Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(42)

“No, not Augustine, but his brother, Jacques Marcus, who was a colonel, and died in the Indies. You met her, you know,” Eliza continued. “You told me that you dined at her estate, the Hermitage, in New Jersey.”

Alex’s face lit up with the memory. “So I did! With them both, in fact. Colonel—I mean, Mr. Burr was quite flirtatious, as I recall. And she married at the time! And a decade older! And a passel of children besides!”

Eliza didn’t know if her husband was scandalized or amused. On the one hand, Alex had been so ardent about putting aside the differences between patriots and loyalists. On the other, Burr had been, like Alex, a colonel in the Continental army, and was, if anything, even more keen to assume a leadership role in the new government than Alex was. Women may not have been allowed to vote or serve in government, but everyone knew that a society wife controlled her husband’s social calendar, and thus his social circle. A somewhat disgraced loyalist wife did not seem like the kind of choice that played well for an ambitious patriot like Burr.

But then, she told herself, since there were no more Schuyler daughters for Mr. Burr to marry, I guess he had to make do.

“Five,” Eliza said out loud, “to which they added a daughter of their own this spring, also called Theodosia.”

“Well, who would have guessed! The great patriot Aaron Burr, marrying a loyalist!”

“Are you shocked?” Eliza asked. She didn’t bother to keep her voice down. By now they were well past the house, and she had no fears of being overheard, if Mr. and Mrs. Burr were, in fact, at home.

“No, not at all,” Alex said. “The divisions between patriot and loyalist are not nearly as great as war would make them seem. You mark my words, once the United States has established itself, it will renew cordial relations with England. We have far more in common than we do in opposition. But Mr. Burr was always rather . . . stiff in his views. I wonder that he overcame them.”

“Perhaps it was simply love,” Eliza said.

Alex took a moment to lift her gloved fingers to his lips and kiss them. “Well, perhaps it was,” he said in a musing tone. “In which case, there is hope for us as a species. Still, I don’t suppose we’ll be having them over for dinner any time soon.”

“What, you do not approve of the union?” she asked.

“Oh, not at all. I approve. I approve heartily.”

“I take it you do not care for Mr. Burr?”

“Not particularly,” Alex shrugged. “The few times I met him he struck me as being rather too impressed with himself, when his success seems to me to have more to do with family connections than any great ability on his part.”

Eliza passed over this in silence. As the daughter of a Schuyler and a Van Rensselaer, she would have a hard time blaming someone for exploiting their pedigree, especially if they put it to good use. And it was important that she and Alex begin to build a network of friends, acquaintances, and others who would prove useful as they climbed the social ladder.

“Mr. Burr was quite helpful to my family during the war,” she confessed finally. “I never told you what happened at the Pastures while you were at Yorktown.”

He turned to her in surprise. “You have kept something from me?”

Eliza turned pink. “I did not want you to worry, and when we were reunited I was so happy it slipped my mind.”

She told Alex the story of the redcoat invasion and Mr. Burr’s role in their rescue. He listened intently, holding her even closer as if afraid to lose her to the enemy even as she was safe in his arms.

“I am so thankful, my angel,” he whispered, not caring who could see him nuzzle her hair with his nose as he kissed her forehead. “But alas, we cannot have the Burrs to dinner.”

“Why not?”

Alex laughed. “Have you forgotten? We only have a chair each and no servants to serve at table!”

“Oh, you!” Eliza said, swatting him with a gloved hand. “You mustn’t tease me!”



* * *





WHEN THEY RETURNED home, they worked in one room or another—shelving Alex’s law books in his study, moving a portrait of Catherine Schuyler from the front parlor to the dining room to shield it from the strong light that came in the south-facing windows, since they had no curtains yet (“Mama does like to be close to food,” Eliza couldn’t help quipping as Alex centered the picture over the fireplace), or rearranging the small but growing number of silver serving dishes in the glass-fronted hutch as new pieces came in.

But at a certain point the serious business of decorating would always give way to more playful rearranging, as Eliza stood all the forks and knives on the mantel like couples dancing a reel, or Alex took the squashes from the larder and laid them on the dining table draped in Ipswich lace like so many sleeping infants. One or the other of them would pretend to be upset by the other’s mischief, and then the perpetrator would be forced to make it up with kisses and sweet-nothings, until finally the misbehaver would grab a candle and say, “Let me make it up to you upstairs.”





13





Hamilton by Her Side


   Fraunces Tavern and the Hamilton Town House


    New York, New York


   December 1783