He flinched, but I could draw no satisfaction from it.
Because I knew that accusing him of cowardice blew to bits whatever remained of our friendship, though clearly there was nothing to salvage. Monroe was a Virginian before he was an American. Maybe he was even a Jacobin before he was a Virginian. And I believed that like the rest of Jefferson’s detestable faction, if it ever came to a guillotine blade above my neck, Monroe would let it fall.
What else could I think now?
Which made him an enemy.
My husband’s enemy. My enemy. An enemy of the country that once called him a hero. And realizing it, I could no longer bear the sight of him or his dimpled chin.
Refusing assistance, I wordlessly snatched my bonnet and pushed myself up to go. I was halfway to the door when he said, “Betsy, please. Stop.”
I did not stop. I did not even look back. “I am Mrs. Hamilton. I leave you to your conscience, sir . . . if you can find it.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The public has long known you as an eminent and able statesman. They will be highly gratified in seeing you exhibited in the novel character of a lover.
—JAMES CALLENDER IN AN OPEN LETTER TO HAMILTON
July 1797
New York City
ANGER HAD SOMEHOW given me a vim and vigor no pregnant woman in her ninth month ought to feel.
“Church,” I said with a nod as I came upon him sitting at his breakfast table when I arrived to collect my children.
My brother-in-law pinched the bridge of his nose, as if staving off a hangover from a late-night card game. He jolted at the sight of me, and though he was never a man for endearments, he cried with cheer that rang falsely in my ears, “Eliza, my dear! I hope you’re feeling well.”
I gave what I’m sure was a brittle smile. “I’m feeling as well as can be expected.”
“Good, good,” Church said, his gaze falling almost involuntarily to where, amidst polished silver trays, a bowl of sugar, and discarded floral teacups, a newspaper lay open. “You mustn’t let the opposition distress you. Not in your condition.”
I suppose he meant well.
After all, men could work themselves up into killing rages, but women must never be distressed. But if he thought our political parties were merely in opposition, trading places like the Tories and the Whigs in England, he was blind. “The men opposed to my husband are nothing but a knot of scoundrels. Their words make not the slightest impression upon me.” I snatched up the paper and pressed it into his hand. “And this is fit for nothing but use in the privy.”
Church barked with laughter as I went in search of my sister, bracing myself against her pity, or some inevitable story about licentious Englishmen or permissive French marriages that she might offer to comfort me.
Like her husband, Angelica was not an early riser. She was still in some elegant state of undress—a white gossamer chemise, a dark braid of hair over one shoulder—when I found her in the carefully sculpted English garden snipping roses so viciously that leaves dropped like rain.
“Were you never going to confide in me about Hamilton’s harlot?” she asked.
I’d braced myself against her pity. I had not anticipated wounded feelings. I suppose I should have. Not only because Angelica tended to put herself at the center of things, but also because I had wronged her, after a fashion. “I didn’t dare confide it in a letter,” I said, and that was true. For letters could be intercepted.
I’d been desperate for my sister’s comfort four years ago, but by the time she’d returned, I hadn’t any desire whatsoever to reopen the wound. And yet, there was another guilty truth. My sister had bared her soul to me about her troubled marriage, but I hadn’t wanted to reveal myself. She’d trusted me with her vulnerability, but I’d kept mine hidden. Perhaps I’d taken some satisfaction in thinking that though my sister was wealthier, more formally educated, and more beautiful by far, my marriage was happier. I’d finally bested her in something. I hated to think this about myself, but I couldn’t entirely deny it. Still, in the end, I’d chosen loyalty to my husband over loyalty to my sister. And that she would simply have to understand.
Perhaps she did, because Angelica put her hand atop mine. “My poor, sweet Eliza. All husbands stray.” A little dazed, I nodded as she uttered the words I’d imagined her saying all those years ago. “I know how tender your heart is, and how easily wounded you are, but—”
“I don’t believe I am easily wounded.” That was a different sister she remembered. I’d changed, and I wanted her to know it. So I told her the rest.