“I fear I’ve another reason for requesting to speak with you in private,” he said, bitterness in every crisp word. “I have once more been denied promotion,” he said, bitterness in every crisp word. “Both General Greene and Lafayette had advised His Excellency to promote me to adjutant general, and yet again he has seen fit to refuse.”
“Oh, Alexander,” I said sadly. Promotion meant much to him, and he’d hoped that at last the general would agree to part with him from his staff. “I am sorry.”
His back still to me, he nodded, his only acknowledgment of my sympathy.
“But there are other paths than the army, my dear,” he continued. “At Lafayette’s urging, there will be a special envoy—and envoy extraordinaire it will be called—sent to Versailles in the new year, to assist with Mr. Franklin’s duties at the French court. It’s believed another voice is required to remind the French of their obligations toward us in regard to the war, and to urge them forward.”
I listened, bewildered. I’d always believed his future lay with the army exclusively so long as the war was fought, and the law after that. I’d never before heard him take an interest in diplomacy. He swept his arms through the air, warming to his topic.
“You know I’ve been much involved in the plan to raise a loan with the French,” he said, “a loan to cover our country’s expenditures from the war. I am also not without friends in this. Lafayette, Laurens, and General Sullivan have all been vocal for my confirmation.”
“Oh, yes, that would be an excellent opportunity for you,” I said faintly. My first thought was that an envoy at Versailles would be safely removed from the dangers of battle. My second, however, was how far that envoy would also be removed from me. Yet for Alexander’s sake, I would strive to be encouraging. “Who speaks the French language better than you?”
He smiled. “Would Paris agree with you, too, Betsey? How would you fare among the grand ladies of the French court?”
I gasped. It was Angelica, not I, who had always yearned to travel abroad and see more of the glittering world. Such adventures had never been dreams of mine.
“I would go with you anywhere, Alexander,” I said breathlessly, swept along in his enthusiasm. “But to envision me at Versailles!”
“You’d show them the courage and mettle of our American ladies.” He took me by the hand and from the chair, and led me through impromptu steps of a minuet there on my father’s turkey carpet, humming along for accompaniment until I laughed aloud. I supposed this was to show the manner of society we’d encounter at Versailles, but to me it was another example of how bland my life had been this summer without him to leaven it.
He sat again, and this time pulled me across his lap, a favorite place of mine to be. It was also a convenient posture for kissing, and being kissed, and as we indulged in that pleasure, his arm curled neatly around my waist, I was thankful my father couldn’t see what was occurring behind the door to his somber study.
“There is another post open as well,” he said after a bit. “If you’ve no use for the ladies of Versailles, then we could venture to St. Petersburg.”
“St. Petersburg?” I asked, even more shocked than before. “In Russia?”
He nodded, clearly delighting in how many times he could amaze me in a single conversation. It was, of course, easy enough. Beyond being on the other side of the world, I’d only the vaguest idea of where St. Petersburg lay in relation to Albany.
“Congress will shortly be appointing a minister to Russia,” he said. “The post requires a mastery of French, for that’s what they speak at their court. I’m told I’ve been nominated for that as well.”
“I should prefer Versailles,” I said. “At least I know France to be a Christian country, even if it’s Papist.”
“Oh, Russia is Christian, too, though not the variety with which you’re acquainted.” I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, but then his smile softened and his gaze filled with fondness, and being serious no longer mattered.
“I’ve said not a word of this to your father or anyone else, Eliza, besides those who have placed my nominations before Congress,” he said. “You are first in my life now, and I wished you to hear of this first, too.”
I nodded, pleased and touched by his confidence in me. “You can be sure that I will tell no one.”
“Especially not Angelica,” he said. “The last thing I want is for John Carter to go scuttling off to his French accounts with so much as a rumor of that loan.”
I nodded again, my eyes wide. I’d never before been asked to keep momentous international secrets. My own dreams for our future had always been so modest, while in comparison his seemed to be growing grander, and grander still. He was only twenty-five, and these honors to which he aspired would have been heady accomplishments for a gentleman twice his age. I remembered how Kitty Livingston had warned me of Alexander’s ambitions, and Angelica, too, and I could hear their voices in chorus cautioning me again.
Yet I’d always told myself that I’d wanted more than the stolid Dutch husband that had once seemed my lot. When I’d first been dazzled by Alexander, it was his intelligence, his talents, his passions, his daring, that had made me love him just as much as his kindness and devotion. If his ambition led him to Versailles or Saint Petersburg or to the very moon and back, then I would be by his side.
“To be sure,” he said, “neither possibility may come to anything, and instead I’ll be begging you to find contentment in some little cottage beside the Hudson.”
I smiled, for that was a possibility I could easily imagine. “So long as you are there, I’ll be happy.”
I looped my arms around his shoulders and kissed him again. In the distance I could hear Cornelia wailing, no doubt distraught that her nursery maid had come to take her to bed. It must be later than I’d realized.
“We should return to the others,” I whispered. “I don’t want Mamma to come looking for us.”
“There’s one more thing.” He took a deep breath. “You know that I’d discovered an address for my father, and that I’d written to invite him to our wedding. I’d even offered to arrange passage for him on a neutral French vessel so he’ll run no risk of being captured.”
I nodded eagerly. “When shall we expect him?”
“I’ve had no replies to my letters,” he said, his expression darkening. “I do not believe we should expect him at all.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. Alexander’s last memories of his father were so old now that I wondered if he’d even recognize the man should their paths cross again. But to have his father not bother to reply to his letters was a sad, disheartening event.
He shifted his shoulders as if they carried the entire burden of his father’s neglect.
“Even if he’d no interest in me, I thought at least he’d wish to meet you,” he said. “He has no other daughter, you know.”
“No, he doesn’t,” I said. “But soon you’ll have me as your wife.”
“Mind you, you’ll have me as your husband, too,” he said, and at last he smiled. “My own Betsey. What more could I ever want than marriage to you?”
*