To see the insecurity hidden behind Hamilton’s words hurt my heart, for he had all but obliterated every thought of any man before him. And so I rushed to tell him the plain truth. “I was going to say you remind me of my sister. And please trust me when I say that is one of the highest compliments I could offer. If Angelica were a man, she would—”
“You’ve no need to convince me of Mrs. Carter’s merits,” Hamilton said with a reassuring smile. “Charm and courage run in your family, from the paterfamilias to all his children. I am an admirer of your father, already, as you know.”
“As am I, for he is both a soldier and a statesman.”
“A statesman,” Hamilton said, and I could not tell if he took me seriously or not. “You think there is glory enough in that?”
“I do,” I replied.
I wish now that I’d said more.
I wish I’d said that he need not prove himself to me or to the world. I think I didn’t say it because I was young and foolish and quite out of my depth when it came to the demons that haunted the man I loved. But I sometimes fear that I didn’t say it because I didn’t believe it.
And that he knew.
After the door closed that night, and I went up to bed, Angelica asked, “How desperately do you want him?”
I’d not given voice to the depth of my feelings for Hamilton yet, not to anyone. But if anyone would understand, my sister would, and I wished most deeply for Angelica to approve. “I think I fathom now what you said that night.”
She wound her fingers with mine. “What night?”
“When you eloped,” I whispered. “Love is a thing beyond reason.”
“Oh, my sweet sister. Yes, it is.” She pulled me into a hug and peppered me with a million questions about all that had happened between us, finally concluding with, “He’s a hardworking man, Betsy. You know I’m fond of him. But he’s also an ambitious one. Could you be satisfied with a man who is always striving for more?”
I gave careful thought to her question, but I didn’t consider ambition a fault. After what Hamilton and I had discussed earlier in the evening, I took some solace in his ambition, for I believed that in pursuing it, he’d find the glory he so seemed to want without having to share Phaethon’s fate. And everything I knew of what Alexander Hamilton had overcome and achieved, I admired. So, whatever he accomplished next, I would be proud to stand at his side, should he ever wish it. Perhaps I was a fool for thinking he would.
“I’m not sure if I could be happy with him,” I admitted. But happiness seemed too flimsy a thing to reach for. I might have found happiness with a less complicated man—a polite and dutiful man like Tench Tilghman. Instead, I was drawn to Hamilton, who challenged me to be so much more than a fine-tempered girl. And the person he brought out in me—I wasn’t sure I could be happy again without.
*
Answer to the Inquiry Why I Sighed
Before no mortal ever knew
A love like mine so tender, true,
Completely wretched—you away,
And but half blessed e’en while you stay.
If present love, obstacles face
Deny you to my fond embrace
No joy unmixed my bosom warms
But when my angel’s in my arms.
—SONNET BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON FOR ELIZABETH SCHUYLER
Plink. Plink. Plink.
The sound of pebbles hitting glass scarcely cut through my dreamless nighttime reverie as I read a sonnet Alexander wrote me. It was all, everything, happening so fast. And I couldn’t quite believe it was happening to me.
My sister shook me, holding a candle aloft. “Betsy, your suitor is at the window.”
“But it’s the middle of the night,” I whispered, and though I ought to have been delighted to see him again, my breath caught with worry, remembering the expression on Alexander’s face just before he’d left my uncle’s house that evening, some dark cloud before his eyes. Surely it was nothing, for I had proof of his love in my hands.
Kitty groaned and covered her face with a pillow. “Oh, fasten a robe and go down to that prowling tomcat or he’ll never go away!”
I said, “But Aunt Gertrude will hear—”
“For pity’s sake, you’re hopeless,” Angelica said. “Have I let her discover you holding hands and kissing before? The baby and I will go down with you. If Aunt Gertrude hears us, I’ll tell her the little one was fussing.”
It sounded unforgivably duplicitous, but it was precisely the sort of mischief at which Angelica excelled. And because I could still feel the brush of Hamilton’s hands upon my skin, and because my lips were still sweet with his kisses, I was powerless to resist either of them.