All for One Read online

  “Injustice seems rather a strong term at nine in the morning,” John said. “I was only having some fun.”

  “You have a strange definition of fun,” Emma glared. “Perhaps it’s one you learned in college. I am but a homeschooled girl myself. I rely on the more traditional meanings of words. Like decency and honor! Drayton!” she added harshly as the footman returned with a platter of sliced cantaloupe and honeydew. “Do not serve Mr. Schuyler. He has had his opportunity to eat and forwent it.”

  “Very good, Miss Trask,” the footman replied, though he remained at John’s side with the platter, his tongs at the ready.

  “And call me Emma!”

  “Very good, Miss—” Drayton’s voice broke off in obvious consternation.

  “Em-ma,” John teased.

  “John Bradstreet Schuyler, if I have to stand up again . . . !” Emma left the threat unvoiced. “Emma,” she said to Drayton, sounding remarkably like John. “Call me Em-ma!”

  If the footman had been an overwound clockwork toy a moment ago, he now seemed as if his spring had sprung. He stood there without moving, drooping slightly, his cheek twitching as Emma blazed at him, her cheeks fiery with passion.

  John glanced at the two of them, raised his eyebrows, but kept his mouth shut for once.

  Eliza glanced at Alex to catch his eye, but he had remained hidden behind his paper ever since she had made that comment about her parents financing their household. She supposed, as their hostess, she should try to make peace between her guests, but John had been incredibly rude, and he deserved it.

  “Very good, Emma,” Drayton whispered at last. “If that will be all, Mrs. Hamilton?” he added, turning to Eliza desperately.

  “Thank you, Drayton,” Eliza said sympathetically. “If we want anything else we will serve ourselves. You may flee.”

  “Very good, Mrs. Hamilton.” Drayton bowed and somehow managed to make his exit from the room look like something other than scurrying.

  She turned to her brother. “John Bradstreet Schuyler, I am embarrassed of you. What on earth were you thinking?”

  John yawned, seemingly unaffected by his sister’s remonstrance. “Well, I’ll give him one thing,” he said at last. “Drayton never once cracked. Good man. Kept his temper and can take a joke. And on that note,” he continued, slurping up the last of his coffee cup and grabbing a couple of scones from the sideboard, “I must be off. I have a philosophy lecture I intend to sleep through.”

  * * *

  • • •

  LATER ON, WHEN Alex had also gone off to work and it was just Eliza and Emma, the two ladies of the house took up a post in Emma’s bedroom on the third floor. Before Emma had moved in, Eliza had been in the habit of spending her mornings there because it was the first room in the house to be flooded with sunshine, and even though it was early August it was a cool morning, and she was feeling a bit of a chill. She had furnished Emma’s room with an overstuffed wing chair and a wooden rocking chair. Emma took her seat in the latter quickly. Eliza knew that the rocking chair, though quaint-looking with its wicker seat and ladder back, was not particularly comfortable, but she was feeling a little too pregnant to pretend to offer Emma the upholstered seat.

  Her condition had also meant her work with the orphans had to cease for the time being, and Eliza missed it. Her doctor advised her to stay home and rest, but she continued to write letters on their behalf.

  She and Emma had brought their embroidery hoops with them. Emma was working on a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses for a decorative pillow—Perseus’s liberation of Andromeda from the sea monster—while Eliza was doing her best to stitch her initials into a handkerchief. For some reason she could not fathom, the E looked more like a backward 3 than the first letter of her name.

  “Mrs. Hamilton,” Emma said once they were settled, “there is something that has been weighing on my mind.”

  Eliza looked up almost gratefully. “Oh, Emma, what is it? I hate to think of you in distress!”

  Emma’s voice was direly earnest, but even so, she didn’t look up from her needle, either because she was too nervous to meet Eliza’s eye or because she didn’t want to risk a mis-stitch. It was a terrifically complicated pattern she was working on. Titian would have been jealous.

  “It is my behavior at breakfast. I absolutely must apologize for it. I forgot my place, and I’m terribly sorry. I should not have yelled at your brother.”

  “Oh, Emma darling”—Eliza couldn’t stop herself from chuckling—“there is no need to apologize. John grew up in a houseful of girls, after all. He is well versed in the ways of tormenting our sex. And he did deserve a tongue-lashing.”

  “But it wasn’t me he was tormenting. It was poor Drayton. He really had no call to speak to him that way,” said Emma.

  “Of course not,” said Eliza with a sigh. “But they are both boys, after all, regardless of their difference in station. It’s natural for them to spar a little, especially in the presence of a pretty girl. Besides, it wasn’t Drayton who got so upset,” she said. “It was you.”

  “But he could not allow himself to get upset. Let us not forget that he is your employee, though by birth, he is as much a gentleman as Mr. Schuyler or Mr. Hamilton.”

  Eliza laughed. “By birth, he is much more a gentleman than Mr. Hamilton, and it looks like the jury is still out on John.” She smiled gently at her ward. “Oh, darling, you are so young. Poor Drayton was just a means to an end.”

  Emma risked a glance up. “What do you mean, Mrs. Hamilton?”

  “Despite his sometimes coarse tongue, John is quite attuned to others’ feelings. He sensed that you were sympathetic to Drayton’s position and needled the boy in order to get to you.”

  “To me! Why, whatever have I done to him?”

  Another smile from Eliza. “Oh, you are so delightfully naïve. You have done nothing, of course, save for being a beautiful girl who is constantly in his line of sight!”

  Emma’s eyes dropped again, but Eliza noticed that her fingers had stopped their work. “I’m sure I don’t understand you, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  “And I’m sure you do. As I’ve told you, I believe John is sweet on you, my dear. And in the manner of boys everywhere, he thinks the way to make you sweet on him is to tease and torment you and generally make you crazy.”

  “Me?” Emma laughed nervously. “But I am so far from a suitable candidate for . . . for Mr. Schuyler’s feelings that I cannot believe he would . . . feel for me,” she finished awkwardly.

  Eliza reached forward and patted Emma on the knee. “If men and women only fell in love with suitable candidates, Mr. Shakespeare would have been out of a job. And this generation of Schuylers has a distinguished record of falling in love with not-quite-suitable candidates, as you say.”

  Emma frowned. “You mean Mr. Hamilton? But he is such a respected figure. Any father would be proud to see his daughter married to him.”

  “Remember that when I met him he was just a penniless, nameless aide-de-camp to General Washington. By his own admission, the main reasons he was hired for that position were that he spoke French and he wrote in a clear hand. He has a few more pennies now—enough to keep up with my spending habits, even, if he were not profligate himself—but such a prospect was not at all evident when I fell in love with him. And my elder sister, Angelica, eloped with a gun runner dogged by rumors of an abandoned family back in England.”

  “What?” Emma gasped. “How scandalous!” But the way she said it, it sounded more like “How romantic!” She continued: “But Mrs. Van Rensselaer certainly played by the rules.”

  Emma’s assumption prompted a hearty laugh from Eliza. The idea of Peggy playing by the rules was just too rich. “In Peggy’s case, she was the unsuitable candidate. The Van Rensselaers were not at all keen on the marriage. The romance persisted for more than five years before they final
ly allowed Stephen to propose, and had Stephen’s father been alive, I’m not sure it would have happened at all.”

  “But the Schuylers are a most prestigious family! What on earth could have been the Van Rensselaers’ objections?”

  “What is it always? Money. If the Schuylers have an income of a thousand pounds a year, the Van Rensselaers have an income of a hundred thousand. If we own two hundred fifty acres, they own two hundred fifty thousand. Why, nearly all of upper New York State falls under the dominion of the patroonship. Some say that Rensselaerswyck is larger than Holland itself.”

  Emma’s mouth fell open. “I knew that Miss Betty Van Rensselaer was wealthy, but I had no idea she was that wealthy.”

  Eliza nodded. “The only family in the area that comes close to rivaling them is the Livingstons. Stephen’s mother is a Livingston, and she wanted him to marry another of her clan, and so unite the two largest fortunes in the north. But Peggy has her ways. Poor Stephen never stood a chance, I’m afraid. It didn’t hurt that Judge Livingston had made it clear that he was bestowing the bulk of his estate on his eldest son, Robert, and that his daughters stood to inherit nearly as little as Peggy.”

  Emma smiled wistfully. “But still. I am no Peggy Schuyler. Mr. John Schuyler cannot feel about me the same way Mr. Van Rensselaer felt about your sister.”

  “No? Who is it that John is always talking to when he is at home? Is it me, his sister, or Alex, who could help with his schoolwork or his future career? No, it is our lovely houseguest, Miss Emma Trask.”

  Emma smiled bashfully but didn’t say anything. At last she picked up her needle and began to embroider again. She was working on Perseus’s shield, which was emblazoned with an image of the Gorgon’s head.

  Eliza let her work for a moment, then gently prodded. “So tell me, Emma. Does my brother’s attention displease you?”

  Emma pulled a few more stitches, rendering the snakes of Medusa’s hair with frightening vividness. “As I say, I am not as aware of it as you seem to be. But in general I do find his conversation witty. He likes to tease but does not seem to me to come from a cruel place. A tad impious perhaps, but I am such a shy person that I take a kind of vicarious joy in someone else’s insouciance. Although I found his treatment of Drayton demeaning.”

  “Insouciant is a kind word for it,” Eliza said, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be John’s champion. “But I think you are right when you say that it does not come from a cruel place. Our family is so large that one has to squawk a little in order to be heard. I think that once he has spent some time in the world he will realize he doesn’t need to try quite so hard. So,” she added in a little tone, “his attention does not displease.”

  Emma took another long moment, punching her needle through her hoop and pulling the thread taut. But she did not answer Eliza.

  “I do not ask you to return my brother’s flirtations. Only . . . allow him to flirt with you,” she beseeched.

  Emma shrugged. “I do not see how I can stop him. Especially when I have apparently not even been noticing it.”

  “Rebuffing a man is an art unto itself, one that I hope you will never have to learn. Very well, it is settled. John will woo you, and you will be wooed. Yes? Perhaps I can get you to wear a brighter shawl, though? That gray is quite regal, but not exactly romantic. Something red, to bring out the blush in your cheeks?”

  Emma’s head snapped up, a look of horror on her face. “Mrs. Hamilton! I would feel—brazen.”

  “Fine,” Eliza said. “It was just a suggestion. And speaking of suggestions, I would like to propose an idea to you.”

  Emma took a moment to compose herself. “As long as it doesn’t involve face paint and powder, I am eager to hear it.”

  It took Eliza a moment to realize that her normally prim companion was joking, and she laughed heartily when she understood. “No, no, nothing like that. I would like to establish an orphanage.”

  Emma looked up in confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Children who lost their parents in the war have always been a special concern of mine, and I have endeavored to find homes for as many of them as I could.”

  “Indeed,” Emma said. “I owe my own good fortune to your compassion.”

  “Thank you, my dear, though I was not soliciting compliments. I am motivated by more than a bit of self-reproach.”

  “Why, whatever for? You are one of the most generous women I know!”

  “Once again, thank you. But this past month, as I have run around snatching up bolts of pristine linen and gilded bassinets and pale-flowered wallpaper to make a nursery for my child, I have been reminded of how arbitrary it is that I have so much when others have so little.”

  “That is just another sign of your sensitivity, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  Eliza wished Emma would stop complimenting her. She felt as though she was bragging, and that wasn’t her intention at all.

  “Sensitivity or guilt. It doesn’t really matter. I would like to make a place for the orphans of this city I have come to think of as home. It is a grand city, full of energy and purpose, but for the same reason it can also be a callous city, grinding down those who are not well situated to survive its challenges.”

  “An orphanage,” Emma said. “You mean, a permanent facility?”

  “Yes,” Eliza said eagerly. “With bright warm rooms like the one awaiting baby Philip, soft beds, warm clothes, hearty food, and a staff of matrons who will give them a measure of maternal warmth until proper homes can be found for them, and teachers to educate them so that they do not become waifs or urchins but can enter society as self-sufficient adults rather than fall between the cracks.”

  “Oh, it sounds like a wonderful place! But how can I help? I am but an orphan myself, one who lives on the generosity of others.”

  “It is you who are generous with us,” Eliza said. “With your warmth and diligence and assistance. I would like you to apply those same skills to running the orphanage.”

  “What? Me! But I know nothing of such things!”

  “You know how to care, and if I’m being honest, you are twice as organized as I could ever hope to be. And of course we would pay you for your services. This would be proper employment, not charity.”

  “I-I’m flattered, and flabbergasted,” Emma stuttered. “B-but where on earth will you get the money for all of this?”

  Eliza laughed. “I have rich friends and a resourceful husband. I will find it somewhere.”

  Her eyes fell to her lap then.

  “Oh, will you look at this!” she said, holding up her hoop. “I have written ES instead of EH! Although the S looks more like a five than a letter.”

  Emma regarded the handkerchief with pity. “You have many skills, Mrs. Hamilton. I am afraid embroidery is not one of them.”

  Eliza stared at her companion for a moment. “John was right. You are a lioness. I do look forward to the day you roar!”

  12

  Maria’s Story

  Ruston’s Ale House and Inn, Mrs. Smith’s Room

  New York, New York

  August 1785

  The first thing Alex did when he got to the office was dash off a note to Maria Reynolds, promising her that he would come visit her in the afternoon or evening and asking her to stay in Mrs. Childress’s inn during the day and not, under any circumstances, to contact her husband. He then sent word to a certain Señor La Vera. Miguel was a direct descendant of the conquistadors who had taken Mexico from the Aztecs under Hernán Cortés. He claimed that his ancestors had stolen a “king’s ransom” in gold from Montezuma’s coffers in the early 1520s and squandered it over the course of the next 250 years, so that by the time Miguel was born he was forced to labor in the fields alongside the peasants his family had once enslaved. At age fifteen he ran away, making his way to Cuba and thence to Florida. He joined a
n independence movement to drive the Spanish from Florida, a movement that was ahead of its time, and he barely managed to escape north to Georgia with his life.

  He was just in time to join the Continental army, however, serving in the South Carolina 2nd Regiment. He was one of the few survivors of the Continental army’s failed attempt to liberate Savannah in 1779, took part in the defense of Charleston in 1780, and wound up his service at Yorktown, where he had heard tales of Lt. Col. Alexander Hamilton’s bravery, though the two never met—mostly because Miguel had lost his right foot and ankle to a cannonball and spent the ensuing months fighting for his life on a hospital cot. All this by the time he was nineteen years old. The hardy Mexican had survived, however, and eventually made his way to New York, where he looked up Alex and asked if he had any work. Despite his wooden leg and heavy Spanish accent, Miguel had proven himself to be a master of subterfuge and disguise, and had become Alex’s primary investigator for cases of a less-than-savory nature.

  He showed up at Alex’s office just after noon in typical fashion. Alex had dipped into his files to look up something, and when he turned back around, Miguel was sitting in the chair in front of his desk. For a man with a wooden leg, he was surprisingly light on his feet.

  “Colonel Hamilton, you called?” he said simply. He wasn’t one for small talk. Miguel liked to refer to himself as an “Aztec warrior” and wore his long hair pulled into a unique topknot on top of his head.

  Alex handed Miguel a sheet of paper. “I need you to find out everything you can about James Reynolds. His address is there.”

  “By everything, you mean everything illegal, I assume.”

  “Illegal, compromising, or otherwise unsavory. I want to make this man look as bad as I can.”

  Miguel blinked. “Ho, Colonel Hamilton, this guy must be some nasty fellow. I have never seen you take a case so personally before.”

  “In truth, I have never met the man. I do not know how he conducts his public life, but in his private life he is the most base kind of knave.”