Hamilton's Battalion

by Courtney Milan

  Then Andromeda had made a joke bordering on lewd about Hamilton’s other reportedly immense virtue. Mercy had expected her to be escorted out, but Mrs. Hamilton had simply let out a peal of scandalized laughter before reminiscing about Hamilton’s bawdy humor. That had led to a detailed recounting of their courtship for Andromeda; she’d even removed her prized sonnet—the first he’d ever written her—from the pouch she wore about her neck and read it aloud. Mercy had stared into the fireplace and run through the chores she would have to do later, not needing to hear the poem again.

  They’d only just started in on the actual interview.

  Mercy glanced at Mrs. Hamilton, who leaned forward in her seat, captivated by Andromeda’s storytelling. Mercy sat stiffly with the battered old portable desk on her lap, taking notes. She wrote salient points down, but in her mind, she was compiling her own dossier.

  Andromeda was a seamstress with her own shop in the Montgomerie ward, though she had grown up on a farm in Suffolk County. Her grandfather, Elijah Sutton, had fought alongside Hamilton, and it was his story she was relaying because he had taken ill and was unable to make the journey. Her hands fluttered about when she grew excited, which was often. She gave each character in her story a different voice, as if she were telling a bedtime tale, and her French accent was endearingly bad. Sometimes she jumped out of her seat to act things out, and she had reached over and touched Mrs. Hamilton’s arm multiple times as she talked. She was not one for social strictures.

  Watching her is excruciating.

  Mercy almost got up to open the window, just to soothe the restless itch this irksome woman induced in her. She usually sat silently in the background of these interviews, but she was too agitated this time, pouring tea, adjusting the drapes, tending to the fire. It didn’t help that each time she did her job, Andromeda stopped her deluge of words and pointedly thanked her. Each time, what should have been a common nicety felt like a caress. Mercy took pride in her work, in doing her job well, but she didn’t feel warmth unspool in her when Mrs. Hamilton commended her on the dusting.

  Andromeda glanced at Mercy as she spoke, a wide smile on her face, as if she was waiting for Mercy to join in on the laughter and conversation.

  Mercy looked down at her paper and jotted down a few more words. That’s all she was there for. She knew what had passed at Yorktown, had heard the story from dozens of different perspectives. She had no real need of note-taking, other than as an escape from that honeyed gaze.

  “Yes, of course my Hamilton did,” Mrs. Hamilton said, beaming. “He wanted to fight more than anything. To create a legacy.”

  “My grandfather always admired that,” Andromeda said, sipping her coffee. “He won his freedom from slavery by fighting in his master’s stead, and he respected that Hamilton fought on the frontlines when he could have passed the war protected. He said that Hamilton took risks that were mad, foolish perhaps, but he was driven by a love for his country so strong that he couldn’t do otherwise. Grandfather was the same, in a way. Escaped a British prison camp in Brooklyn with my mother and grandmother on horseback—across the East River!—just to get back to fighting.”

  “No!” Mrs. Hamilton exclaimed, delighted.

  “Yes!” Andromeda said, excited as if it was the first time she’d heard the story too. “And after getting them settled, he headed straight for General Washington. As Grandfather tells it, he was initially refused an audience, until he encountered Colonel Hamilton. Grandfather explained that after Washington withdrew from Brooklyn, he had escaped a British prison camp, swam the river with a horse, and tracked Washington down. He said he believed in what America could be, and that he was going to fight for that bright possibility whether he was granted permission to do so or not.”

  Mrs. Hamilton laughed. “Oh, Alexander would have loved that. I can just picture his face.” She stroked the sachet attached to her necklace.

  Andromeda nodded. “I suppose he did, as Grandfather found himself in your Hamilton’s battalion.”

  Mercy glanced up sharply. Your Hamilton. People didn’t usually pick up on that so quickly or refer to him the same way Mrs. Hamilton did once they had. It made some guests uncomfortable, the bald possessiveness of the words. The covetousness. But Andromeda said it easily, as if it were a given.

  Mrs. Hamilton looked through her folio. “I especially wanted to talk to your grandfather because several members of the battalion have related a story about him. They said Elijah Sutton was strong as a bull, and that at Yorktown he nearly launched Hamilton over the parapet and into the British lines like a cannonball!”

  “Ah yes. Grandfather doesn’t tell the story quite that way but he’s exceedingly modest. He might have launched his commander to the moon but would have said he simply helped him get a bird’s eye view of the battlefield.”

  Mercy watched as Mrs. Hamilton burst into giggles and Andromeda joined her. Was this her same mistress? Who worried over orphans and bills and her own children? Who was constantly in motion, only sitting still to remember him—often with tears standing in her eyes? Was she laughing with this forward visitor like a carefree girl? The only person who ever had this effect on her was her sister, Mrs. Church.

  Perhaps Andromeda really was otherworldly.

  Sarah, the brown-haired maid, scuttled into the room. “Mrs. Hamilton? Sorry to disturb you, but it’s Miss Angelica…”

  The laughter faded, and Mrs. Hamilton raised her brows. “Yes, Sarah, what is it?”

  “She keeps asking after Philip, insisting that he was to take her out this morning. She’s working herself up into a fit because he hasn’t shown.”

  There was a rustle, and a shadow fell over the teapot and scones as Andromeda stood. “I must be going, so no need to worry about inconveniencing me,” she said brightly.

  “Oh, but you weren’t finished!” Mrs. Hamilton’s dark eyes sparked and her mouth pulled in tight. “Will you be able to come back?”

  There was a hunger in her tone. It seemed she could never hear enough about her husband; she was doomed to be perpetually famished.

  “Probably not anytime soon. I have my businesses to run. I made a detour while returning from visiting my family upstate, as I was supposed to escort Grandfather. But I will write.”

  “Yes, that will do, I suppose…” Mrs. Hamilton heaved a deep sigh, then her head slowly turned toward Mercy. “Aren’t you due to go into town on your next day off?”

  “Yes,” Mercy said, her heart plummeting. She didn’t go into town frequently, and since she didn’t have much else to do, often worked on her day off. But that didn’t mean she wanted to be given work. Especially when she had an idea of what that work would be.

  “Well, you can meet Miss Stiel and transcribe her story, can’t you? I’d give you an extra day’s pay.”

  No.

  But of course she couldn’t say no. Even people who weren’t servants couldn’t say no to this woman. The fact that she was still in her comfortable home despite being widowed with seven children and crushing debt was a testament to that.

  Mercy gave a sharp nod and looked over at Andromeda, who was regarding her with a curious expression.

  “If she doesn’t mind,” Mercy said. She almost raised a hand to touch her chin where Andromeda had earlier, but stopped herself. “Perhaps she’s too busy to meet and would prefer to write the letter.”

  “I can make the time,” Andromeda replied. “If Mrs. Hamilton prefers I speak with you, I find that I prefer that arrangement as well.”

  Mercy tried not to let the warmth in Andromeda’s tone wrap around her. She held on to her annoyance as stubbornly as King George had held on to the colonies; admitting that Andromeda affected her so deeply with so few words would certainly lead to madness.

  “Excellent,” Mrs. Hamilton said.

  “I will be in town two days from now,” Mercy said stiffly.

  “My shop is in Montgomerie ward,” Andromeda said. “Are you familiar with the area near Gold Street?”
/>
  Mercy nodded. She was all too familiar with the neighborhood. The memories of her past haunted those streets: her parents’ laughter echoing over the cobblestones, Jane’s lips brushing over Mercy’s in the dark alley as they headed back from their work.

  She gave a tight nod.

  Andromeda’s gaze ran over Mercy’s body, lingering on her chest and hips. Mercy squirmed under the perusal. Was it…could Andromeda also feel… Mercy was confused, but then Andromeda spoke. “Perhaps I can take in your dress for you while you’re in town, spruce it up a bit.”

  Heat rushed to Mercy’s cheeks as she realized she’d misunderstood. She wasn’t vain—she was quite aware she had no reason to be—but the insult stung.

  “My dress is quite fine as it is,” Mercy said, voice cool. “Not everyone desires to be so ostentatious.”

  “Pity, that,” Andromeda said with a wink, then took her leave.

  “She was delightful, wasn’t she?” Mrs. Hamilton asked as she got up to attend to Angelica.

  “She’s quite forward,” Mercy said, pursing her lips. “And talks far too much, and too quickly.”

  “Just delightful.”

  Chapter Three

  Andromeda could tell from the stiffness of the knock at the shop door that it was Mercy and not a customer. She could just imagine her standing there in her dour coat and hat, knocking like the undertaker come to collect a corpse—mostly because she had already seen Mercy approach the shop, raise her hand to knock, then turn on her heels and flee, twice in the previous two hours.

  Mrs. Hamilton’s maid was pulled tight as the seams on a dress two sizes too small for its owner, and she didn’t seem particularly amenable to being let out. Andromeda didn’t know why, but from the moment she’d clapped eyes on Mercy, she’d wanted to take her shears to those taut seams, to snip them one by one until the woman could breathe again. She wouldn’t mind seeing Mercy breathless, too, but under much more pleasant circumstances.

  Andromeda had always been game for a challenge; she’d been the bane of her parents’ and grandparents’ existence on their family farm, her ceaseless curiosity and energy getting her into constant scrapes. But now she had too much on her plate between managing the shop and pursuing her other business ventures to deal with an uptight wench like Mercy.

  Uptight but in no way unresponsive…

  Andromeda thought of the way Mercy had gasped and gone wide-eyed when she’d caught her by the chin. Andromeda shouldn’t have done it—it was uncouth, grabbing at a servant like a lascivious houseguest—but it had been pure instinct. Mercy was like a lovely, classic dress pattern tucked into a drawer, or a fine set of shears gone to rust. Andromeda was impulsive, but not wasteful, and something in the way the woman had looked at her screamed loneliness, which was the ultimate waste.

  And the way Mercy had responded to that brief touch…she hadn’t pulled away, or been frightened or disgusted. Instead her eyes had blazed with a heat that her frosty tone could never ice over. Her lips had parted invitingly, and a shiver had gone through her. Mercy had liked Andromeda’s touch; more worrying was the fact Andromeda had liked that Mercy had liked it.

  You have neither time for nor interest in dreary housemaids…which is why you’re wearing your best day dress and spent far too long oiling and plaiting your hair.

  “Should you get that?” Tara asked. The girl was standing still as Andromeda poked pins into her dress, but leaned forward to peek at the front of the shop through the door of the fitting room. “Ouch!”

  “Be still, now!” Andromeda said through lips pressed around several straight pins. She folded another bit of fabric down, pinned, then pulled the pins from where she clamped down on them and dropped them onto the floor.

  There was another series of agitated knocks at the door.

  “Change out of that and leave it on the chair there, and you can take Mrs. Kelley’s dress for mending to put toward the cost of your own,” Andromeda instructed, then walked into the storefront and pulled the curtain shut behind her. She ran her hand over her dress, giving a final tug at the sleeves and pull of the collar. She didn’t need a reflective surface to know the dress fit like a glove and highlighted her assets; her shop was popular for a reason.

  When she unlatched the door, Mercy stood there, brown eyes wide beneath her fine brows, lush mouth pulled into a frown. Her skin was a light brown with undertones of orange and yellow; she’d be stunning in something warm and eye-catching instead of the drab dress of a scullery maid. Andromeda imagined dressing her in the finest fabrics, draping swaths of it over that curvaceous body first to see how the colors suited her…

  A blush rose to Mercy’s cheeks and Andromeda realized she was staring, and not at all innocently.

  “Hello. Pleasure to see you, Miss Mercy.”

  “Hello,” Mercy said. Her voice trembled a bit, and she made a small hum of agitation that Andromeda found to be adorable. “My apologies for not coming earlier, but I was held up by some important matters.”

  Andromeda considered teasing Mercy about running away instead of knocking earlier, but the woman was already tensed and ready to bolt. Instead, Andromeda moved aside and allowed her to enter.

  Mercy squeezed by, pressing herself against the doorframe while lifting her head high, as if that was a completely normal way to enter an establishment. She avoided even the slightest brush of her coat against Andromeda’s dress, and exhaled once she was inside the shop, as though she’d bypassed a gauntlet.

  A delicious, dangerous feeling swam up to Andromeda’s head. It was the victory of having her suspicion affirmed mixed with the heady possibilities that lay before her.

  Nothing lies before you but completing this interview and sending this woman on her way.

  Mercy was attracted to her; Andromeda reminded herself that she needn’t do anything with this knowledge. It wasn’t a novelty, after all, nor was the fact that she was also attracted to Mercy. Still…Andromeda was intrigued.

  “I’m just wrapping something up and then we can be off,” she said, shutting the door and heading behind the shop’s counter.

  “Off?” Mercy’s question was faint, and Andromeda noticed she was looking about the shop with a kind of wonder. That pleased Andromeda. She’d gone to great lengths to change her little shop from the hovel it had been when she’d received the deed: sanding, burnishing, and staining the floors and beams and counters; hanging eye-catching fabrics and building lovely display cases; making sure the space was inviting and well stocked. Mercy was staring at a little wooden bird hung from a rafter with red ribbon that swayed to and fro. There was actual pleasure on her face.

  “Do you like what you see?” Andromeda asked, and Mercy glanced at her sharply. Her expression went guarded and closed off again.

  “It could use a bit of tidying,” she said. Her gaze went to the shelves of fabric, and now that Andromeda paid attention, they were stacked a bit haphazardly. Her receipts were scattered behind the register. Scraps of papers covered with sketches of dresses littered the shelves. While creation and presentation were her strong suits, tidiness was not. She’d grown up on a horse farm, and had learned that ideas of cleanliness were rather relative. The floor wasn’t covered with horse muck and flies weren’t swarming the shop, which was all many people could ask for.

  “You would notice that, wouldn’t you?” Andromeda asked, not hiding her amusement.

  “It’s my job,” Mercy replied.

  “It’s your parry, more like,” Andromeda said, casually nudging a pile of papers with her thumb. She was amused by Mercy, but she was prideful. She also enjoyed seeing Mercy’s brows rise and the flush come to her cheeks as she watched the papers scatter and drift slowly to the floor. Mercy was quite lovely when she was piqued.

  “Oh dear,” Andromeda said, then stepped around the mess. “To answer your question, we’re off to Lady Bess’s, across the street. We can talk there.”

  Mercy’s gaze shifted to Andromeda; her mouth was pursed in that disagr
eeable manner that made Andromeda want to kiss some softness into her. “I agreed to come to this establishment to conduct Mrs. Hamilton’s business. I didn’t agree to go to a tavern of ill repute.”

  Andromeda rubbed at her hands; her joints ached from doubling her workload the day before in order to leave time for the interview with Mercy. She wasn’t fastidious when it came to cleaning, but she was a woman who cared about her business and didn’t leave it to chance. “Well, I require sustenance,” Andromeda said. “Feel free to stay here and hold down the shop until I return.”

  Tara came out from the back in her fraying muslin, carrying the dresses she’d take home to mend. She looked back and forth between the two women and handed Andromeda a few coins to pay toward her dress’s completion, then headed out.

  Andromeda handed the coins to Mercy, who still stood resolutely in the shop. “Put those in the till, will you? And perhaps you can give the place a sweep and get started hemming Tara’s dress. I bet your basting stitch is exacting.”

  Andromeda pulled on her coat, giving Mercy directions on things that needed doing in a whirlwind of words all the while. She didn’t let up for a moment, the words rushing out of her as they did when she was unsettled—which was quite something considering how quickly they already flowed when she was not. She had stepped through the door onto the square of clean ground in front of her shop when Mercy rushed out behind her.

  “Feeling peckish after all?” Andromeda asked. “Really, perhaps you should eat more. Your dress is about a size too large and three years out of fashion. If you want, after we finish the interview, or after you sweep the shop, whichever you decide to do because really I don’t understand why you would pass up a chance for delicious—”

  “Enough! Miss Stiel. You are—”

  Andromeda turned to see Mercy standing with her eyes shut tightly and her hands gripping her satchel, as if she were contemplating using it as a cudgel. Andromeda had wound the poor woman a bit too tightly, it seemed.