“No, you are not,” she agreed, her voice as even now as it had been at the beginning of our conversation. “For if you were a child and not a young woman of marriageable age, then none of this would be a consideration. Good night, Eliza, and sleep well.”
I’d no choice but to retire to my bed in despair, convinced my aunt’s heavy-handed plan had ruined my future. The next day we made more calls together, visiting other officers’ wives who had come to the encampment to be with their husbands, and I presented the letters of introduction from my father to several of his army acquaintances, including the Prussian General von Steuben. We passed many officers and soldiers, but not the one I most longed to see. Was it mere coincidence, I wondered anxiously, or was Aunt Gertrude’s grim prediction already coming true? Although neither she nor I mentioned the colonel again, he loomed over the day like a silent presence, always in my thoughts if not in my conversation.
Yet to my amazement (and relief), he called at the Campfield house again that evening, and the evening after that as well, proving my fears unfounded. He endured every one of my aunt’s trials with good humor and grace, and certainly more than I did. Each night we were permitted to exchange a few more sentences, a few more smiles, a few more glances that seemed to express so much more than words alone. As much as I chafed under my aunt’s restrictions, Alexander’s persistence pleased me, and I felt honored by it.
Perhaps he truly did consider me the prize that everyone claimed I was. Perhaps he was as ready as I for marriage, and lasting love. With the innocence of my situation, it all seemed very easy, and very romantic, too. He was charming, and for the first time in my life, I was eager to be charmed.
*
“I do believe it’s going to snow again.” My aunt glowered upward at the heavy gray clouds gathering overhead, as if a doleful look would be enough to change the weather. “Haven’t we had enough for one winter?”
“We’ll be back at Dr. Campfield’s house before it amounts to anything,” I said, likewise looking upward. Cold as it was, I didn’t mind. I’d spent too much time this winter trapped drowsing beside the fire, and I relished this opportunity to be out of doors, to walk briskly across the small town and breathe deep of the clear, cold air.
Although my uncle was the surgeon, not my aunt, she still would consult him for a friend with aching joints, or a neighbor’s child with a rheumy eye, and if the remedy to the affliction were a simple one, she’d carry it herself. Colonel Eckford’s wife had been plagued by a persistent cough, and earlier this afternoon my aunt had brought her a soothing tisane to ease her discomfort. While the two of them had talked, I’d amused the three Eckford children, singing nonsense songs and dandling the littlest on my knee.
“Snow or not, aunt, you must admit that the days are growing longer,” I said. “Little by little, and soon enough it will be spring.”
But my aunt only sniffed loudly, daubing at her nose with the handkerchief she’d pulled from inside her muff.
“Spring, indeed,” she scoffed, pausing before the window of a small shop. “You are ever the optimist, Eliza, aren’t you? I wonder if this shopkeeper has any dark thread left in his stock. Your uncle promised he’d try to send for some from New York as soon as he could, but in the meantime the buttons keep popping willy-nilly from his waistcoat.”
“Miss Elizabeth!”
I knew that voice, and I knew its owner. Swiftly I turned just as Alexander came striding across the street toward me, dodging a horse-drawn sledge in his haste.
Could there be a more welcome surprise? I’d grown so accustomed to seeing him by the firelight that he dazzled me here, even on this gray day. His dark blue cloak billowed around his shoulders in the breeze, and the same breeze made the white silk cockade on his black hat flutter like an out-of-season butterfly. Because his face was ruddy with the cold, his eyes were even more blue by contrast, and his smile—ah, his smile would have melted every last flake of snow in Morristown.
“Miss Elizabeth, good day,” he said formally, bowing to me and touching his hat just below the cockade, then making the same salute to my aunt. “Mrs. Cochran, madam. How fortuitous that I find you here! I was just on my way to Dr. Campfield’s house with this.”
He pulled a letter from inside his waistcoat and handed it to me. I didn’t open it, but held it in my gloved fingers: a single sheet, folded and sealed with dark green wax. Part of me wished to prolong the delight of receiving a letter from him (letters from gentlemen, especially from gentlemen like him, being a rarity for me), while another part of me feared the worst, and dreaded reading whatever ill news the letter might contain. I smiled still, but I could feel the uncertainty in the curve of my lips.
“I regret that because of my duties, I won’t be able to attend you this evening,” he said. “His Excellency is giving a dinner for several visiting dignitaries, and my attendance is required. I didn’t wish you to worry when I didn’t come.”
To my surprise, his smile was tinged with uncertainty, too, though I couldn’t fathom what should make him so.
“I wouldn’t have worried,” I said quickly. I meant to put him at his ease, but as soon as I’d spoken, I realized how flippant my words sounded, as if I wouldn’t have worried because I wouldn’t have cared—and that was very far from the truth.
I glanced downward, both from embarrassment and to compose my thoughts.
“That is, if you did not come, I would have guessed His Excellency had made some urgent demand upon your services,” I said. “I would have understood, for your service to him is far more important, but I would also have been disappointed not to see you.”
His smile widened, and the hint of uncertainty fell away from his face. “Would you?”
“I would,” I said, declaring it soundly as my smile grew, too. “But none of that matters, Colonel Hamilton, because you are here now.”
Beside me, forgotten, Aunt Gertrude cleared her throat loudly to remind us of her presence.
“Good day, Colonel,” she said. “I was going into this shop in pursuit of thread, which I know holds little interest to my niece. Would you be so kind as to escort her back to Dr. Campfield’s house?”
I caught my breath, astonished that she’d grant us this freedom after how we’d been watched so closely.
“Go, niece,” she said. “Don’t squander the colonel’s time.”
“I shall take the greatest care in the world with her, Mrs. Cochran,” Alexander said gallantly—perhaps a shade too gallantly, for my aunt looked up toward the heavens, beseeching, and sighed with resignation.
“To the house and no farther, Eliza,” she said as she opened the shop’s door. “I shall follow after you shortly.”
When the door closed after her, I grinned at Alexander, feeling a mixture of giddy freedom and solemn responsibility.
He must have felt it, too.