29

Tortoise and Hare

Continental Army Headquarters

Morristown, New Jersey

April 1780

The meeting with General von Knyphausen had been a wash. Alex was unsure whether the acting commander even bothered to come to Amboy, but when it was conveyed to the British contingent that Colonel Hamilton would be negotiating in General Washington’s stead, a terse note arrived from the British warship docked so boldly offshore: General von Knyphausen would not meet with anyone other than General Washington. To parlay with an underling was beneath him. It was, Alex reflected, the same language General Washington had used when he refused to meet with General von Knyphausen.

These aristocrats! Alex thought with some annoyance. Their infatuation with rank and face make their own lives ridiculously difficult! And even worse, they don’t recognize how it inconveniences the lives of the rest of us.

Although in the case of thousands of prisoners of war, inconvenience seemed like a deeply inadequate term. While generals and colonels jockeyed about whose sleeves were decorated with the most epaulets and tassels and stripes—as if rank were measured in gold thread!—their privates and ensigns and corporals huddled in rags in prison cells and work camps.

All in all, not a great day for diplomacy.

But what made everything worse was that now he had no excuse to stay away from Morristown, which meant that he would be in town when Eliza married that Livingston bounder—not in the actual church, perhaps, but it was right across the square—and he would hear the bells ringing and see the throngs of well-wishers cheering on the new bride and groom from his windows. He tried to delay the journey back to headquarters, but Lieutenant Larpent was in such high spirits about making the night’s entertainments that he wouldn’t be held back, and Alex, though miserable, was not so mean-spirited that he could spoil his assistant’s fun just because he himself was not going to partake.

It rained the whole way, adding insult to injury. The roads were a soup of mud, and even though their mounts were as eager to be out of the chilly drizzle as their riders, they refused to move beyond a canter, lest their hooves slip out from under them in the mire. The journey to Amboy had taken but three and a half hours. The slog back to Morristown took more than six. By the time the men arrived, they were sodden and iced to the bone. Alex charged the grooms at the stables with brushing out their weary mounts until they were thoroughly dry and serving them a double ration of oats, and then he and Lieutenant Larpent hurried as fast as their chilled bones would carry them to the Ford mansion. Despite the exhaustion of the journey, Larpent was still excited for the party, but all Alex could think about was grabbing a few bites to eat and crawling beneath the covers.

Alas, when Alex and Larpent entered the Ford mansion, they found it deserted and frigid, the fires gone cold in their grates. The larders had been stripped bare of comestibles and beverages. Even the bottle of cognac Lafayette had given him before he went off had been pilfered from its hiding place beneath a loose floorboard in his bedroom.

When Alex was absolutely certain that there was not one thing to eat or drink in the house, nor even a single coal to start up a fire, he turned to Lieutenant Larpent with a rueful smile on his face.

“Permission to speak freely, Lieutenant.”

Larpent looked at him with confusion. Alex was his superior officer. He need ask for nothing from him.

“Uh, permission granted . . . sir?”

“God damn his soul to hell!” Alex said, and collapsed atop his bed.

“Oh, sir!” Larpent cried out. “Buck up, sir, it’s not so bad. Here, look, just let me get some tinder and I’ll have a fire going in no time.” He raced from the room and down the stairs, returning shortly with a tinder and twigs.

Alex hardly noticed him. He had shucked off his wet coat and rolled himself in his blanket like a caterpillar wrapping itself in silk, his head buried beneath his pillow. With one half-open eye he watched as Larpent knelt before the grate, expertly arranging wood shavings and splinter into a neat cone, and then striking the flint against steel in steady streams of sparks.

The men had lit a lamp when they came in, yet Larpent seemed content to start the fire from scratch, and on just his fifth spark a little glow appeared in front of him. He blew on it gently. The glow grew and sprouted a little tongue of flame. Larpent fed splinters of wood to it, with the delicacy of a farmer feeding an abandoned weanling, then twigs, then small branches. Within minutes a small fire was crackling in the grate, and a pile of larger logs suggested that the blaze would grow to a conflagration quickly.

“I must say, Lieutenant, you light a fire with admirable alacrity.”

“We didn’t have servants to light fires for us when I was a boy on the farm, sir. As the younger, I was charged with lighting the stove in the mornings while my father and older brother tended to the cows.”

“No mother to attend to the task?”

“Alas, sir, my mother died giving birth to me. My father never found a suitable replacement.”

Alex could feel the fire warming the tip of his nose, which was all that poked from the covers. He pushed the pillow back, feeling the warmth on his cheeks, his forehead.

“I, too, lost my mother when I was very young, though I was blessed to have her in my life for its first decade.”

Larpent nodded. “I sometimes think that’s worse. Having a mother, then losing her. My older brother and father miss her to this day, whereas I only wonder what she would have been like. Excuse me, sir,” he said then, and walked quickly from the room. He was back a moment later with a pair of towels.

“If we don’t get out of these wet clothes and dried off, we’ll catch our death of cold.”

Alex knew he was right, but part of him didn’t care. He had failed at today’s mission, had failed at securing a command, had failed at winning the hand of the girl he loved. When he came here as a fourteen-year-old, he had been told by everyone he met that he was going to be a great man. But all he had managed to become was the secretary of a great man.

Larpent went to look for dry clothes and came back several minutes later dressed in a mismatched and somewhat ill-fitting uniform.

“Cadged from Weston’s, Tilghman’s, and McHenry’s tack, I’m afraid,” Lieutenant Larpent explained. “Not even General Washington himself could command me back into my own uniform. Now, let me see if I can find us some provisions,” he said and left the room.

Alex changed out of his wet garments and into the dry ones. He was a miserable human being still, but at least one who didn’t feel like a drowned rat.

Larpent returned with a frown. “Not much here but salt beef and crackers,” he reported.

Alex didn’t respond. A moment later, Lieutenant Larpent cleared his throat.

“I say, sir, why don’t you come along to the party? There’ll be food there and wine and good cheer, and you look as though you could use all three.”

Alex couldn’t help but laugh. “Go to my rival’s pre-wedding celebration. Yes, that does sound like a fine time.”

“You won’t have to see him, Colonel. The party’s in the barn by Gareth’s Field. It’s a huge building. You can keep as far from him as you like.”

Alex just laughed again. But then something came to him.

“Wait. You said the barn by Gareth’s Field. The stone barn?”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Larpent answered.

“But that’s the barn being used as the C Infirmary, is it not?”

“Yes, sir. It’s my understanding Colonel Livingston had the wards moved to Miss Jane Dawdry’s establishment for the evening.”

“To . . . a . . . brothel?!” Alex roared. “Are you joking with me, Lieutenant?”

“Ah, no? Sir? Colonel Livingston said that even the sick and injured need to have some fun.”

“This is outrageous!” Alex said, jumping up and dropping his blanket and rushing to his wardrobe. I’ll have him court-martialed! I’ll have him flogged! I—” He stopped in front of the open doors. “I’ll call him out.”

“Sir?” The shocked word dropped Lieutenant Larpent’s lips like a dribble of chaw.

“I’ll call him out!” Alex hurriedly pulled on his pistol. “I’ll challenge him to a duel. Don’t you see, if he’s dead he can’t marry Eliza!”

“Sir, please,” Lieutenant Larpent said. “Calm down! I don’t know that a breach of protocol, if that is indeed what you are calling him out for, necessitates a duel, sir. Isn’t it simply something for a military tribunal?”

“Then I’ll make him call me out,” Alex declared. “I’ll go to his own party and insult his honor and integrity in front of his own guests. He’ll have no choice but to challenge me to a duel. You know these milquetoast aristocrats! They cannot bear to lose face in front of their peers, but even less so in front of their inferiors.”

“Sir, please,” Lieutenant Larpent pleaded as Alex stuffed his feet into his boots. “I don’t think this is a good idea. It will look like—”

Alex turned sharply on the lieutenant. “Like what, Lieutenant?” he demanded.

Larpent’s chin trembled as he answered. “Like you are manufacturing a reason to duel him. Like—” Larpent bit back a gulp. “Like murder.”

“It’s not murder if he calls me out,” Alex said, striding from the room. “It’s proof of how unsuitable a mate he is for any gentlewoman. Arrogant, quick-tempered, foolish . . .”

“Forgive me, sir.” Larpent panted as he hurried along after Alex. “But do you not see how all those words could describe you in this moment, sir? She chose him, sir. For whatever reason, she accepted his proposal, and not yours.”

Under ordinary circumstances Alex would have wheeled on the man and dressed him down until he was a quivering ball of jelly. But Larpent was right; Eliza had accepted Livingston’s proposal, while he, Alex, had never even proposed. It suddenly dawned on him. That was it! He had never told her what he felt about her. He had never formally presented his suit, never courted her properly.

He had let her sister cut him to the quick, and Angelica was right. He was penniless. Without a name or family. Who was he to think he could be worthy of such a girl as Eliza Schuyler? An American princess.

But the thought of that bright, wonderful girl marrying that slug filled him with an intoxicating brew of anger and hope that he picked up his pace, grabbing his damp hat from the tree in the hall and dashing out the front door.

Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he could still do something about it. Call the man out, duel him for her honor.

It was his last chance to save Eliza. To save himself.

BUT THE DAY wasn’t done with him yet. After a brisk, rain-soaked trot of some twenty minutes, Alex and Larpent reached the stone barn, his assistant pleading with him all the while to see reason. Alex burst through the doors into a throng of men in various states of disarray and undress. The cavernous space blazed with heat from Colonel Livingston’s appropriated stoves, and a spicy fog of alcohol and sweat laced the air. The revelers were clustered in three distinct throngs.

Alex scanned the leering faces, looking for Colonel Livingston’s, but saw no trace of him. He made his way to the second group of men, then the third, but though he saw two scantily clad lasses dancing for tips and kisses, he found no trace of Henry Livingston.

Suddenly Corporal Weston’s face appeared before his. His cheeks were rosy with heat and his speech was addled by alcohol. “Colonel Hatilmon!” he exclaimed. “I mean, Curling Hallinom! You ma’e it to the par’y!”

He grabbed Alex by the shoulders and would have bestowed a slobbery kiss on him if Alex hadn’t pushed him back.

“Corporal Weston!” he demanded. “Have you seen Colonel Livingston!”

“Corna Who?”

“Livingston!” Alex shouted, trying to make himself heard through the noise of the fog and Corporal Weston’s drunken stupor.

“Corna Livy-ston?” Corporal Weston laughed. “Never met him!” He held up his glass. “But I’ll drink a toas’ to him. Here’s to Corna Livy-ston, whoever he is!” He swilled a gulp of some frothy lager.

“But this is his party!” Alex persisted.

“Livyston’s party? Oh, right-right-right!” Weston said, nodding his head enthusiastically.

“Where is he, then?”

“Not a clue. He’s gone. Definitely gone!”

“Gone! But isn’t he to be married to Miss Schuyler tomorrow?” Alex demanded, his frustration rising.

“Miss Schuy’er!” Corporal Weston, his eyes lighting. “She’s a beauty, in’t she!” And then, unbidden: “She eloped!”

“What?” Alex gasped. “It was Miss Angelica Schuyler who eloped. I refer to Miss Elizabeth Schuyler.”

“Don’t tell me no,” Corporal Weston said with great outrage. “I know Miss Angelabeth, Miss Elizica, Miss”—he took a deep breath to steady himself—“Miss Elizabeth Schuy’er, and I know she eloped. Gone since yes’erday mor’ing.”

Alex could only stare at the corporal in shock.

“Miss Elizabeth Schuyler,” he said at last. “Eliza. She—she’s already married? You are certain?”

Corporal Weston nodded cheerfully, as if he were delivering the most felicitous news in the world.

“Miss Schuy’er,” he said dreamily, even as his eyes flitted to one of the dancing girls, who had wrapped her shawl around the waist of a shirtless soldier and was using it to pull him behind her toward a ladder that led to the hayloft. “Wouldn’t’ve minded a trip to the haylof’ with the general’s daughter myself.”

Alex’s jaw dropped open, but his fist was faster. A moment later, Corporal Weston was sprawled unconscious on the stained planks of the barn floor, a drunken smile still plastered across his rapidly swelling lips.

Alex stared down at the man in surprise. He had not thought that punching a man in the face would make him feel better, but in fact it had.

Pivoting on his heel, he stalked out of the barn into the rain.