Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(49)

After several more seconds of silence, Alex cleared his throat. “If I may ask, what brings you here today?”

“Oh, if you don’t mind,” Mrs. Childress said in somewhat confused voice—as if she were embarrassed almost—“I would prefer to speak to Mr. Hamilton directly.”

Alex felt his cheeks color, and the woman’s did in turn.

“Unless there is another Mr. Hamilton who occupies these offices when I am out, then I am he.”

“Oh!” she said, immediately realizing her error. “When you opened the door, I thought you were the servant!”

Alex smiled sardonically. “Please think of me as your servant, Mrs. Childress. One who has yet to procure a secretary to open his doors and fill his glass.”

“It’s not that,” Childress said. “It’s just, well—you are so young!”

Alex felt his cheeks go redder. “Revolution has a way of foreshortening life,” he said, but even as the words left his mouth, his eyes alit on the dark attire shrouding her frame and he realized his comment must have sounded glib to her.

But she seemed to take it sympathetically. Her eyes followed his, and one of her gloved hands reached up to touch the ribbon.

“I do know that,” she said in a distant voice. “I have worn this ribbon so long now that I almost forget it’s there. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of my beloved Jonathan.”

Alex’s mouth opened to murmur a condolence even before she finished speaking, but at the name “Jonathan—” His voice caught in his throat. Ah, Laurens! he thought. He wished he could say that he thought of him every day, but the truth is he had pushed his dearest friend from his mind almost as soon as he heard of his death, lest he be overcome with grief. Whoever said war is glorious is a lying fool.

“I am so sorry for your loss,” Alex said when he had recovered himself. “Is the legal matter that brought you here perhaps related to your husband’s passing?”

“Legal?” Childress said in a bemused voice. “Well, I suppose it is a legal question, though to me it seems an act of straightforward perfidy.” She summoned a deep breath. “My husband that was, Mr. Jonathan Childress, arrived in this country from Liverpool as a teenager. He was indentured to Mr. Philip Ruston, who operated a prosperous alehouse on Water Street, and after completing his seven-years term of service had formed such a bond with his master that he stayed on as brew master and, eventually, partner. When, in 1769, Mr. Ruston prepared to depart this world without any natural-born heirs, he named my husband the beneficiary of his estate, and so he became owner of the enterprise. My husband was known to be a gifted brewer, so much so that in addition to brewing all the lagers, ales, and stouts for his own establishment, which he continued to call Ruston’s in honor of his benefactor, he also supplied the needs of eight other inns in the city. He was on his way to becoming a rich man indeed when independence was declared, and—”

Childress paused, less for breath than to calm herself. Alex indicated the cup on his desk, and she took a small sip.

“My husband loved this city and this country. He considered them his home. He married me, who was born right here in Westport, Connecticut, and bore our son and daughter with the expectation that, like a more modest version of the Livingstons of New York State and the Carters of Virginia, the Childress name would become synonymous with the American upper classes. Yet to Jonathan, America was always an extension of England, which had made him and, he felt, made also this country. When his king called on him to defend the union of the mother country with its far-flung colonies, he did so willingly, and when he was taken home on the field of battle, I do not believe he regretted his choice. Though I have no doubt he thought sadly of the family from which he was being taken.

“I confess that my loyalty to one side or the other was never as pronounced as was my husband’s. I wanted peace far more than I wanted to be a British subject, or an American one. While all this was happening, I oversaw the business my husband built with, if I may say so myself, a fair degree of skill. Despite the imposition of the British occupation and the grudging assistance of male employees who did not at first enjoy being subordinate to an employer of the female persuasion, I expanded the number of establishments to which we sold, raising it from eight to twelve over the past seven years.

“Of course, our clientele were much diminished as many patriots had fled the city, but so thirsty were they and their British occupiers that I was compelled to purchase a building on Baxter Street and transform it into a brewery. I outfitted it with the newest vats and stills so that I could meet demand and maintain the quality of our product, a task at which I was so successful that Ruston’s Ale became well-known as one of the very finest in the city, and indeed in the colony.”

“You mean state, don’t you,” Alex prodded gently.

Mrs. Childress smiled ruefully, and though tinged by sadness, the smile still lit up her face. “I suppose I do.”

He cleared his throat.

“It would seem that you survived the war with less privation than did many,” he said, yet even as he spoke his eyes were taking in once again the frayed edges of the once-fine mourning gown, echoed in the worry lines that framed her mouth and eyes. From her story she was a wealthy, even unctuous, woman, but her dress and face were at odds with her words.

Mrs. Childress stared at Alex blankly. “Money cannot buy a husband or father,” she said finally.