Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(87)
Burr threw back his head and laughed. “Touché,” he said, and nodding at Caroline, who had turned to stare at the two men with a bewildered expression, he took himself out of the room.
Alex helped Caroline out of the court, down the stairs, and into the cozy confines of Burr’s carriage. The teeming, rowdy crowd Burr had summoned had dispersed now that the show was over, and Alex was thankful none of the rougher types had stuck around to rub salt in Caroline’s wounds.
The vibrations of the carriage over Wall Street’s rough cobblestones seemed to pain Caroline’s head, and she took the journey in silence, with her eyes pressed tightly closed and one hand across her forehead. At her inn, she stirred herself enough to walk through the first-floor ale room unaided, but the effort was almost too much for her, and Alex had to help her up the stairs. He installed her in a chair and tucked a blanket over her lap, then turned to the fire and built it up into a blaze. As he added one last log, he heard her voice behind him.
“Oh, but wood is so dear.”
He put the log on anyway. “It’s okay, Caroline. You’ve earned it.”
A faint laugh burbled from her. “I suppose I have.” She sighed. “I am embarrassed that I am reacting this way. It seems so, so weak of me.”
“There is nothing to be embarrassed about,” Alex said. “You have been dragging a heavy burden for so long that its weight seems a part of you. It is gone now, but it is only natural for it to take a while for you to feel normal again.”
“I do not know that I shall ever feel normal again. This trial—the vitriol! I wonder how a country so divided can stand?”
“We will only stand if we learn to accept and even embrace each other’s differences rather than allow them to divide us. It is a childish fantasy to expect everyone to agree all the time, but how much better to live in a country where one is free to think differently from one’s neighbors, and even one’s government, without risking life and limb.”
She looked at him dubiously. “You sound as if you are still in court.”
He placed his hand on hers. “Just think of me. I fought on the opposite side of the war as your husband. I lost men, friends”—an image of Laurens filled his head, and he pushed it away—“to British bullets. But I still fought for you, because I believe the idea of America is bigger than sides. If I can come to that conclusion, other people can, too. Other people have come to that conclusion.”
She nodded her head and closed her eyes. Soon her breathing evened out, and he assumed she was sleeping. He stayed with her for another half hour, though, his conscience was racked by thoughts of Eliza playing hostess all by herself, but still unsure if Caroline could be safely left on her own. At length, there came a knock at the door. Sally, the barmaid, entered, with a stein in her hand.
“I saw you and Mrs. Childress come in and thought you might like some ale,” she said, peering anxiously at her mistress.
Alex stood up. “Thank you, Sally, but I really must be going. Mrs. Hamilton is having a party for her sister tonight, and I am already hours late. I hope she will still let me in the house, honestly.”
Sally nodded, though her eyes never left Caroline. “Is she all right?”
“I’m afraid the trial was a bit hard on her nerves, but she will be fine after some rest. Perhaps some bone broth would do her well.”
“Of course. Mr. Hamilton,” Sally said as Alex turned for the door. “How did . . . I mean, did she . . . ?” The barmaid couldn’t finish her question.
“It’s not my place to divulge that information. I will let Mrs. Childress explain everything to you when she awakens.”
“But I mean, we’re okay, aren’t we? Mrs. Childress won’t be turned out, will she?”
Alex glanced back at the sleeping figure. In sleep, her cares had melted from her face, and though her skin seemed all the more pale in its black silk frame, she still looked more like a child than a mother, let alone a widow.
“Not according to the verdict in any event,” he said with a smile, then took his leave.
* * *
HE RACED THE last few steps to his house, chastising himself for sending Burr’s carriage home earlier. He should have ordered the man to wait. He wanted to glance at his watch to see what time it was, but it was too dark to see. That in itself was a terrible sign. It had been half nine when he left Caroline’s.
As he ran past his neighbors’ house, he happened to glance over at their darkened windows. There was just enough light for him to catch his reflection. Although, really, there wasn’t much to see, because he was shrouded in black. Only the glowing white wig made any real impression.
He was still wearing his lawyer’s robes! He couldn’t enter the house like that. Eliza would have a fit.
He glanced at his own windows next door. They were blazing with light and shadows danced about on the ceiling, but the lower shutters had been drawn, so he couldn’t see how crowded or empty the room was. There could be fifty people in there, or just five. Everyone could have gone home.
He ran past the steps to his doors then, and ducked around behind them. On the far side, a short, narrow door under the porch led into a dank corridor, and thence into the kitchen.
“Oh!” A startled Rowena looked up from a pot she was stirring in the fireplace. “Mr. Hamilton! I thought it was death himself come to take me!”