Chapter Three
WHAT IS THIS hell of blunders, madness, and deception I find myself involved in?” Lafayette shouted, having herded us into a large tent he commandeered in the field next to the barracks.
The Frenchman removed his hat, revealing a prominent forehead, and drew my father and a hobbling Arnold toward the back, where they congregated around a table. Meanwhile I was left to warm myself near a small camp stove, quite anxious about the marquis’s demeanor.
Lafayette gesticulated wildly, shouting in French—a language I didn’t know well—and imperfect English. “It was promised me three thousand troops fit to separate Canada from Great Britain and make her our fourteenth state. Instead, I find disarray.”
This is not my father’s fault, I thought. And even if our soldiers had been in perfect order and well equipped, only a madman would think to assault Canada in winter. It had already been tried before and failed miserably.
Even I knew that, and I was no soldier.
I wasn’t impressed or overawed by Lafayette’s titles, or wealth, or ridiculously long list of names. He didn’t know our country, our winters, or our river. He was too young and inexperienced to know better, and I wanted desperately to say so.
“Please don’t be alarmed, Miss Schuyler,” a young officer whispered as he joined me near the stove, busying himself warming a pot of coffee. “General Lafayette—well—he can be . . . most passionate in his moods.”
The fellow attempting to soothe me was a tall, hulking soldier, with gray eyes and a dimple in his chin just like mine. He tilted his head in a quick bow beneath his frosty tricorn hat, then returned to the stove and courteously poured me a cup. “My apologies, miss,” he drawled. “It seems to be the dregs without sugar. In fact, I’m not even entirely sure it is coffee. But it’s all we have.”
I took the steaming tin cup warily as my father stood before a seething Lafayette and Arnold gingerly lowered himself into a camp chair, extending his injured leg. My drink was horribly bitter, but if it was good enough for our soldiers, I would just have to choke it down. “I appreciate it just the same, Major . . .”
“Monroe,” he whispered with the kind of shy, blushing smile that men usually gave my sisters, never me. “Major James Monroe.”
In spite of our situation, I found myself smiling a little, too. And under my breath, I said, “Have you served Lafayette long, Major Monroe?”
“Not precisely. I’m only here in my capacity as an aide to General Stirling, sent to deliver some confidential missives. It was a happy coincidence that he could send someone to accompany the French who knew the land, the language, and, well, Lafayette.”
“How did you come to know our lands?”
“I served in the Hudson Highlands last year.”
“And French?” I asked.
“My family is French Huguenot stock.”
I sipped at the coffee and tried not to make a face. “And Lafayette?”
“I was with him when he took a bullet at the Battle of the Brandywine.” Monroe smiled at a memory that should have made him frown. “He fell almost at my feet but somehow got up again to lead his men to safety. I stayed with him that night while the doctor tended him. So I know Lafayette is somewhat . . . irregular . . . but I think you’ll find that he’s brave and fair-minded.”
Eyeing Lafayette, who was still gesticulating wildly at my father to articulate some point, I was not much reassured by Monroe’s faith. A frigid wind gusted through the tent’s flap, and when the major saw me shiver—this time without exaggeration—he removed his own coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. It was a small gesture, one I should have absolutely refused, since he’d already ridden so far in the cold, but one so gallant that I was charmed.
It’s strange now, after all these years, to think how easily I was won over by James Monroe’s soft southern accent and courteous manner. Stranger still to realize that if I’d been told in that moment that one of the men in that tent would betray us, another would become my enemy, and a third would win my heart forever—I not only wouldn’t have believed it but would have guessed wrong as to which man on every score.
Thumping his fist on the table, Lafayette shouted, “This makes me wish I had never set foot in America or thought of an American war! All the continent knows where I am and what I am sent for. That I am to lead a great northern army. The world now has their eyes fixed on me. If I abort this campaign, men will have a right to laugh at me.”