Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(15)
She had to hand it him. He was good, this Alexander Hamilton. Under other circumstances, she might actually like him. But right now she had about seven more minutes of his time, and she was determined to make them as difficult as possible.
7
Gauntlet (Or Handkerchief?) Thrown
Schuyler Ballroom
Albany, New York
November 1777
As the night wore on, the frenzied pace of the dancing picked up. The officers’ uniforms flashed with medals and a few gold braids. More than a snippet of petticoats could be glimpsed as the turns grew wilder and the men’s hands around the ladies’ waists began to intentionally miss their marks to hold on to something more interesting. Soon the ballroom grew overly warm despite the mid-November chill.
After taking his leave and bowing to Eliza Schuyler, Alex went back to drinking mulled cider from the Schuyler orchards spiked with apple brandy from the Pastures’ own trees and followed that, perhaps a bit unwisely, with French wine spiced with cinnamon and cloves. In between dancing reel after reel with the eligible young ladies of Albany, he went back to regaling perfumed clouds of girls who clustered around him like life-sized lollipops with stories of battlefield valor and carnage.
Taking advantage of the general’s lavish hospitality, he then stepped into the smoking room to indulge in fine Virginia cigars and whiskey brewed beyond the Kentucky frontier before intrepidly accepting a slug of some home-brewed spirit that unfortunately tasted like serpents’ urine. At last, he returned to the ballroom and found himself once again surrounded by a clique of girls.
Well, two girls.
From the eight who had fawned on him earlier in the evening, the Misses Van der Schnitzel, Ten Broek, and Beaverbroke were all standing in a corner, waiting for their chance to dance with the British adjutant, one Major André, who seemed to have won the hearts of all the ladies that evening.
But the loyal Misses Tambling-Goggin and Van Liverwurst eyed Alex flirtatiously above their fans. They were comely lasses to be sure, the kind he would have happily spent the time with back in Morristown or Elizabeth, yet his eyes rolled right over them and shifted back to the dance floor.
For there were the Schuyler sisters, the undisputed queens of the party: Angelica, regal and self-possessed, even next to her less-than-graceful partner, a short and portly but jolly-looking older gentleman; and Peggy, laughing vivaciously and looking as though she were dancing with a French count rather than an awkward lad, the young Van Rensselaer heir. But above all there was Eliza, wearing a dress more suited to the schoolroom than the ballroom, who had insulted his name and rank at every turn, and had even stepped on his foot—and who made him want nothing more than for her to step on the other.
Why was it he couldn’t take his eyes off the one girl who failed to notice his impressive gifts? What was it about the sharp-tongued lass wearing a homespun gown, a modest cotton dress that touched his heart in its bold demonstration of her alliance to the patriot cause?
And why on earth was she dancing for the third time with that blasted British officer, Major André?
“I say, Colonel Hamilton, if you would like to return to the dance floor, I would be happy to join you,” Miss Tambling-Goggin said, sounding anything but pleased. After all, no girl likes to flirt with a boy whose eyes keep wandering away.
“I do apologize, but I am quite satisfied where I am. Please, do not take my fatigue as a sign of lack of interest in your considerable charms,” he said, flashing her a winning, but rueful smile.
“Since the colonel is unwilling,” said a male voice. “Perhaps you will allow me to shepherd you to the dance floor.”
The speaker was another man whom Alex didn’t recognize and who, despite being in his early twenties, wasn’t wearing a uniform. He was a tall, well-built man, though his soft neck and softer stomach spoke of a fondness for food and alcohol that were clearly getting the better of him, judging from the way he swayed back and forth. In fact, Alex was wondering whether the man had been drunk when he got dressed, because he was wearing one white and one brown hose beneath his expensive velvet breeches.
“So what do you say, Letitia?” he slurred.
Miss Tambling-Goggin turned toward the new speaker. “Alas, but like the colonel, I am quite satisfied with where I am as well.”
“Don’t be that way, come now,” said the rude stranger.
“The lady has made her preference known,” said Alex mildly.
“Yet I shall make her preference for her, Mister . . .”
Alex held out his hand, hoping to defuse the suddenly tense situation. “It is Colonel Hamilton, actually. I do not believe I have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance—”
The man looked down at Alex’s hand, but didn’t shake it. Only then did Alex notice that he was leaning heavily on a cane—and then, looking farther down, he saw that the brown hose was not actually cloth. It was a wooden leg.
“I would shake your hand, Colonel, but as you can see my right hand is otherwise engaged,” the man said with a dramatic sigh.
“I do beg your pardon, sir,” Alex said as the music stopped; he noticed Eliza, Angelica, Peggy, and their dance partners heading their way. A half-dozen pairs of eyes were trained on him, and he felt like a complete cad. “A war injury?”
“Indeed. Some of us haven’t spent the past year and a half writing letters in an office. We spent it on the battlefield.” He snorted. “It’s quite ironic when you consider it. Normally you would expect the person of highborn rank—that’s me, by the way,” he added contemptuously. “Normally you would expect the son of gentry to shirk the battlefield. But in this case it is the nobody commoner who flees glory and hides behind a clerical duty or some other equally flimsy excuse while the nobleman defends his country’s honor. But then, it isn’t really your country now, is it? Where were you born again? An island off the coast of nowhere?” the man sneered, as the Schuyler girls and their companions clustered around their little group.