“Alexander.” I shifted toward him, my blood heating with the feel of his breath on my nape. Fleetingly, I worried about the possibility of conceiving another babe when I already had an orphaned Fanny and four of our own little ruffians underfoot, all so close in age. And yet the erotic edge in his voice, and the scent of brandy on his breath, made it impossible to resist.
“Careful,” he said, plucking another sharp pin. “Except for that first rapturous instance upon our nuptials, I would not wish our trysts to be bloodsport . . .” He dragged the point of the pin harmlessly over my bodice. I felt quite at the mercy of his sweet assault in a way that made me feel more lover than wife. One pin led to another, and before long the whole gown was in pieces at my feet and my husband’s touch drove away all my worries.
Afterward, Hamilton held me in his arms in the quiet dark of our bed. “The president wishes to appoint me secretary of the treasury.”
So, there it was. Finally.
I swallowed as competing reactions fought to be voiced. I was proud, of course, but also worried about how we could manage as his duties became more demanding. As it was, he was so often gone, leaving me almost always alone to bear the heavy burden of our domestic responsibilities—not just the children but also our occasionally insufficient means.
But even more, and perhaps ridiculously, I nursed a little ache that he was only now telling me something others already knew. Going back to our little shack at De Peyster’s Point, he’d always brought me into his work. I’d helped him in the writing and publishing of The Federalist. So I suppose I’d taken the liberty of thinking that we were partners in the enterprise of his career.
“That’s a great honor, husband,” I managed. “Am . . . am I the last to know?”
Alexander blew out a breath and pulled my back to his chest. “I didn’t wish to concern you with it until the details were confirmed, and now they are.”
So it was decided, then. It was a decision that would determine my future, and the happiness of my family, but I wasn’t consulted as a partner would be. I was told. And it made me feel childish and naive and small, not like the prime minister’s wife, which I was to be, after all.
“I should like to have known you were considering it,” I murmured, knowing Robert Livingston also wanted that job, and if it went to my husband it would create an even deeper rift between our families.
“You know why,” Alexander said, frustration causing his voice to rise. “I brought this government into being and I’m now obligated to put the machine into some regular motion.”
It didn’t escape my notice that he hadn’t actually responded to what I’d said, and that turned my hurt to resentment. “May I ask the salary?”
“I predict about thirty-five hundred dollars.” It was so far below our already stretched income that I feared to take a breath. Perhaps sensing my panic, he said, “It is a financial sacrifice, I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do know.” I’d kept the burden of that knowledge from him, well aware of how he resented dependency. So while he went about accepting payments from clients in barrels of ham and sending money to his ungrateful and dubious relations in the West Indies, I’d made certain that he didn’t know about the loans from Papa or the extra shipments of food from Mama. Dinner came to his table on plates given to me by my sisters, and he never asked how it got there. Alexander didn’t know how I patched clothes for one child to pass down to another, how I stretched our stores of root vegetables from season to season, or how I traded homemade preserves and table mats in exchange for wine to serve important guests.
He turned me to face him, and his eyes were an ocean storm. “Before we married, madam, I asked you countless times if you could be happy—”
“As a poor man’s wife, yes. And have I or the children once complained? That is not my concern, Alexander,” I said, my heart aching that he would question my loyalty.
“Then what is?” But he didn’t allow me to answer before sitting up and charging on. “I’ve shed blood, Elizabeth!” Though he burned hot, he wasn’t often a man to shout, but the moment I mentioned the little ones, something seemed to have snapped in him, as if he felt I’d impugned his honor as a father. “I’ve killed men in the cause of this country. And how shall I answer my children—or God for that matter—if it should all be for nothing?”
God? That he—who had only reluctantly consented to baptize our children at Trinity Church—should fling salvation at me!