unlawful.”

He’d said this soberly and swiftly. And there was good reason for it. Divorce was nearly unheard of. Certainly scandalous. And yet, I said what I believed to be the plain truth. “Colonel Hamilton, no matter the circumstances of your birth, anyone with eyes can see your merit. Why, the blemish upon your birth is merely a wrinkle in the law.”

Hamilton’s guarded expression softened. “You’re kind to cast it in that light. Others are not so generous.”

“Perhaps they envy you, since your story unmasks you as an aristocrat with a family coat of arms.”

I thought I said this very handsomely, but was rewarded only with dark amusement. “One with only lint in his pockets and alone in the world. Nothing to envy.”

“You haven’t any family?” I asked.

His fingers wrapped around mine, tentatively, then tighter and tighter as if he feared I would pull away when he went on to explain that in the West Indies he had a brother, and an estranged half-brother, but that his father abandoned the family and that his mother died when he was only twelve.

My heart pounded in an agony of sympathy for him, wondering how he’d made his way, a veritable orphan, left to fend for himself. I couldn’t fathom it. In no circumstance, either prosperity or wreck, would my own long-suffering father leave us to the vagaries of fate. And I realized anew how fortunate I was.

“You must pardon me, Miss Schuyler. I do not speak of these things often. And in such specificity, never. It dredges up...” He didn’t finish but seemed to sense my welling pity. “I do not mean to paint a picture of me as a barefooted street urchin. Before my mother died, we had books, a silver tea set, and a covered bed.” How miserable an inventory he felt compelled to make. “What you must think...”

“I think that I wish to know you better.”

He smiled softly. “A saintly answer from a saintly girl.”

For no reason I could understand, I was desperate to disabuse him of this notion. And between what I’d seen outside that camp and all that Hamilton had just revealed, I felt nearly overwhelmed with an urgent mix of emotion. Sadness, helplessness, pity, attraction, and desire. Obeying an impulse I could scarcely comprehend, I leaned forward to kiss him.

He actually startled, his hands grasping at my wrists as if he meant to push me away. As if he was the sort of man who never allowed an intimacy that he didn’t initiate. But then his grip on my wrists tightened and held me fast. It was as if my boldness had thrown a spark that Hamilton ignited into an all-consuming fire, for his mouth claimed mine and demanded to be claimed in return.

It was no tender kiss we shared, happy and sweet. It was a kiss that tasted of grief and desperation. But also, unmistakably and forcefully, ardor. I forgot the cold. I forgot the soot and darkness of the cabin. I forgot the rank smell of the camp. Everything vanished except for that kiss and the stark terror of realizing that I was falling in love.

At length, we broke apart, and Hamilton traced my lower lip, a little dazed. “Not a saint, it would seem, but an angel...”

“Colonel Hamilton—”

“Alexander,” he insisted. “I do believe we are on a footing for Christian names now...”

“ Alexander, ” I said, enjoying the sound of it in my mouth. “You should know something about me and Colonel Tilghman.”

He frowned, deeply. “Tell me.”

“In all the years your friend allegedly harbored feelings for me, he never confessed them to me. And I never felt more than friendship in return. He has no prior claim to my affections.”

“Then to the devil with Tench Tilghman,” Hamilton said, stroking his knuckles along my cheek. “For I have serious designs upon your heart, Miss Schuyler, and I flatter myself that I am no bad marksman.”

After that, Hamilton was nearly every evening in my uncle’s parlor, with conversations that lasted so late into the night that my uncle groused about wishing to take his ease upon the settee and my aunt was forced to all but oust the young officer from the house.

When Aunt Gertrude had finally shooed Hamilton out the door, she’d shaken her head and said, “Oh, Betsy. Of all Washington’s fine young officers, you choose the—”

“Stray,” Kitty broke in. “There’s no help for it. Betsy has always been too softhearted.”

“Well, I like Hamilton,” Angelica said, rising to my defense with my nephew in the crook of one arm, and a book in the other. “He’s an ambitious and clever fellow. Should we win the war, there is no limit to his future. And if Betsy wants him, she should have him.”

Kitty shrugged, as if she didn’t care one way or the other. And I hoped she didn’t care, because I did want him. Quite shame lessly, it would seem. For on a particular evening when he pressed the advantage of my family’s distraction gossiping over mulled cider in the dining room, I made only the faintest protest against his fevered embrace. One in which he seemed to be trying to forget the horrors of the war.

“God,” he groaned into my hair. “I am Phaethon, undone.”

“Who?” I whispered, my head thrown back, too much wishing to forget the horrors of the war myself. But as much as I desired him, I didn’t wish to be just one more girl with whom he could forget.

Hamilton seemed dazed, entirely intent on kissing and nibbling the flesh beneath my ear—which was very pleasant indeed. But my question seemed to pull him back to himself. “Phaethon. I mentioned him in the letter I sent when I refused to take you to the sledding party. He was a figure of legend. The bastard of the Greek sun god. He died trying to prove his parentage by driving his father’s chariot, and set the world aflame. ‘ And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared .’”

It sounded as if Hamilton admired the boy’s hubris.

And it made me remember that he had, at least three times in our acquaintance, alluded to easy acceptance, if not a wish, for death. He’d done so first at the ball. Then in our walk home from the hospital. Then again in his note about this fabled bastard boy who died trying to prove himself. And now he was again comparing himself to that boy.

Which was what gave me the strength that propriety didn’t to withdraw from his arms. “Colonel Hamilton,” I said, forcing him to look at me. “Alexander...”

He blew out a long breath, then appeared as if he was considering an apology.

Before he could manage one, I laced my fingers with his and hastened to say, “I am too much a general’s daughter not to understand that a soldier’s courage is found in overcoming his fear of death.” I swallowed, mustering my own courage to broach this, for I was keenly aware that in giving my heart to a soldier during wartime, I might lose it—and him—at any moment. Es pecially since I’d already heard tales of how Washington’s aides seemed to try to outdo one another in brash acts of battlefield bravery. Perhaps Hamilton was no different, in this respect, than Tilghman or McHenry or even their idolized, nearly mythical, John Laurens, about whom they never ceased to boast. “But—but surely you know there are other paths to glory besides death.”

A little spark of surprise lit behind his eyes. And I hoped... what exactly? That he would stop saying such things? That he would stop feeling them? That he would promise to never act on them? Or maybe, instead, that he would unburden himself to me, so that he never entertained any imaginings of the glory of death ever again?

But he only seemed to retreat a little behind a facade, affecting an insouciant smile and a careless tone. “Not many other paths, it would seem, since General Washington pleads I am too indispensable to do anything but write his letters.”

My sister’s words returned to me then, and I said, “With the right connections, there would be no limit to your future.” Fighting the blush against what I implied, I hastened to add, “You’re so witty and well read, and you speak French, and you understand finance, and you’re curious about seemingly every idea and philosophy. You remind me very much of...” I trailed off there, in embarrassment.

His eyebrow rose in question. “Major André?”

I blinked. “Pardon me?”

“John André,” Hamilton said. “I suppose he was a lieutenant when you knew him. Sometimes we must treat with the enemy. And when we do, you’ve occasionally been the toast of the table.”

It’d been some time since I’d given any thought to that British officer, but I flushed to know he remembered me kindly. And to sense that Hamilton felt some jealousy. “Oh,” I said, a little flustered. “I am—I mean, I was—very fond of Major André and flattered to think he, or any of his officers, toast me. And he was—or is—a very accomplished gentleman. But, no, that’s not who I was going to name.”

“No?” Hamilton asked. “Some other beau then?” I shook my head in denial, but he continued on. “I shall be cross if you compare me to my good friend Monroe, who speaks French well enough, but has a much slower wit.”

To see the insecurity hidden behind Hamilton’s words hurt my heart, for he had all but obliterated every thought of any man before him. And so I rushed to tell him the plain truth. “I was going to say you remind me of my sister. And please trust me when I say that is one of the highest compliments I could offer. If Angelica were a man, she would—”

“You’ve no need to convince me of Mrs. Carter’s merits,” Hamilton said with a reassuring smile. “Charm and courage run in your family, from the paterfamilias to all his children. I am an admirer of your father, already, as you know.”

“As am I, for he is both a soldier and a statesman.”

“A statesman, ” Hamilton said, and I could not tell if he took me seriously or not. “You think there is glory enough in that?”

“I do,” I replied.

I wish now that I’d said more.

I wish I’d said that he need not prove himself to me or to the world. I think I didn’t say it because I was young and foolish and quite out of my depth when it came to the demons that haunted the man I loved. But I sometimes fear that I didn’t say it because I didn’t believe it.

And that he knew.

After the door closed that night, and I went up to bed, Angelica asked, “How desperately do you want him?”

I’d not given voice to the depth of my feelings for Hamilton yet, not to anyone. But if anyone would understand, my sister would, and I wished most deeply for Angelica to approve. “I think I fathom now what you said that night.”

She wound her fingers with mine. “What night?”

“When you eloped,” I whispered. “Love is a thing beyond reason.”

“Oh, my sweet sister. Yes, it is.” She pulled me into a hug and peppered me with a million questions about all that had hap pened between us, finally concluding with, “He’s a hardworking man, Betsy. You know I’m fond of him. But he’s also an ambitious one. Could you be satisfied with a man who is always striving for more?”

I gave careful thought to her question, but I didn’t consider ambition a fault. After what Hamilton and I had discussed earlier in the evening, I took some solace in his ambition, for I believed that in pursuing it, he’d find the glory he so seemed to want without having to share Phaethon’s fate. And everything I knew of what Alexander Hamilton had overcome and achieved, I admired. So, whatever he accomplished next, I would be proud to stand at his side, should he ever wish it. Perhaps I was a fool for thinking he would.

“I’m not sure if I could be happy with him,” I admitted. But happiness seemed too flimsy a thing to reach for. I might have found happiness with a less complicated man—a polite and dutiful man like Tench Tilghman. Instead, I was drawn to Hamilton, who challenged me to be so much more than a fine-tempered girl. And the person he brought out in me—I wasn’t sure I could be happy again without.

***

Answer to the Inquiry Why I Sighed

Before no mortal ever knew

A love like mine so tender, true,

Completely wretched—you away,

And but half blessed e’en while you stay.

If present love, obstacles face

Deny you to my fond embrace

No joy unmixed my bosom warms

But when my angel’s in my arms.

— S ONNET BY A LEXANDER H AMILTON FOR E LIZABETH S CHUYLER

Plink. Plink. Plink.

The sound of pebbles hitting glass scarcely cut through my dreamless nighttime reverie as I read a sonnet Alexander wrote me. It was all, everything, happening so fast. And I couldn’t quite believe it was happening to me .

My sister shook me, holding a candle aloft. “Betsy, your suitor is at the window.”

“But it’s the middle of the night,” I whispered, and though I ought to have been delighted to see him again, my breath caught with worry, remembering the expression on Alexander’s face just before he’d left my uncle’s house that evening, some dark cloud before his eyes. Surely it was nothing, for I had proof of his love in my hands.

Kitty groaned and covered her face with a pillow. “Oh, fasten a robe and go down to that prowling tomcat or he’ll never go away!”

I said, “But Aunt Gertrude will hear—”

“For pity’s sake, you’re hopeless,” Angelica said. “Have I let her discover you holding hands and kissing before? The baby and I will go down with you. If Aunt Gertrude hears us, I’ll tell her the little one was fussing.”

It sounded unforgivably duplicitous, but it was precisely the sort of mischief at which Angelica excelled. And because I could still feel the brush of Hamilton’s hands upon my skin, and because my lips were still sweet with his kisses, I was powerless to resist either of them.

In slippered feet, Angelica and I both stole down the stairs. Quietly, I unlatched the back door to find Hamilton there, his eyes bright as he slipped inside the house. “Ladies—”

“The keeping room,” Angelica whispered, nudging us to where the silver and valuables were kept and servants were not permitted. Then, with my baby niece in her arms, Angelica posted herself as guard, closing us in alone in the darkness with but a single candle.

“Is something the matter?” I whispered to Hamilton in the dim light.

“Yes,” he said, quite gravely, a tremor in his voice. “I have something to say, and if it waits another moment, I shall lose my nerve.”

I’d never seen him afraid before. Angry, dutiful, officious, charming, reckless, smug, cynical. All those things. But never afraid until now. “The story I told you before. The one about my parents. There is another version.”

“Another version?” How could there be more than one?

He took my hands in his, gently stroking his thumbs over my knuckles, then bringing them to his mouth to kiss. “There is a version of the story I have entrusted to no one else but my dear friend Laurens. But I cannot bear to deceive you.”

I should have given that casual admission more thought. That there was someone Hamilton trusted. Someone he had trusted more than me. A man I’d never met. A man of whom he spoke worshipfully. And Hamilton was not a man to worship. But all I knew then was that he was speaking of deception. That he was making me afraid now, too. And I’d always believed bad news should be delivered quickly. “Please tell me.”

“I let you believe my illegitimacy was a mere wrinkle in the law. What I didn’t say was that my mother was jailed for multiple adulteries. Suspected of worse. Held captive in a dank, dark cell, half-starved for months. And when she died, she was denied even the right to pass on property to her whore-children.”

I will never forget the way in which he uttered the word whore-children, as if hissing from a brand pressed to his skin. And it made me grasp his hands tighter, tears in my eyes. “Oh, Alexander...”

He swallowed. “I don’t even know if the man who I called Father is my father.”

I swallowed, too, meeting his eyes so that he would know that I meant what I said. “I understand. And I hold you blameless. None of it is your doing.”

Manfully, he squared his shoulders. “That is kind of you to say. But in courting you, I’ve shot quite above my station. I can only plead love in defense of myself.”

Emotion lodged a knot in my throat. He loved me. His sonnet had confessed as much, but to hear it from his mouth, to see it in his eyes...

He continued, “My feelings for you make me restless and discontent with everything that used to please me and I began to imagine the world might be different. But I’m a man of hard realities. If this must end things between us I will harbor no ill will.”

So, this was why he’d looked so tortured before he left earlier tonight. He thought it might be our last night together. And now his hands actually trembled in mine.

I reached for his cheek, and touched it, tenderly. “Alexander, this makes no difference to me.”

“It has made all the difference to my life. It’s bad enough people think I am—”

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks because I love you. I love your mind, the variety of your knowledge, your playful wit, and the excellence of your heart. I love you for reasons that defy any explanation at all.”

Angelica had been right. Love was a thing beyond reason, beyond control . A thing almost predestined. And now that this powerful emotion had finally taken hold of me, I was entirely helpless against it.

He must have felt it, too, because his mouth closed over mine with such hunger it nearly frightened me. Or maybe the hunger that frightened me was my own. I realized my compromised state, only my nightclothes between us. But as his hands slid down my back with carnal intimacy, and his mouth went to my face, my neck, and my hair, there was no liberty I would not have allowed him.

“Betsy,” he said, hoarsely, stroking my hair. “You deserve better. With me, your future rank in life would be a perfect lottery. You might move in exalted company or a very humble sphere.”

“I don’t care.” All I heard was that he was speaking about a life with me. A future with me. “I love you.” I said it like an incantation.

“Could you truly be an Aquileia and cheerfully plant turnips with me?”

“Yes,” I whispered, smiling as I clutched at him.

“Even if America were lost?”

I knew how desperate the circumstances were but could not bear to think of the war being lost. Not after all the suffering and sacrifice. That was the only reason I hesitated to answer.

Alexander swallowed. “I was once determined to let my existence and American liberty end together. But you give me a reason to outlive my pride. If the war is lost, could you live as the wife of a fugitive, leaving behind your home and everything you know?”

“I’m already the proud daughter of a rebel, sir.”

He smiled at that. “What think you of Geneva as a retreat? I’m told it is a charming place, favorable to human rights. Would you go with me?”

This time I didn’t hesitate. Not even long enough to think. “I would go anywhere with you.”

He pressed his forehead to mine. “Then, Elizabeth Schuyler, will you consent to have me for a husband?”

“Yes.” Yes to anything. Yes to everything . Perhaps my parents wouldn’t approve. But I wouldn’t let them stop me. I felt certain that I could never be happy again without this man. I wasn’t even sure I was myself—or who I’d been before. Every plan, every desire, every hope was lost to all-consuming passion. “I want to be yours this very night.”

“Temptress.” Hamilton groaned and pressed against me, giving me evidence of his desire. And I desired him, too. So much so that the only thing that seemed right was for us to come together, skin to skin. But at length, he held me away and took a steadying gulp of air before we lost our heads completely. “It must all be done right between us. I must write for your father’s blessing.”

“He might not give it,” I admitted.

But Hamilton replied, “I am told I am very persuasive with a pen. Especially when I want something. And I want you.”

My breath caught to hear it. I knew he was persuasive with a pen; his beautiful sonnet was proof of that. But with my blood afire, I wanted it all to be done now. “It will take too long to wait for permission. Papa will forgive us.” After all, he’d forgiven Angelica. “Go wake the reverend.”

Hamilton groaned again. This time, with more pain. “Betsy, I can’t. I can’t . What would people say if I were to run off with the daughter of General Schuyler? They would say I’m a self-seeking, fortune-hunting seducer, angling for advantage.”

I realized that I would have loved Alexander Hamilton even if he were all those things. Even if he loved me only for the advantage I could bring him. “Let them say it.”

“You know what I am.” A whore-child, he meant, as if it was a crack in his soul that threatened to break my heart, too. “I cannot risk even a spot upon the reputation of any child we might have.”

A self-seeking seducer angling for advantage would not pass up an opportunity to elope with the daughter of Philip Schuyler. Nor would he worry for the reputation of his child.

Only a man of honor would do that.

He might not be descended of a Scottish nobleman, I thought. But, he had something more important than a noble title. Like my father, he had nobility of character. And though I knew it was madness that two people should come to love one another so passionately in such a short space of time, I wanted nothing more than to be his wife. Even if it meant I had to wait.