Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(24)

“I beg your pardon?” Eliza’s posture went suddenly rigid.

Alex didn’t answer, and once again they rode in silence. When it seemed clear that she wasn’t going to speak to him again, he attempted a new way in.

“So,” he began, “may I assume it is your mindfulness of the rift between your father and me that forces you to hold back any semblance of a smile?”

Eliza puffed her way through a laugh, leaning as far forward as she could to distance herself from him.

But he pressed on. “You see, I have been waiting for more than two years to tell you it pleased me wholeheartedly to receive your note after the ball, and I was sorely disappointed when you failed in your promise,” he said, in a rush of sudden emotion that took both of them by surprise.

“Pardon me? What note? What promise? If I’d written a note to every gentleman I met, my days would be wasted complimenting clumsy men on their knack for walking the line or turning a reel. Must I remind you there is a war going on? I have more pressing things to do with my time.”

“Turning a reel—is that what they’re calling it these days?” Alex clucked his tongue against his cheek. “Forgive me if I seem old-fashioned, but I’d imagined I was the only one to whom you had written!”

“My word, Colonel Hamilton, you are besotted with yourself. Do you truly think you are such a fine dancer as all that? Would you be surprised if I said that I have but the dimmest recollection of that evening? Frankly, sir, of your time in my parents’ house, I remember your affront to my father better than anything that passed between us.”

“Ah, miss. You cut me to the core.”

“I find it hard to believe that a woman’s free speech could so unnerve you. For a man of war, you are easily shocked.”

“It is not your speech that shocks me. It is the actions to which it refers, and the apparently trifling regard with which you consider them.”

“Your dance maneuvers?” Eliza laughed.

“You cannot seriously think we were to dance in the hayloft?”

“I beg your pardon, Colonel Hamilton! I must confess myself unimpressed by any other aspect of your character other than your grace on the dance floor.”

Alex shook his head, flabbergasted. He yanked off a glove and reached into his inner pocket to pull out one of his most prized possessions. “Do you profess ignorance of this?”

Eliza turned and regarded the square of wrinkled cloth in Alex’s hand. “A somewhat soiled pocket handkerchief?”

“I have not washed it for more than two years!” he said, affronted.

“That would explain the dirt.”

“Miss Schuyler, are you asking me to believe you have no memory of my giving this very handkerchief to you?”

Alex could see only the profile of Eliza’s face, but it seemed clear she was mystified.

Suddenly a fresh detail from that night popped into her mind. “Oh yes! ‘I surrender,’” she parroted. “As I recall, Angelica and Peggy and I routed you in the parlor where you were trying to impress Miss Tambling-Goggin and Miss Van Leuwenwoort with your military prowess. I had completely forgotten about it until just now.”

“So you are saying, then, that you have no memory of returning this handkerchief to me later that evening with a note?”

“Did I?” Eliza shrugged. “Well, that was awfully kind of me, wasn’t it? Although, given its rather sorry state, I can see why I was so eager to be rid of it.”

Alex was doubly confused. Could it be that Eliza Schuyler—the most sensible of the Schuyler sisters, the one who was said to care more about the revolutionary cause than dresses or even books—was so featherheaded that she had no memory of a romantic missive she had sent? It was inconceivable!

“You must forgive me, Miss Schuyler,” Alex said, his breath escaping in puffs in the frigid air. “Although I knew you were no shrinking violet, I still thought your sensibility was less jaded than this.”

“Oh, good heavens, Colonel Hamilton. It’s just a handkerchief.”

“Indeed it is not ‘just a handkerchief.’ It is the very foundation of the male-female connection.”

“Once again, Colonel Hamilton, I must beseech you not to take our present physical proximity as an excuse for licentiousness. Do not assume that it is anything other than necessity alone that has caused me to compromise my physical boundaries in this manner.”

“Oh?” Alex said drily. “And I suppose you did not send me a note with the handkerchief that said you would meet me in the hayloft?”

Hector stopped in his tracks to snort, blowing hard enough to make Eliza lift her chin and laugh.

“Meet you in the hayloft? I beg your pardon, Colonel, but even your loyal horse finds this a bit ridiculous!”

“Miss Schuyler, do not play the innocent with me. Though society may think you a girl consumed with nothing more than patriotic fervor, not even you could convince anyone that you are quite as brainless as you pretend.”

“My dear colonel, I do not know what is causing these wild insinuations, but I assure you they are as unwelcome as they are preposterous. If anything in my actions misled you to believe otherwise, I am both mortified and unapologetic.”

“Misled!” Alex couldn’t help himself. “Far from it! It was you who never showed up, after promising to meet me for a midnight assignation!”