“Infuriating?” Andromeda asked, gentling her tone. “Overconfident? Irksome?”
She reached out and brushed her fingertips down Mercy’s arm. It didn’t matter that there were layers of fabric between her glove and Mercy’s skin; she needed to touch her. Again.
A tremble went through the agitated woman, then she opened her eyes and fixed Andromeda with a frustrated glare. “Yes. Yes. And yes.”
She really was lovely; Andromeda would have to find another way to bring the color to her cheeks and this brightness to her eyes.
“Anything else?” Andromeda asked.
Mercy’s gaze swept over Andromeda’s face and down her body and back up again, and Andromeda was shocked to feel her own face flush. There was something in that glance that she recognized: desire. Brief but blatant and not at all fitting with Mercy’s prudish demeanor.
Heat and a heady sense of anticipation slipped over Andromeda’s body like the finest silk. She wanted to see that look again, to fall into it and explore the delightful paths it might lead to.
Mercy opened her mouth, then shut it, shook her head. “Quite a character,” she added to the list. She dropped the coins into Andromeda’s hand and stood to the side as Andromeda locked the door to the shop.
“My words get away from me sometimes,” Andromeda said. “My mother often said she could gentle the wildest horse but never stood a chance with me.”
There was a spark of curiosity in Mercy’s eyes, but the woman wouldn’t be drawn into casual conversation so easily.
“I’m just not used to such a…lively personality,” Mercy said, falling into step beside Andromeda.
Andromeda could tell she wasn’t trying to insult her this time, so she didn’t push back.
Lady Bess’s Tavern was packed with the working class of the neighborhood: men, mostly, of all races, American-born and foreigner both. Carpenters, coopers, cordwainers, and more were all crammed around rough wooden tables, talking loudly as they broke bread and raised their glasses of ale.
Andromeda strode through the crowd, tipping her hat and clapping men on the back as her skirts brushed their tables. Most of the men were regulars, and she inquired about children, shops, horses, and whatever applicable bit of information she possessed about them. She responded effusively to good news and gave condolences on the bad.
She saw Mr. Porter having a pint and waved at him. He grudgingly lifted his glass in her direction. She could have hoped for a better response from the man she was staking her future business plans on, but it was a start.
When she finally made it to her usual table, she’d worked up a thirst and an appetite.
She directed Mercy, who had gone round-eyed and stiff again, into a chair, then caught Bess’s eye across the room and held up two fingers before sprawling into her own seat.
“This crowd is rather boisterous,” Mercy said, drawing herself up straighter. “And rough-looking.”
Andromeda laughed. “How long have you been tucked away uptown that you consider this rough-looking? We’ll come back around midnight and I’ll show you rough.”
Mercy blushed and Andromeda grinned, because she hadn’t even been trying that time.
“I’m no stranger to this area,” Mercy said. “My family lived in one of the cellar apartments over on Gold.” Her face had gone tight and proper again, all the softness of her flush gone.
Andromeda knew how terrible those cellars were: overcrowded, moldering from the damp, and often ravaged by outbreaks of disease. They were usually let out to Negroes while the houses above were rented by whites. Though she loved the city, she’d grown up in the open air of the country, surrounded by horses and trees and blue sky. She couldn’t imagine how restrictive such a childhood had been. Perhaps that explained Mercy’s demeanor.
“After my parents died of yellow fever, I was sent to an orphanage,” Mercy continued. “So I know more than a bit about how rough things can get in this neighborhood, thank you.”
Or perhaps that explained it.
Andromeda felt a sudden strong tenderness for Mercy as she thought of her own family and tried to imagine what her life would have been like without them. What did loss do to a person? She was lucky enough not to know. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Mercy replied bluntly. “It was better for my parents to pass together; they would have been desperately unhappy without one another. And I did fine for myself.”
Her feigned indifference said otherwise.
Andromeda felt that tenderness again. She wanted to take Mercy’s hand, to give her comfort. She restrained herself. “That you did. I’m sure your parents would be proud of you.”
“For being a housemaid? Perhaps.”
“Is there something else you’d prefer to be?” Andromeda asked. She thought it a simple question, but Mercy closed up like a clam pulled from the mud along the Hudson.
“You didn’t say how long you’ve been with the Hamiltons,” Andromeda prodded, trying another tack. Mercy let out a breath of relief, seemingly pleased to no longer have to talk about her family or aspirations.
“I’ve been there, oh, ten years now.”
“Ten years?” Andromeda raised her brows. “You hardly ever hear of someone sticking with a family for that long these days, and especially at a home so removed from everything. Most girls I know stay for a year or two and then move on. I get to hear customers complain as much, too. They simply can’t imagine why these headstrong girls don’t want to stay and empty their chamber pots.”
Mercy lifted a shoulder. “It’s quiet there. Being away from the city isn’t such a bad thing.”
Mercy’s expression pinched at that last bit, pricking Andromeda’s curiosity even more. Mercy was like an intricate puzzle with clockwork parts; Andromeda kept thinking she had her figured out, then a piece would shift and she’d be right back where she started.
“I thought it would be temporary when I took the job. It doesn’t feel like ten years have gone by. I started around the time Mrs. Hamilton returned to The Grange after…certain personal matters had been resolved,” Mercy said. She opened her bag and took out her pot of ink and quill and folio, placing each item down reluctantly, as if she hated to subject them to such a lowly resting place.
Andromeda rolled her eyes. “After Mrs. Hamilton cleared a path through that heap of debt she was left with after Hamilton’s death, you mean?” A server placed two mugs of ale on the table and Andromeda took one up, taking two swift gulps of the bitter brew.
“A good servant doesn’t discuss the private matters of their employer,” Mercy said. She lifted her mug, sniffed, and placed it back down, and Andromeda felt another little chip at the flint of her annoyance and her intrigue.
So much for easier topics. Why was this woman so persnickety? And why did Andromeda so enjoy baiting her?
“Private?” Andromeda laughed. “Hamilton’s business was all over Front Street, quite literally. In the form of a pamphlet. There’s still a copy behind the bar, if you’d like to see it.”
“Speaking of the dearly departed Hamilton, why don’t we get this interview over with?” Mercy dipped her quill into the inkpot and then looked up, and Andromeda saw the same change in demeanor that she’d adopted that day in Eliza Hamilton’s parlor.
“Parapet, cannonball, strong grandfather…” Mercy offered up when Andromeda didn’t answer. “You know, the story I came here to collect.”
Andromeda glanced at the way Mercy gripped her quill, the way she suddenly seemed a bit more in control of things. “Would I be wrong to venture that annotating Colonel Hamilton’s life isn’t the only thing you use that for?”
Mercy didn’t answer, just stared across the table at Andromeda.
Andromeda had once found a tomcat in the family stable while mucking. She’d knelt down and held out her hand, waiting. The cat had hissed, glared at her, yowled in warning. Eventually, it had decided she was safe to approach, and its deep purr had vibrated through her
hand as it rubbed itself against her, desperate for affection. Mercy seemed ready to hiss if Andromeda continued her line of questioning, but Mercy had also leaned into Andromeda’s touch during that first meeting, before she’d remembered herself.
“It’s just…” Andromeda tempered her words; Mercy was already prepared to bolt into the figurative underbrush. “When I take hold of a threaded needle, or work my shears through a fresh piece of fabric, it’s not just work to me. There’s something in me that, I guess you could say it sings, when I have a needle in my hand. I thought I saw a bit of that in you.”
“You were mistaken,” Mercy said in her clipped tone. “The majority of my writing is about Colonel Hamilton in preparation for his biography. As if he didn’t churn out enough words about himself in his lifetime.” She took a sip of her ale. “Mrs. Hamilton is continuing his grand tradition and I’m simply doing as she says, a pawn in a love story that should have been buried with the man instead of memorialized.”
Andromeda had heard Mercy frosty and prim and judgmental, but there was anger in her words now. She thought of the way Mercy’s brows had drawn behind Mrs. Hamilton’s back every time the widow went on a tear about her departed husband, of Mercy’s lips pressed tightly together in judgment. One wouldn’t notice unless they had been paying attention to Mercy’s every move, but then, Andromeda hadn’t been able to do otherwise.
The serving woman appeared and placed two large plates of mutton and carrots before them, nearly nudging the small inkpot off of the table. Mercy scowled and grabbed it, corking it and placing it in her bag along with the paper and quill.
“I can’t work like this,” she said, gesturing toward the large plate.
Andromeda took up her utensils. “Then it seems you’ll have to eat.”
Mercy sighed dramatically, but didn’t fight Andromeda for once. She began to eat, and wasn’t able to hide her surprise at how good the food was. She seemed content to eat in silence, but the lack of conversation made Andromeda feel itchy.
“Does it really bother you?” Andromeda asked. “Your mistress’s lingering affection for her husband? I think it’s quite romantic.”
Mercy had taken up a bit of mutton, but paused with the fork en route to her mouth. The telltale brows drew together. “Who says I’m bothered?”
“You, actually. You’re not very good at hiding your opinions.” This elicited a dainty snort from her companion. “During my interview, I caught sight of a lovely vein at your temple that showed itself every time she said ‘my Hamilton.’ Ah, there it is!’
Mercy lowered her fork.
“He wasn’t hers though,” Mercy said. The words had some force behind them, despite her supposed lack of botheredness. “Anyone who’s read the pamphlet you spoke of is keenly aware of that. Anyone who’s skimmed his letters with John Laurens could guess at that, too. He hurt and humiliated her while he lived, and she’s still giving every bit of herself to him all these years after his death.”
Andromeda wondered if Mercy realized she was cutting her mutton into smaller and smaller pieces as she spoke.
“Come now, Mercy. She loved him. And was loved by him.”
“He had a fine way of showing it,” Mercy said, finally getting a bit of the food onto her fork. “After all that, after she forgave him for humiliating her, for dashing their family’s hopes, for Philip, he went and got himself killed! He left for his duel without even giving her the truth of his destination or a chance to stop his foolish plan. In the end, his pride was worth more to him than her undying affection. And yet she persists.”
When Mercy looked up, her eyes were bright, and she chewed just a bit ferociously.
Mercy spoke of love as if it was muck she had to clean out of fine lace. Intriguing. Andromeda had loved before, and she didn’t doubt its power. She had her grandparents and her parents as models of conjugal bliss and the work that went into it.
“Are you bothered by the fact that he hurt her or that she has forgiven him for it?” Andromeda asked. She shouldn’t have cared either way, but it seemed her curiosity grew with each inadvertent revelation instead of diminishing.
“I’m bothered that people use love as an excuse to spend their lives pining away or devoted to some sainted memory. Love is impractical and unrealistic, and indulging it to such a degree is unsavory.”
There was that lovely pique again. Mercy’s nostrils flared and her fist was tight around her fork, but her eyes…her eyes flashed with challenge, like a lighthouse beckoning to a ship that must cross stormy seas to reach it.
An idea began to form in Andromeda’s mind, like the outline of a pattern she just had to create. A scandalous, ill-advised pattern that should never see the light of day. Her favorite kind, if she were being honest.
“You’re telling me that you don’t believe in love?” Andromeda asked.
Mercy pursed her lips. “Look around this room. How many people do you think have found everlasting love?”
She jerked her chin toward a man pulling a bawdy woman into his lap.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Andromeda retorted. “I’m asking if you, Mercy, believe in love.”
Just say yes.
“Of course not,” Mercy said and stabbed a carrot on her plate. “It isn’t worth the bother.”
Oh hell.
The pattern in Andromeda’s head took on a form that she couldn’t resist—oddly enough, it was precisely Mercy’s measure. Andromeda would have consigned it to the mental trash heap where she placed ideas that weren’t meant to be, but she had the nagging feeling that it just might be her most beautiful creation ever.
She smiled at Mercy. Lord above, but Andromeda did love a challenge.
Chapter Four
Mercy tried not to show her relief as she gathered her belongings and placed them carefully into her bag. She thought she’d handled the situation well. She’d held herself at a distance, had batted off most of Andromeda’s personal inquiries.
She’d kept her face impassive when Andromeda tried to charm her, and had mustered outright annoyance when Andromeda deployed her conspiratorial grin, as if asking Mercy to join in on the fun. Annoyance was safer than giving in to the desire to lean in closer to the intriguing woman across from her. To stop fighting against the curiosity—against the undeniable attraction.
No. There will be none of that. There couldn’t be. What she’d had with Jane, and the girls before Jane, had broken her heart. It had broken her. She didn’t remember ever feeling as drawn to them as she was to Andromeda, either. This new desire was too dangerous. Much too dangerous.
She placed the ink into her bag and closed it resolutely. She ignored the tension in her neck and shoulders, the slight twitch beneath her eye. There was nothing to worry over any longer. She would go back to The Grange. There was no cause to ever see the vexing Andromeda again. She should have been elated and yet…perhaps just one more question.
She’d read a few accounts of love from the members of the battalion, and what they had done to gain it. Those interviews had intrigued and irritated her. Elijah Sutton’s behavior was the most confounding of all.
“Your grandfather,” Mercy pulled on her glove. Perhaps the ale had gone to her head. Yes, that was it. “He really stayed behind in a British prison camp after freeing his men? On the off chance he could convince your grandmother to leave with him?”
“Well, of course. He loved her,” Andromeda said, as if that explained everything.
“He barely knew her,” Mercy replied.
“I wasn’t aware that there was a limit on how quickly a person might fall in love,” Andromeda said. “Or on what they’d do to preserve it once they had.”
Mercy felt that acutely. She’d once believed that the bonds of love were the strongest material in the known world. When she’d been young and foolish, of course.
“My parents loved each other like that.” Mercy stared down at her glove and flexed her fingers. “‘Love at first sight,’ my father used t
o say. When my mother fell ill, he wouldn’t leave her side. And when he caught the sickness too, they still sought each other out even in their deepest fever dreams.”
Mercy remembered checking on them that last time, how the heavy silence had warned her but had not prepared her for their lifeless eyes and the way they held each other. For the realization that their love was so great that they had chosen to leave their only child alone rather than live without one another.
She’d hated her parents for leaving her, but had also wanted what they’d shared so badly. She’d gone from girl to girl, always devastated when things inevitably fell apart. She’d thought she’d found it with Jane—had finally, finally found it. She hadn’t, but she’d learned why neither of her parents had wanted to be left behind. Love was a terrible thing, and powerful—and having tasted that power once, Mercy was certain she wouldn’t survive its loss a second time.
Andromeda’s hand came into Mercy’s line of vision, then rested atop her own, stroking the back of it through the thin material of her glove. “Who took care of you, Mercy?”
God, that touch. Mercy could have cried from the loveliness of it. It was soothing and insinuating and sent both peacefulness and panic racing through her body. She pulled her hand away and looked about the pub, sure everyone would be staring at them after the intimate caress.
“What will people say?” Mercy’s voice shook and her heart felt as if it would beat out of her chest. She should have just left without asking any questions. Without revealing anything of herself. Asking about Elijah Sutton had been impulsive, and she’d paid for it, as usual.
Andromeda shrugged, the picture of calm indifference. “Old Bill over there would say thankee for the wedding dress I made for his daughter for a quarter of my usual price. Hamish would tell me how his shop that I helped repair after the fire a few months back is coming along. Bess would tell me not to piddle about with a Miss with a branch up her arse, and to try a real woman like herself.”
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