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Angelica didn't plan on falling in love with John Church.
To begin with, she didn't think to highly of the male species, finding them incompetent and stubborn as a whole, lording over women with over grown egos and delusions of grandeur.
Angelica was no damsel in distress, and needed no man to control her life. Yet society was what society was, and she knew she was expected to marry someday (preferably wealthily), to preserve her father’s name if nothing else, though she regarded the matter with no small distaste.
The first time she lost herself head over heels was at the Winter Ball.
It was 1780, a great celebration for the soldiers fighting in the Revolution, as well as an annual formality from the Schuyler family.
Soldiers and nobles alike mingled on the dance floor, laughing and making small talk, Angelica herself among them, glass of champagne in hand as she flirted and waltzed caring nothing for those around her (excepting her sisters) and wanting nothing more than to retire to bed.
And then she saw him.
Alexander Hamilton. He was a hurricane of passion and words, roaring out in a rapid tempest, the perfect match of wits to Angelica’s whirlwind.
She was smitten. The conversation lasted two minutes, perhaps three, until Angelica looked away from the fiery man to her sister Eliza, to see all of Angelica’s own helplessness shining brightly inher eyes.
Eliza was helplessly, hopelessly in love with Alexander. So Angelica stood by. She introduced them, knowing full well she would never be satisfied with this arrangement.
It didn't matter. Eliza would be. Sometimes Angelica felt it might be worth it to see the joy radiating from her sisters beaming face. But that joy reminded Angelica of what she had lost in Alexander, so she gritted her teeth, smiled for Eliza (always for Eliza) and bore the aching longing consuming her.
The second time she lost herself snuck up on her, a love from a place she least expected.
John Church was gentle and quiet and mannerly. Everything Alexander wasn't. Angelica married him anyway.
He was rich, her father approved, and he was one of the considerably better suitors she had available. At the least she could tolerate his presence for as long as it took.
Their wedding was a cold event. At least, that's what she was. She smiled and laughed and accepted congratulations from all (even Alexander, oh, how hard it was to look into his beautiful eyes as she married another. But she did. For Eliza). But within she was as cold and numb as Eliza was bright and happy.
John was smitten, that much Angelica could tell. His eyes would follow her with a fond smile, as she paced about, awaiting another letter from Alex. The correspondence between her and Alexander was the main thing that kept her going. When she read his letters she could almost pretend he was hers.
Almost.
They had moved to London, back to John’s home, a place which he praised to no end. Angelica could care less. At least out in London she was away from Alexander, away from the temptation, away from her Eliza's joy that stabbed into her like a knife.
Every time John kissed her, or hugged her, his eyes full of so much love, Angelica felt almost guilty as she faked her own adoration.
Guilty that the man had to live in a marriage where all his affection was not returned.
She had tried to love him, but it seemed nearly impossible.
Until one day along the line, it wasn't.
Angelica didn't know when she started feeling a flutter in her chest when John touched her hand gently, or wrapped her up in his arms.
She didn't know when ‘I love you’ stopped being a meaningless phrase, when she started falling into John’s gentle brown eyes, soft as a breeze.
He was no Alexander, a gust instead of a hurricane, a whisper instead of a roar. His words were slow, deliberate, whereas Alexander would rush to fill the empty space in fear of the silence that would follow.
Suddenly, Alexander’s letters were viewed not as a lifeline in her sinking marriage, but as another source of mere contentment.
For Angelica was content. The nights spent wishing and what-ifing were fewer and far between, as she found herself, dare she say, satisfied.
Satisfied with loving John. Satisfied with his little quirks and the way he would smile, with his entire heart, whenever she walked into a room.
John felt the change to, she knew. The change in that she would no longer sleep on the edge of their bed, isolating herself as much as possible, but would allow herself to be hugged, cherished, by John.
It was not how she fantasized her marriage with Alexander would be, but it was enough.
Angelica smiled to herself as John dozed by her side, arms wrapped around her lovingly.
Yes, this was enough.