Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(61)

“And I you,” he answered. “I am sorry I was so late tonight. I picked up another new client today.”

“Oh?” Eliza wrapped her hands over his where they sat on her waist. “Another loyalist looking to safeguard his property? You be careful, Alexander Hamilton, lest people think you too fair-minded and actually harbor monarchist views.”

Alex chuckled softly. “A one-time loyalist, although he says that since he sipped from ‘the cup of liberty,’ he has renounced all other spirits. And fortunately or unfortunately for him, he has no property to worry about losing. Which is why he is in debtors’ prison—he has long since lost the collateral meant to cover his liabilities.”

“Oh, the poor man,” Eliza said with genuine concern. She turned in Alex’s embrace and slipped her arms around his shoulders. “But, dare I ask, if he is in debtor’s prison, how will he pay you? We need to pay our mercer’s bill before the interest becomes larger than the principal.”

Alex winced slightly. The fact that his wife was now receiving bills pained him greatly.

“The Childress case will soon go to court. If I win, as I believe I will, the verdict will serve as a blanket judgment for all the other cases. The damages could amount thousands of pounds, of which I will receive between ten and fifty percent, depending on the case. We will be able to pay off the mercer, the butcher, and the cabinet maker and everyone else,” he said.

“The mercer, the butcher, the cabinet maker,” Eliza said. “It sounds like a children’s rhyme.” She kissed him on the nose. “I’m sorry, darling. I know you hate to talk about money. You were telling me about a new client.”

“Yes. I am trying to help him raise funds.”

“But you said he is in debtors’ prison. How can a man possibly work in jail?”

“Well, he is a painter.”

“A painter!” Eliza’s eyes widened. “I confess I did not expect that word to come out of your mouth. It’s so hard to imagine an artist languishing in a cell.”

Alex felt a little smirk on his lips. “You might not have to imagine.”

Eliza frowned with mock sternness. “Excuse me?”

“I have commissioned Mr. Earl to paint your portrait. Before his unfortunate incarceration, his paintings were worth dozens of pounds. It is part of his payment to me. But—” His voice trailed off.

It was Eliza’s turn to smirk. “But I have to sit for it . . . in prison.”

“Do you mind? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, it sounds like an adventure. And it will get me out of the house. But don’t tell my father that you arranged for his daughter to visit a prison, no matter which side of the bars she is on. I dare say he’d skin you alive.”

Alex kissed her the forehead. “I dare say you are the most remarkable woman alive, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Hamilton,” Eliza said coquettishly.

“Not even into bed?”

Eliza pretended to be angry, then began to loosen the laces on her dress with a smile, and soon enough, her husband joined her in the task.





18





Prison Portrait


   Debtors’ Prison


    New York, New York


   January 1784


The debtors’ prison in which Ralph Earl was incarcerated stood at the northern end of the Fields, the large park near the top of the city between Broadway and the Boston Post Road. It bore the unimaginative name, “Debtors’ Prison.” Before that, it had borne the equally unimaginative and even more inexpressive name, “New Gaol,” but despite these failures of nomenclature, the building was a handsome three-story stone structure with a dormered attic floor, above which stood a large, graceful octagonal cupola. In a more bucolic setting, the building might have been mistaken for the country house of a member of the gentry, but the whipping post and pillory that stood just to the side of the entrance overshadowed any genteel feeling that might have been engendered by the stately architecture.

“Begging your pardon, m’lady,” called the burly, Irish-accented man seated behind a desk at the far end of the lobby before Eliza had taken two steps inside, “but p’raps you’re, well, lost?”

Eliza resisted the urge to shout her answer down the long, narrow anteroom, which smelled equally of smoke, cabbage, and a third element that Eliza didn’t want to put a name to. (Suffice to say that it reminded her of the errand she’d made Alex perform before he came to bed last night.) She lifted the skirts of her overcoat and gown a little higher and strode toward the attendant across the not-particularly clean flagstone. Perhaps she had agreed too readily to Alex’s request last night—that man and his kisses!

What was she doing here? Why had Alex sent her here? Was this even safe?

“Miss?” A tankard of dark liquid sat on the desk, which was strewn with what looked like a week’s worth of newspapers—there had to be at least twenty pages—and the remnants of what might have been a mutton sandwich, or perhaps mutton stew.

“Good afternoon,” Eliza said. “My name is Eliza Hamilton. I am here to see Mr. Ralph Earl.”

“Oh!” the attendant said. “I should have guessed from the dress. Pretty color,” he added, standing up. “What d’ye call it?”