Washington. Always, George Washington was needed at the head of our armies. But even with my husband at his side, could the old, venerable soldier truly mount up for war yet again?
Mac eyed me frankly and turned the screws. “I appeal to the inextinguishable love you bear your country. That you both bear your country.”
I dropped into a chair with a sigh, stabbing a long spoon into my chocolate cream, and digging out a giant bite, because I knew where this would end. Hamilton could never refuse military glory or a genuine call to patriotism, and this was both.
Darkly amused but wanting to break things, I said, “To think I once harbored such a fondness for you, McHenry . . .”
Both men slanted apologetic glances my way, then Alexander squinted. “What rank would I be offered?”
“Major general.” McHenry reached for a few caraway comfits.
But I snatched the tray away. “Yes, I was quite fond of you, Mac . . . now I shall go get that sawdust cake for you after all.”
Mac laughed, merriment in his eyes. “But you were born to be a general’s wife, my dear.” Then to my husband he added, “And you might wish to send a note of appreciation to President Adams. T’would be a good deal easier to make you inspector of the whole army, if he didn’t hate you quite so much.”
Adams was an honest but irascible man who paled in stature beside George Washington. Which was why my husband had supported another candidate in the presidential election instead of John Adams. But Adams had a long memory and in backing the wrong horse, Alexander had made another enemy.
An enemy who’d now be his commander in chief.
* * *
March 1799
New York City
“You’re a shameless woman, Eliza Hamilton.”
Standing beneath an umbrella in a drizzle of rain, Kitty Livingston tried to fend me off. After she’d come to warn me about Alexander that time, we’d come to a sort of a rapprochement, and since then, Kitty had been amongst the first New York ladies to receive me back into polite society, despite her family’s political feud with mine. But now, caught in a spring shower that was getting her shoes wet outside the Tontine, she wanted nothing more than to escape.
I stood stubbornly in her path. “Surely you can spare more for a worthy cause, Kitty. Not so long ago, you were a widow with a small child yourself . . .”
“I’ve already given you every coin in my handbag!”
I smiled sweetly. “And I promise to record that in the charity’s membership roll, which we’ll publish, as thanks and recognition.”
“As extortion,” Kitty protested. “I’ll be made to look like a miser compared to your sister.”
Kitty had the right of it. I’d learned from Hamilton, after all. Long ago, he’d arranged the order of the states in voting for the ratification of the Constitution, playing one against the other. Well, the same principle applied to raising funds for the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children.
And Angelica was my Delaware, always first to ratify.
Knowing just how large my sister’s donation had been, Kitty’s hands tightened on her purse strings. “You’re a brigand.”
“I think of myself as a foot soldier for the Lord.”
She pursed her lips. “Well, I suppose that if General Hamilton gets the war against France he wants, we’ll all have to adopt the martial spirit.”
General Hamilton. After four months, I was still adjusting to the idea, much less the unspoken, but very real, responsibilities of being a general’s wife. My mother. Lucy Knox. Martha Washington. These were my examples. And with those excellent ladies in mind, I said, “We’re already at war with France. An undeclared war, but a war nonetheless.”
Lacking any military experience of his own to draw upon, President Adams had called George Washington out of retirement. The old soldier, tired to his very bones, agreed to serve as a figurehead if Alexander was named his second in command, his inspector general.
And no one could deny Washington.
The Republican newspapers screeched against “Hamilton, the man who published a book to prove he was an adulterer.” But such objections seemed stale, if not quaint, when weighed against the threat of Napoleon Bonaparte. Matrons might clutch their pearls, and the Jeffersonians might spit, but in the end, the country still needed Alexander Hamilton.
Which meant that we were, again, ascendant.
Even the Livingstons knew it, which was why Kitty sighed with surrender, promising a large bank note for the charity. With that, she took her leave but not before muttering, “I still say you’re a brigand.”
“Brigands resort to pistols.” Aaron Burr doffed his cap as he splashed across the street to us. “Whereas you, Mrs. Hamilton, have somehow managed to loot the pockets of every New York notable with only the force of your will.”
New York was a much smaller place in those days, and we were always running into old friends and enemies on the street. Burr, in particular, was always out and about. He had never remarried after Theodosia’s death, and more often than not he had a trollop on his arm—two, if the mood struck him. He’d earned a reputation as a great seducer of women, and it was no wonder, since Burr still retained roguish good looks.
So much so that even I could scarcely deny him a smile. Nor did I want to when he took money from his pocket and pressed it into my hand. “For your widows and small children . . .”
“How generous,” I said, surprised.
“On the condition that you don’t record my name in your ledger.”
“It’s a respectable charity, sir, and entirely without partisan bent.”
“Yes, I’ve heard all about your widows.” By way of explanation, he added, “I spend a great deal of time lately on Slaughterhouse Street, raising mugs in the Bull’s Head Tavern with the immigrants your husband’s party is trying to chase out of the country.”
He was
