Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(14)

If, at the end of the dance, he had asked her to run away with him, she might have exclaimed, “Long live the King!” and run all the way to the docks by his side. But before she knew it the music faded out, and Major André was bowing to her.

“It was like dancing with a dove,” he said. “I felt as though you carried me up and down the room.”

“Oh, Major André,” Eliza said, blushing, “you are too kind.” It was not the most original line, but it was all she could come up with, rattled by how charming she found him.

Eliza caught Angelica’s gaze across the dance floor as she was bowing to the handsome British adjutant, and her sister shot her a wink and a little smile. Then Angelica threw back her shoulders in an exaggerated signal to encourage her sister to lift her chest in a more enticing pose. Eliza quickly followed suit because big sisters know a thing or two.

And then he was gone, and a white-powdered wig took his place, capping a pair of russet eyebrows and piercing, amused blue eyes. Alexander Hamilton looked as surprised as she was to be asking her to dance.

“Miss Schuyler? I hope my name on your dance card wasn’t too alarming, but your mother said she would make me sleep in the barn if I didn’t sign up.”

Eliza refused to acknowledge him just long enough to make him squirm, then finally took his hand and allowed herself to be led back to the head of the room. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” she said as they walked, “but she’s going to have you sleep in the barn anyway.”

“Ah—” Alex’s voice was cut off by the first strains of a reel. Almost reluctantly, he offered her his hand, and Eliza put her gloved fingers into it as though reaching into a pail of sour milk for a ring that had fallen. Yet she couldn’t help but note that his hand had a sure and confident touch: light and attentive, and if she was being honest, not completely repulsive.

It irritated her, this confidence, and so she sought to undermine it.

“Colonel Hamilton, if you please,” she said, adjusting herself beneath his grip. “I am not an apple on the tree to be tested for ripeness. If you could perhaps squeeze a little less tightly. I have worn corsets that took less liberty.”

Alex’s eyes went wide, and his fingers, which barely rested on her shoulder and waist, relaxed still more. “I do apologize,” he said in a voice so aggrieved that she felt a twinge of guilt.

They began to move to the music. Alex’s step was as assured as Major André’s had been, but Eliza deliberately dragged her feet a little, so that he was forced to hurry her along to keep them from bumping into the other couples on the dance floor. A smile remained on his face, but it was a little strained.

They whirled by Major André, who had his hand in Henrietta Beaverbroke’s. Eliza tried to catch his eye, but the music called for a whirl and they swept away from each other. Again, Eliza found herself face-to-face with the colonel’s handsome but increasingly strained face. Spots of sweat had appeared on his temples beneath his periwig.

“I wonder that your parents would allow you to dance with a British officer,” he said, nodding at the major.

Eliza frowned and did not answer.

“Miss Schuyler, have I offended you in some way?” he asked suddenly. The dance took them away from each other for a moment, and when he was back he continued: “If so, I do apologize. I can assure you that my errand today is as odious to me as it is to General Schuyler, for whom I have only the utmost respect.”

“You have a strange way of showing it, then,” Eliza shot back, but again she felt a little badly for her partner. His voice was genuinely full of concern, and her own father had told her innumerable times that war forced men to make compromises that in any other circumstances would be intolerable. But she didn’t care. He had insulted her father’s honor, and she didn’t care if he was the most handsome soldier at the ball (much more handsome than even the British major, she had to admit); he would have to do a lot more than offer a de rigueur apology to get back in her good graces.

The colonel seemed about to say something more, but the dance called for a particularly complicated set of turns, bows, and weavings, and they were both forced to concentrate to move through them smoothly. But as they came to the end of the maneuver, their path brought them close to Major André and Henrietta. Eliza’s eyes caught those of the dashing British soldier, who flashed her a smile, and she fell behind a half step. As she ducked beneath Alex’s arm, her heel came down squarely on the bridge of her partner’s foot.

Alex gasped, but he managed to repress a yelp. When they were face-to-face again, she glanced at him with equal measures of guilt and glee.

“Normally when a gentleman’s foot interposes itself between his partner’s and the floor, he apologizes for being so clumsy,” she said in the kind of imperious voice that would have made Angelica proud.

“Did you drive the sharp wooden heel of your shoe into the top of my foot, threatening to break my arch?” he asked in the lightest possible tone. “I didn’t notice.”

Eliza couldn’t help it. She smiled. And when he unexpectedly threw in an unscripted bound instead of the expected coupé, she let out the tiniest of whoops, and would have fallen if his strong arm hadn’t pressed firmly into the small of her back.

“I beg your pardon,” he said when she was upright again. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging.”