Chapter Text
He’s exactly the same during the day as he is at night. Mind and body, never relenting, always wanting to chase, be chased, give, take, consume her. Be consumed. At night, it’s the endless drive of their bodies, during the day he’s usually...
He’s pacing again.
Angelica rolls her eyes at the familiar habit. "You're going to wear out that part of the rug."
He grunts. Keeps walking.
Setting down the letter she’s writing to Peggy, she hops up and begins to pace alongside her husband.
“Active feet, active mind, eh Alex?” She bumps his shoulder with hers and he scoffs, but doesn't stop his perambulations, fingers tapping against his thigh in a familiar gesture.
They walk back and forth in front of the window of the family parlor a few more times. Back and forth, back and forth, Alex radiating nervous heat that she wants to lean into. He may want to avoid her, this afternoon, but being ignored is not on her agenda. Her place is beside him, matching him step for step; it has been since their first meeting at the ball, when they’d walked and danced laps around the room, verbally fencing, matching wits, delighting in each other.
Family obligations? — suddenly of shrinking importance.
No social position? No prospects? — we'll make them.
She’d arrived at the ball by herself that night, and left knowing she’d never walk through life alone again. And she hasn’t. It hasn’t been easy, but they’re a team.
Angelica reaches down to twine her fingers with his still tapping ones. He gives her a brief squeeze, then disengages, throwing himself into one of the wing chairs that flank the fireplace.
Usually, they’re a team.
“What am I going to say, Jel? It’s been so long.”
“He was your best friend, Alex. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.” She settles herself carefully on the arm of his chair, skirts billowing into his lap. “You’ve never really talked about—” your family “—the island at all. What was it like being a child there?”
His mouth twists. “I was never a child. I sprung, fully formed, from the head of Zeus.”
“Funny, you don’t seem nearly womanly enough for that.”
He gives her hip a shove and she gets off the chair, wandering around the room, straightening a picture on the mantle, toeing the curling edge of the Aubusson carpet down with her slipper, then pivoting sharply on her heel to face her brooding husband.
“You sure you don’t want to invite him to the party tonight?”
“Edward’s not interested in politics.”
“So he’s coming to speak to New York’s newest delegate to the Constitutional Convention in order to…?”
He doesn’t fill in the blank, not that she’d really expected him to at this point. Stubborn ass.
A clatter of carriage wheels on the street outside announces an arrival. A tall, slender man, clad fashionably in wine-red velvet, hops down to the paving stones and makes his way to their front door.
“He’s here.”
Edward Stevens, her husband’s childhood best friend. The one and only part of his island life he has ever mentioned to her. For reasons she’s not very clear on, his father had taken Alex in at some point after his mother died, gotten him the job at the trading charter and helped set up the account that funded his education in New York.
Two months ago, Alex had received a letter from this cherished boyhood companion and immediately burnt it. In response to her questions—concerned at first, then eventually exasperated—he’d say only that Edward was coming to New York and would stop by for a visit.
Stubborn. Ass.
Last night, in bed, he’d attacked her body ferociously, playing hot fingers over her, sinking in, down, deep, but evaded the questions she’d lobbed. She is still no closer to understanding the source of his obvious unease. It's a frustratingly unfamiliar sensation for Angelica; she usually understands him very well.
But now she'll get to the bottom of this; nothing stays hidden from her for long and Edward Stevens, mysterious childhood friend, is currently politely wiping his boots before entering her parlor. He's of medium build, an inch or two taller than Alex and with the same luxuriant dark hair. He doesn’t seem to share any of Alex’s trepidation at the meeting, wrapping her stiff husband in a big hug before turning smoothly to face her.
She smiles and holds her hand out to him. “Mr. Stevens—“
“Edward, please, ma’am.”
“Angelica.”
He tilts his head at her teasingly and she is struck by the familiarity of the gesture. In an instant it all snaps together: The burnt letter. The old friend. Alex’s uncharacteristic silence.
Oh Alex.
Stevens smiles at her pleasantly. “The power behind the Colonel, as your husband’s letters would have it.” He turns to Alexander, “Or is it the power behind the delegate, now? I heard the news on the packet over from New Jersey. Congratulations, man.”
Alex stands stock still and does not answer. A powder keg, about to explode. This is not going to end well. She spares a brief, wild thought of gladness that the kids are upstate with her father—away from the busy political season and the unhealthy air of the city in the summer.
Angelica sidles closer to her husband, answering for him. “Thanks.”
“My father would have been so proud to hear it.”
When Alex doesn’t answer, again, she keeps the conversation moving gamely forward, mind frantically calculating a way to get Stevens out, solve this for Alex, keep it from ever, ever hitting the papers. “We were so sorry to hear that he died. I know he meant a lot to Alex.”
Edward laughs sadly. “Yeah. Alex meant a lot to him too.”
Alex shakes his head mutely.
“He left you a bequest in his will, Alex.”
When her husband finally speaks, his voice is low and furious. “Yeah. You said in your letter. Your father was always kind to me.”
Edward gathers in a breath and Angelica tenses in horrified anticipation. “It was more than that, before he died, he tol—”
“Stop right the fuck there, Ed. I wrote you not to come here. Not with this.”
“Look man, I know—”
“You don’t know. I mean it. I don’t want to hear this.”
“Is that right?” Edward surges to his feet—another familiar gesture. Oh shit. “Too bad. We’ve been dancing around this for years. Decades. Brother.”
Boom goes the powder keg. The volume escalates. Angelica clamps down on an instinctive urge to intervene. Maybe it's better to let them get this out? Alexander may be beyond reason, anyway. “I am NOT your brother! James Hamilton was my father. He may have been a shitty one, but he was mine, dammit.”
“Alex, we look exactly alike.”
“Coincidence. My mother wouldn’t lie to me that way.”
“We have the same damn eyes.”
“I have my mother’s eyes you fucker and don’t you forget it!” Her husband is breathing like a bellows and the commotion has attracted the attention of the servants. Angelica catches the white flicker of the edge of Martha’s apron as she whips past the crack of the parlor door. If this gets out, it could be ruinous.
Okay, yeah, no more letting them fight this out.
“Hold up now!” Angelica claps her hands together, loudly, drawing the startled attention of both men. “That’s enough. Control yourselves.” She lets the cut glass edges of her political smile slice across her face. “Mr. Stevens. It was a pleasure to meet you. I know that you and Mr. Hamilton have a lot to talk about, but we have an engagement this evening. Perhaps this conversation can be continued another time? We'll be in touch.”
In the lull that follows, Alex seems to come back to himself a bit. He glances at the slightly agape parlor door and gives a little nod, the flush receding slightly from his neck.
Edward picks up his hat from the couch and makes a frosty bow in her direction, stalking angrily toward the door. Alexander follows him, trailing after him in a way that seems almost like muscle memory.
“Edward, you know—how could—” He shakes his head but doesn't manage to work the words free.
“He wanted you to know. You deserve to know.”
XXXX
Stevens leaves, the door shuddering hard from the almost slam he gives it. In the foyer, Alexander turns in three times in a small bewildered circle—a mutt looking for a safe place to rest that may not exist anymore.
After a quick cut of his eyes toward hers, he makes for the parlor.
Angelica steps into his path. “Did your mother really—?”
“No, Angelica. No.”
He stops attempting to dodge around her, but he’s vibrating with the need to leave. To be somewhere else. “I mean, you’ve never said anything about her, even when I asked.” She stares at him, frustrated. She knows every corner and fold of his mind. Sometimes their thoughts are so close she feels like they’re intertwined, but she doesn’t know anything about his mother. Not even a hint. She balls her hands into fists at her side. This is a situation that demands bald truth from him. If he’s not willing to give it to her...
She angrily waves her hand. “Go. Leave. I know you want to. Take a half an hour. Work it out. Do whatever. Just remember to be back in time to dress for our party.”
He nods and turns on his heel, slamming the door loudly on his way out, off to god knows where.
You know exactly where he is going.
XXXX
The party is her favorite type to host, a mixture of political minds and social elite. Not a ball, but not quite a Paris salon, either. Witty conversation, dancing, a chance for Alexander to advance his political agenda subtly, in a social setting.
Yeah, okay, a chance for her to advance Alexander’s political agenda subtly in a social setting, while he winds up shouting at some portly veteran over the issue of taxes, probably.
The social moron in question had made it home, as promised, with enough time to put on his best claret velvet coat. When he steps out of the master bedroom to escort her down to greet the guests, the unconscious imitation of his friend’s (brother? Oh god.) sartorial choices makes Angelica slightly hysterical.
He looks good in it, too, hair swept back into a neat tail, the very image of a debonair politician, if only one looked past the set of his shoulders. He’s easier than he was when he left, but the hand on her waist is still perfunctory.
Downstairs, the guests arrive. In a trickle at first, then in a giant clump that includes Angelica’s sister Eliza and her husband, Jan van Rensselaer, a dough faced non-entity who Angelica loathes, but Eliza treats with a sweet fidelity. It’s hard not to look at Eliza’s blank space of a husband—rich and socially connected, but utterly void of any of the spark she so deserves—and not think that she’d settled. For the family. For, perhaps, other reasons that are best left unexamined.
At the sight of her sister, Alexander’s face lights up. That’s an always fun sock in the face. He bows deeply over Eliza’s hand and then leans in to kiss her on the cheek. “My gracious silence. Welcome.”
Angelica rolls her eyes as she receives her own courtly bow (sans kiss) from her brother-in-law. “You know, Coriolanus was referring to his wife when he said that.”
“Well, you are gracious, boo, but silent?” Alex screws up his face into a mocking question mark and Eliza laughs.
“Oh har har.”
Jan wanders off with a grunt—probably in search of the port—leaving the three of them momentarily alone in the crowded, noisy room.
“Eliza,” Alex utters with wounded dignity. “I believe my wife thinks she got jokes.”
“No!”
“Yes.” He is mock serious as his eyes twinkle at Eliza and, through a genuine twinge of annoyance, Angelica feels a rush of love for her sister, the heart of the family. Like balm for whatever ails them.
“You know the solution?” Eliza asks. “Leave her to her own devices.”
Angelica shoos them away. “Go! And play nice. I have guests to convince that you are not a crazed monarchist.”
Alex extends his arm grandly to Eliza and she takes it. They proceed forward into the room together, Angelica trailing behind them. Eliza catches Angelica’s gaze behind Alexander’s back and she widens her eyes meaningfully in his direction, her brow creasing with a clear message.
We need to talk.
If there had been any doubt as to where Alexander went when he slammed out of the house this afternoon, it has just been resolved. Angelica rolls her eyes a little and shakes her head, mouths “later,” at her sister and breaks away, steering herself in the direction of Robert Yates, rumored to be soon appointed one of New York’s other delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
While the evening progresses, Angelica works the room, keeping one eye on the everyone’s comfort—guests all happy and comfortable, political arguments pleasantly tense but not boiling over—and the other on Alexander.
He starts out huddled in a corner with Eliza, who is plying him with domestic chatter in that comforting sisterly way she has. Allowing him to pay her gallantries, laughing at his jokes. On one swing around the room, she can hear them laughing about the size of Mrs. Jamieson’s turban.
Eliza is a necessary emotional center for him—a balancing point. She, herself is too, in many ways, but Alexander being what he is, he could never be satisfied with just one. Angelica has known that from the beginning; it's part of what she accepted when she chose to toss over social convention and family expectation to marry him.
Clocking the exact moment when Alex’s shoulders settle looser and the laugh becomes a real laugh, not a desperately-trying-to-be-real laugh, Angelica swoops in, “I’ll just steal my husband back, if that’s not too big of an imposition, Sis.”
Eliza raises her eyebrows teasingly. “You jelly, Jelly?”
“Damn right, you know I don’t share well.” The sisters smile at the old joke. And it is a joke. It’s easier if it’s a joke.
Alex allows himself to get taken up by a group of men on the board of his bank—the Bank of New York—and appears, by all indications, to be in good form. He and Yates shout at each other for a while until Alex executes a swift verbal takedown and Yates stalks off. Angelica makes some progress with a few other key guests, though, and the music and dancing is well received by all.
Alex disappears as the last of the guests leaves, just after midnight, leaving Angelica alone with the bones of the evening. As the door closes behind them, she flops into a chair, wearily, picking up an empty punch glass now bearing a slight chip on its rim. She absently runs the tips of her fingers over and over the flaw. Smooth glass. Rough. Smooth. Rough.
Alex might not ever be in full accord with the other members of the delegation, but if he would just antagonize them a little less…real good could be done. A true revolution.
Lansing had seemed open to overtures, even if Yates wasn’t. And she’d seen Mayhew and Van Cortlandt talking several times…that could be an interesting alliance. If they would sign on to the tax plan… Angelica curls her aching feet inside her high-heeled shoes. Everything went well; normally she’d be feeling that pleasant exhaustion of a successful event. Also normally, she’d be hashing all of this out with her husband.
Her mysteriously absent husband who could only be…She sets the cup down on the arm of the chair, levers herself to her feet and walks upstairs.
He’s at his desk, still in his party clothes: coat off, shirtsleeves rolled up, glasses on. The pen scratches across the paper and he doesn’t look up, although she knows he’s aware of her presence.
The door of his office was open, though. It’s something.
She leans against the doorjamb. “What are you working on?”
“An article for the The Journal. Supporting funding for the federal Congress. Lansing said something tonight and I think—”
“Am I gonna get to read it?”
He takes off his glasses, sets them on a precarious stack of papers. “Of course, but not until I’ve got it down. You know that.”
She crosses her arms. Steps into the room. “About your mother.”
He picks the pen back up. Glasses back on. “I’m not in the mood, Jel.”
“You had your mood earlier. I gave you space. Now I want to know what is going on. Is what he said true?”
“It’s not true.”
“Alex, he looks…”
“I know.” Curt. Alex is never curt.
“You know what, it doesn’t even matter. Will he talk about it? Do we need to get out in front of this?”
“It doesn’t matter?” He laughs, bleakly. “Of course it doesn’t matter.”
Angelica strides forward and takes his face between her hands in a gesture of command. Takes his glasses gently off and tucks them into the bodice of her dress. “It doesn’t matter. We’re the Hamiltons, Alex. We are. You made the name worth something, I took it, the kids were born to it; it’s ours now, and people will remember it.” He’s gathering himself for another bout of words, but she’s said her piece. “Enough now. I’m going to sleep. Figure it out, Alexander. Come to bed when you do.”
XXXX
The thump and shake of the mattress as he eases between the sheets wakes her. Grey filtering light through the bed curtains. It’s almost dawn.
Alex reaches out, slides a hand under the shift she wears to bed and leaves it resting, warm, on her hip.
Angelica turns over and climbs on top of him, trapping him beneath her the way she knows he likes, feeling him, naked, between her bracketing thighs. Alex bares his neck to her in an arc, a familiar request, a signal, so she gently sets her teeth on either side of his jugular. Bites down. Darts her tongue out to lick the compressed skin. He tastes like salt and the dry dust of parchment.
He shudders and groans beneath her and she releases him. Sits back a little until they’re looking each other in the face.
“She…” He licks his lips, stares at her with those eyes. “My mother she…”
He’s had his quarter, his tender comfort. She won’t release his gaze or let him off the hook.
“It might be true. She never said, but we do look alike, Edward and I.”
“You do.” Angelica sets a kiss over the slightly red patch of bitten skin.
“I’ll never know, will I?”
“You won’t.”
His hands slides down her hips, nails digging in, he reaches between their bodies and she gasps, the familiar heat filling her up. His fingers are hungry on her and there’s burning knowledge that this, at least, he can’t get anywhere else.
“Edward won’t talk.”
“Good.” She gasps. “We’d have to do a lot of damage control if it came out. You know I hate damage control.” He twists under her, seeking more contact. “You should talk to him, though.”
“Yeah.”
“Write a letter. ” She bites his pectoral and shifts up and over him, aligning, sliding smoothly down, “You’re better in print.”