“I don’t want you to fall,” he said gravely. He crooked his arm and offered it to me. “The streets and paths can be treacherous with the snow, and I promised your aunt I’d look after you.”
“I’m not so delicate as that, you know,” I said, but I took his arm anyway, settling my fingers familiarly into the woolen sleeve of his uniform coat. “Consider all the ice along the hem of my cloak. I have been traipsing all over Morristown with my aunt this afternoon without any harm done.”
“Brave and stalwart women,” he said with approval. “What entertainment did you find for yourselves in humble Morristown?”
We fell into step easily, and I didn’t mind how the narrow path cleared through the snow made us keep close together, the side of my skirts brushing against his boots. We walked slowly, not wanting to reach our destination too soon. The packed snow crunched beneath our feet, and my quilted petticoats, the hems as crusted with ice as my cloak, swung heavily around my ankles.
“We called upon Colonel Eckford’s wife,” I said, “and brought her a remedy for her sore throat. While she and my aunt talked, I amused her children. Not so grand a service compared to what you do each day, I know, but Mrs. Eckford welcomed it.”
“I’m sure the children did as well,” he said.
“They’d welcome any new face,” I said. “They were quite wild from being shut inside so much with the cold weather. I pitied Mrs. Eckford.”
“I would, too,” he said, pretending to be stern. “Did you marshal the little rogues into line?”
“Oh, no,” I said, smiling. “I like children too well to act the termagant with them. Besides, they reminded me of my own brothers and sisters, and what a tumbling, raucous lot my family can be.”
He raised his brows with mock outrage. “General Schuyler permits that in his house?”
“I don’t believe he’d wish it any other way,” I said, thinking fondly of my family. “I know I wouldn’t.”
He nodded, as if this made perfect sense. “I hope one day to have the privilege of meeting them all. If they’re anything like you, then it shall be the rarest of treats.”
Another compliment, but an easy one to make me smile.
“You’ve already met Peggy, when you came to our house two years ago,” I said, “and I’m sure the rest would all turn out for the chance to meet the famous Colonel Hamilton.”
“I’m not so famous,” he said, more seriously than I’d expected.
“You would be famous to them,” I said. “Especially to my brothers. You’ll meet them one day, and be able to judge for yourself. I cannot imagine my life without my brothers and sisters.”
“I envy you that,” he said. “I have—or had—only a single brother, and when our mother died, we were separated and sent along different paths, and he became lost to me.”
“Now I’ve made you sad,” I said softly, pressing my fingers into his sleeve in sympathy. There was so much of his history that I didn’t know, and each time he did reveal another bit of his past, it seemed so steeped in tragedy and loss that I wondered how he could bear it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to raise up old memories for you.”
He covered my hand with his own, and I felt the sudden intimacy of it even through our gloves.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said gently. “You only spoke the truth, as did I. Never be sorry for that, Betsey, or for the kindness that is so much a part of your nature.”
Suddenly shy, I smiled and glanced down, but he took no notice, or pretended not to. He also kept his hand over mine.
“Do you intend to read my letter?” he asked, almost teasing. “Or did I labor over those words for nothing?”
I’d tucked the unopened letter into my muff, which was now slipped over my free arm. I’d have to take my other hand away from his to pull the letter free, and I didn’t want to do that.
“Do those words reveal anything that I must immediately know?” I said, striving to sound as playful as he did. We had nearly reached the Campfield house, and I didn’t wish this time alone with him to end. “Are they of such great and eternal importance?”
“No,” he admitted. “The letter is as mild and dull as new milk, and only explains my absence this evening. But I assure you, it was still a challenge to write. I didn’t know if your aunt would insist on reading it first, so there is nothing in the contents that could possibly disturb her.”
“I was surprised that she didn’t take it from me,” I said. “That must mean you’ve won her trust.”
Abruptly he stopped walking and turned to face me, linking his fingers into mine so that our hands were now clasped. He wasn’t teasing any longer.
“Your aunt’s trust is secondary to me, Betsey,” he said. “What matters far more is whether or not I’ve won yours.”
I gazed upward, searching his face before I answered. Light snow, lazy and scattered, had begun to fall around us, and the air was so cold that when the snowflakes landed on his dark cloak and hat, they didn’t melt, but held their shapes like tiny, glittering jewels.
When I stood here with my hand in his, I longed to say yes without hesitation. He had thus far been a perfect suitor, devoted, charming, and gentlemanly. Why shouldn’t I trust him the way he desired? Why couldn’t I take that first step—or was it a leap?—toward love? Surely that was what my sister Angelica would have done, and had done when she’d eloped with Mr. Carter.
But I wasn’t Angelica. I remembered my aunt’s tales of Alexander’s bachelor ways, and of his taste for unsavory company....
“You’ve doubts,” he said when I didn’t answer, concern in his voice and his expression. Yet he didn’t release my hand, nor did I pull away.
“You said before that I should never regret speaking the truth,” I said slowly. “Do you believe that in regard to yourself as well?”
“Wisdom and truth, combined with beauty!” he exclaimed. “You are a rarity among women, Eliza.”
“I’m likely a sorry sort of beauty,” I said, “standing here in the snow with a nose red from the cold.”
“I admire your nose, which is quite adorably red, and I prefer it along with the rest of you over a score of powdered, painted court beauties,” he said, raising his voice loudly there in the street, and not caring one whit who heard. “I prefer your kindness and your conversation and your laughter. I especially like the way you tip your chin to look at me, the way you are doing at this very moment, as if you’re weighing and considering each word I say for merit.”
“Oh, that’s not true,” I protested. “That’s not what I am doing.”