Alex and Eliza--A Love Story Page 9

  It was bewildering. Eliza knew that she should think less of Alex for this and assume him to be the sham of a gentleman that her mother claimed he was.

  But Eliza had met true roués before—men who pretended to be respectable in public and then indulged in the most repulsive behaviors in private. Alex hadn’t behaved like a man who was removing a mask or like he was trying to entice Eliza into something illicit or nefarious. No, his behavior seemed natural. Grateful even, as if she had given him a rare but not unusual gift—an exquisitely wrought charcoal sketch, say, or the first crocus of spring.

  Still, Eliza couldn’t let it go. The fury she felt was not near enough protection from the horrid cold, although the realization that for two years he’d kept the handkerchief she’d once stuffed into her bodice had a peculiarly warming effect of its own.

  But this was still February in New Jersey. An uncontrollable shiver raced down her spine, shaking her from her reverie. The nice thing about anger was that it distracted you from the cold. But it didn’t actually make you any warmer, and now Eliza’s teeth began to chatter. She grabbed a hunk of Hector’s thick black mane, hoping to find some warmth there, and didn’t let go. Her body ached with fatigue from the cold and she wasn’t sure how long she could hold her seat.

  “You’re shaking,” he whispered. “Lean in to me and let me take the reins from here.”

  Eliza had no willfulness left in her. The cold had stripped it away. She closed her eyes and let go of the reins, melting into the warmth of his chest and shoulders as they closed in around her.

  In a feverish dream-like state, she was suddenly at home again in the warmth of her family’s parlor. The young colonel was there, twirling her in his arms as he turned a reel with a graceful step. His hand on the small of her back and his breath against her neck made her feel as if she were floating in time and space. She had once found a young lady’s delight in his arms. Now the closeness of the man hemmed in behind her brought solid comfort.

  The steady clip-clop of horse hooves and the mournful hoot of an owl lulled her toward a deeper calm. And somehow, she slept.

  Later, in the arms of the man she had told never to speak to her again, Eliza opened her eyes and looked into his face.

  “But how could it be that you were on the road today, just as we approached?”

  “Shhh,” Alex whispered. “Shhhh. It won’t be long before we’ll have you sitting in front of a fire with a hot bowl of broth. For the moment, just lean back, close your eyes, and let Hector do his job.”

  “Yes, yes. That sounds fine. So lovely and warm.”

  Eliza looked up into the clouded night sky, no longer sure of her whereabouts. As she nodded off in Alex’s arms, she mumbled one last thought, “But where on earth did you come from?”

  THROUGH A FAR-OFF stand of pine trees, the first traces of campfire light appeared. Shadows played over the soldiers’ tents in the slant of the moonlight. As they crossed a crusted field of stubble, the gelding picked up the scent of familiar horses in a nearby pasture and began to dance in place with excitement. Alex tightened the reins to keep the horse from sprinting back to his field mates. Lifting his head with nostrils flared, Hector roared his magnificent neigh, announcing his return to the encampment.

  It was only a short ride away from the center of the town, where the Cochrans’ white two-story house stood, not too far from army headquarters.

  “Ease up there, fella. This is the place.”

  Alex nudged Eliza’s cheek. “Miss Schuyler? Are you yet awake? We have reached our destination.”

  Sensing that she was strong enough to sit up in the saddle, he leapt off Hector’s rear and came around to his left side. “Here we are, once again, m’lady. May I offer some assistance?”

  He laced together his fingers to aid in Eliza’s dismount, aware of how dainty her foot felt in the cradle of his hands.

  But when she slid from the saddle she nearly collapsed in the snow, possibly because her feet were frozen numb. Indeed, she did fall, but Alex caught her in his arms. Caught her and, when it was clear that she couldn’t walk, carried her up the walk to her aunt and uncle Cochran’s house.

  A butler opened the door with Mrs. Cochran close on his heels, elbowing him out of the way to get to her niece. She guided Alex to a sofa inside the parlor where he laid Eliza down with care.

  “Oh dear! Eliza! Is she quite all right?” she fussed worriedly. “Mrs. Jantzen returned to us hours ago!”

  Piling her niece high with blankets, Mrs. Cochran directed the servants to fetch hot broth and bank the fire higher in the grate, while she herself undertook the task of rubbing Eliza’s poor feet.

  In the confusion, Alex quietly slipped out, even as he wished he could stay.

  11

  Absent Without Leave?

  The Cochran Residence

  Morristown, New Jersey

  February 1780

  “Was that Colonel Hamilton who carried you into the house like a bride?” Aunt Gertrude was more teasing than proud. Since both her husband and the colonel worked closely with General Washington, of course she knew him well, and it was clear she was really asking about how such a strange circumstance came to be. Eliza, however, colored deeply at the mention of the word bride, and Aunt Gertrude, being as attuned to afflictions of the psyche as she was to the body, let the subject drop. “You must be exhausted!”

  Eliza thought she would never be warm again and had only a dim recollection of how it was that she was finally inside, and in the comfort of her aunt’s home, not freezing on the road to Morristown still.

  When Eliza’s feet were finally as pink as a newborn’s, Aunt Gertrude rang the bell for a maid to take Eliza up to her room with a brazier to warm the sheets. The maid plucked several coals from the fire and laid them in the brazier, which sizzled all the way up the stairs. She ran the brazier under the bedclothes for a full five minutes until the sheets were fairly smoking, then helped Eliza off with her dress and into one of Aunt Gertrude’s nightgowns because Eliza’s trunks were still lashed to the top of the broken carriage seven miles away.

  The blanket was flannel and smelled lightly of Aunt Gertrude’s scent, a pleasant mixture of rose oil and witch hazel, and the warmed sheets were almost too hot, yet from the moment Eliza slipped into bed she was shivering. She wrapped her arms around herself and, almost against her will, recalled the heat from Alex’s body.

  She told herself her chill was the result of three hours outside in silly shoes and without a coat, but she knew this wasn’t the whole truth. What plagued her was more unsettling—the memory of the light touch of his hands on her as they rode and how naturally his fingers had curled around her waist.

  And how soft his voice was in her ear, all tenderness and concern, when the man was a rogue and a rake as far as she was concerned.

  WHEN ELIZA WOKE in the morning, the bedclothes were damp with perspiration. Her joints ached and her face was flushed with fever. Uncle John checked in on her before heading out and pronounced her symptoms “probably not life-threatening,” but nevertheless prescribed bed rest until the fever broke. The idea of spending the day in a strange (and rather small) bedroom with neither books nor fire nor company made the prospect of a cold that much more disheartening, and Eliza was able to commute the sentence to the parlor sofa, where, though she did feel somewhat weak and light-headed, she was nevertheless able to visit with her aunt.

  The parlor was a grand room with four tall windows set against rose-flocked wallpaper. In keeping with the latest French style, the plaster on its high ceilings had been worked in a rococo pattern. Servants kept the fire high and water in the coffeepot piping hot, and there were cellar pears and cheese to snack on, and strained broth to sip. It was, all things considered, the least unpleasant way to be sick that Eliza could imagine.

  “This is a beautiful room, Aunt Gertrude, and the bedroom I slept in was als
o lovely. I am sorry I’m not well enough for a complete tour—you and Uncle John have an exquisite home.”

  “Oh, pshaw,” Aunt Gertrude said. Where another woman would have busied herself with embroidering a pillow sham or handkerchief, Aunt Gertrude was sewing buttons onto military uniforms. Eliza wanted to assist her, but had been forbidden to strain herself.

  “Your uncle and I found this house as it is, furniture and all. I shall say that, for loyalists, the Kitcheners—the former owners—did have rather good taste. Those are they,” she added, indicating a pair of portraits that hung in the bays to either side of the fireplace.

  Eliza studied the pictures. Mrs. Kitchener looked to be in her early forties. She was dressed in high fashion with an ornate gown and elaborate wig, yet her soft chin and round, pink cheeks suggested an equal fondness for the conviviality of jokes and sweets.

  Mr. Kitchener was perhaps two decades older than his wife, a somewhat distant-looking man. Eliza thought he seemed a little lost inside his elaborate suit, as if, without it, he would be like any other sixty-year-old man, weathering his twilight years with less poise than patience.

  Not knowing the subjects, she couldn’t judge the likenesses. However, the paints themselves testified to professional rather than amateur ability, which made her think they must have presented a fairly accurate representation. “They seem a most respectable pair,” Eliza said. “It must have grieved them dear to have to sell a home to which they obviously devoted much labor and love.”

  “Sell?” Aunt Gertrude scoffed. “I hope you do not think your uncle and I would give our money to a pair of loyalists.”

  Eliza was confused. “I don’t understand. How came you to have their house, then?”

  “In the same way that General Burgoyne once helped himself to your father’s house at Saratoga: It was claimed as a military prize.”

  “Ah, so!” Eliza said. “Of course.”

  “I’ve been meaning to take down their pictures and just haven’t gotten around to it. And I don’t have anything to hang in their stead, so . . .”

  Eliza nodded. Yet she couldn’t help looking up at the couple and feeling sorry for the Kitcheners. She had been devastated when she learned that the Saratoga house had been seized, and even more heartbroken when she learned it had been burned. Though her father rebuilt it quickly, the house that held so many childhood memories no longer existed for her. Those happy times could never be re-created with a cover of wood and stone.

  “Had they children?” she asked quietly.

  “I would assume so.” Having had none herself, Aunt Gertrude was unsentimental when it came to the subject of children. “There was a crib in the bedroom upstairs where you’re sleeping, and another was bedecked with a young girl’s furnishings. I think perhaps they lost a son in battle, as well, for a sword tied with a black ribbon hung in another room.”

  “And they left it behind!”

  “Indeed they did! When General Washington’s forces took northern New Jersey, the Kitcheners, like all the other loyalists, left in such haste that they took naught with them, save their clothes and jewels, and not all of those.” Aunt Gertrude tapped a cameo on her dress. “I found this precious bauble upstairs, fallen behind a bureau.”

  The butler, Ulysses, entered. Once his presence had been acknowledged, he said, “A Colonel Hamilton is here to inquire after Miss Schuyler’s well-being.”

  A bright smile flashed on Aunt Gertrude’s face, but it disappeared as soon as she saw Eliza’s. The blush had come back, and she was shaking her head rapidly. She wasn’t ready to see him, not at all, not when her mind was still a confused jumble of emotion, from irritation to embarrassment to something too much like excitement at the prospect of seeing him again.

  It was clear that Aunt Gertrude wanted to ask the reason for Eliza’s objection, but declined to do so in front of Ulysses.

  “Tell Colonel Hamilton that Miss Schuyler is well. Well, but tired, and resting after yesterday’s ordeal. Please convey Dr. Cochran’s and my immense gratitude for his assistance and inform him that we look forward to thanking him properly for his chivalry when Miss Schuyler is fully recovered.”

  Ulysses nodded, closing the door behind him to keep the heat in the room. Eliza listened intently to the voices in the hall, but the walls were too thick to admit more than a faint murmur. The conversation did go on for longer than she expected, though; she thought she heard the colonel insisting that he wanted to check on her with his own eyes before finally being persuaded to leave. At length there was the sound of the front door’s opening and closing.

  Eliza turned to the window, half expecting the colonel to appear, but nothing came in save the light of a late winter’s morning. She was strangely disappointed even if she was the one who had sent him away.

  When she turned from the window, she saw her aunt regarding her quizzically.

  “So tell me, dear. Did Colonel Hamilton happen to say how came he to be on the post road yesterday?” she asked lightly—too lightly, Eliza thought—as though she were not seeking information, but was already in possession of all the facts. Apparently, even the saintly Aunt Gertrude wasn’t above enjoying a little innocent gossip.

  “He said that he was making the rounds of the outposts along the Hudson River.”

  “Really? I would have thought it was the outpost’s job to report to him, and not the other way around.”

  Eliza hadn’t considered this, though now that it was said out loud, it did make sense to her.

  “Perhaps he felt that their diligence needed the extra prod of supervision. Papa has remarked on more than one occasion that nothing maintains both discipline and morale like the occasional unexpected visit from authority.”

  “Perhaps,” her aunt said. She snapped the thread on the button she had just sewn on, set the jacket aside, and retrieved another from the pile beside her.

  “You sound unconvinced.”

  “It is just that your uncle John remarked on Colonel Hamilton’s absence yesterday. Or, more accurately, he said that General Washington had noticed the colonel’s absence. So if this were a surprise visit, it would seem that his superiors were as surprised by the errand as his subordinates.”

  Eliza felt a flush coming on. “I am not sure I understand, Aunt.”

  “Your father wrote to General Washington to tell him of your trip, did he not?”

  “Of course, but Papa would never let me take the trip without our family coachman, Mr. Vincent. For my sake, the dear old soldier pretended that he was carrying military information, but given my father’s two-year absence from a command post, this seemed merely a ruse to keep me from being alarmed.”

  Aunt Gertrude nodded. “I wouldn’t want to speak out of turn, but I always felt you were your father’s favorite—even more than John or Philip Junior or the other boys. Of all his children, you are most like him in spirit. So, it makes sense that he would go to the extent of informing the commander in chief of the Continental army that his daughter was coming to visit his aunt. Although, let me see, hmmmm . . . a letter to General Washington would not be first read by him. It is initially vetted by—”

  Eliza interjected before she could help herself. “Are you telling me Colonel Hamilton knew I was coming?”

  Aunt Gertrude gave Eliza an impish shrug.

  “Dr. Cochran remarked last week that he asked after your trip. At first I thought nothing of it—your uncle and the colonel are in regular communication, and I thought it was simply a pleasantry between colleagues. But when I saw you in his arms yesterday, well, you can forgive an old woman for wondering whether romance was in the air.”

  Now Eliza was blushing wildly, and her heart was beating too fast to be healthy. “While I admire the romantic spirit that leads you to such a conjecture, Aunt, I have to doubt its veracity. If Colonel Hamilton had, in fact, read my father’s letter to General Washington, he
would have known I was due to arrive not yesterday but the day before. So it seems likely that he was on the road yesterday on official business.”

  It seemed to Eliza that her aunt’s expression was almost pitying, as if her niece were too guileless to be believed. “Perhaps. But Dr. Cochran did say that Colonel Hamilton was missing for several hours the day before yesterday, much to the consternation of General Washington.”

  Absent without leave because of me? That note that Peterson wrote must have been a doozy, that had to be all it was. Eliza could not meet her aunt’s gaze. She reached for her cup, but it was drained dry. She was about to ring the bell for more when her aunt’s hand settled over hers.

  “Eliza, I must ask. Have you and Colonel Hamilton met before?”

  Eliza wasn’t sure how to answer that question. An affirmation seemed so inadequate to the spirit of the inquiry. But to say anything more risked a conversation that she knew not how to broach, let alone conduct.

  “He was a guest at an assembly my mother threw more than two years ago. Our encounter was . . . trifling,” she said, even as her mind flitted to the knowledge that he had kept a handkerchief with her scent on his person for over two years.

  Aunt Gertrude laughed. “Your uncle and I met one week before our wedding. Your grandparents were, I think, more despondent about the possibility of marrying me off than I was myself; they’d promised Dr. Cochran a handsome dowry if he would have me. It was not a romantic match, is what I am trying to say.”

  Aunt Gertrude took a moment to rearrange the cameo on her blouse. “Ah. But it was an apt union, my dear, and one that has only deepened in respect and regard as the years have passed. Nevertheless, I know love—not least from the example of my brother and your mother, whose passion—”

  Eliza sputtered. “Passion! My mother? Are we discussing the same Mrs. Schuyler?”

  “Be gentle, dear. Please do not think that the forty-seven-year-old matron busily raising eight children is the full representation of your mother’s life. She was young once and lovely, too—just like you.”