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As the Pastures came into sight up ahead, Hamilton adjusted his cap further down over his eyes and spurred the horse onwards. Sunlight glittered and reflected off the nearby Hudson, too bright for his aching head. Sweat was beading on his brow and running down his back, even though by rights he should be chilled in the frigid late November air. The achiness and fatigue that had first come over him while he had stopped to acquire a fresh horse outside York City was growing worse by the day.
This morning he’d barely been able to drag himself out of bed. A few more hours of riding, he’d assured himself silently, his head hanging between his knees, only a few more hours and he’d be home with Eliza. The thought of holding her in his arms had been all the motivation he needed to pull on his boots and mount his horse.
He directed his horse right at the fork to take the quickest path up to the main house. Tom, a servant about his age, stood beside the Schuyler coach in the driveway, one of his hands held up to shade his eyes against the bright afternoon sun and the other holding some kind of tool. He seemed to be doing maintenance on the right wheel of the coach. Hamilton brought the horse to a final halt as Tom carefully replaced the tool and came towards him.
“Colonel Hamilton, sir,” Tom greeted, though his attention immediately focused on the exhausted horse.
“This fellow will need water, and a good rest,” Hamilton directed, patting at the horse’s neck as he braced himself to dismount. “He’s had a hard ride.”
Tom agreed and accepted control of the reigns.
As Hamilton freed his boot from the stirrup and swung his leg over, his head spun dangerously. He did manage to lower himself safely to the ground, but the maneuver was far from graceful. Tom’s appraising gaze felt heavy on his back as he gripped at the saddle and waited for the vertigo to pass.
“Should I call someone from the house for you, sir?” Tom asked.
“No. No, I’m all right,” he muttered, hand to his temple. He drew several long, deep breaths until the world had mostly stilled around him. Giving the horse a final pat, he nodded his thanks to Tom, heaved his bag from the back of the saddle, and started towards the house on unsteady legs.
When he found himself before the front door, he hesitated. Though he’d come to think of the Pastures as home, he hadn’t actually been here since last December. Letting himself in the front door felt presumptuous somehow. But to ring the bell would alert Eliza to a visitor and ruin his surprise. He sighed, readjusted the heavy bag on his shoulder, and, mustering his confidence, turned the doorknob to admit himself to the house. He lowered his bag to the floor of the foyer silently before he made his way to the front parlor.
Eliza sat alone, reading, with her feet tucked up under her in a chair by the fire, a soft blanket covering all but her right hand. The whole parlor was drenched in sunlight, adding a kind of heavenly glow to the scene. He leaned against the doorjamb, knees a little weak, and stayed quiet, just staring, soaking in the sight of her.
She seemed to sense his gaze on her. Her eyes tracked up from her book to the doorway, and she froze, mouth partially open and eyes wide, like she was seeing a ghost. Their eyes met for a long moment.
“Alexander?” she whispered.
He smiled at her, then laughed when she tossed the book aside and started to fight with the blanket, which had tangled around her legs as she tried to rise too quickly from the chair.
He looked down for the first time at the sizable bump where her flat belly had been the last time he saw her. His throat felt tight with emotion. That was their child, he thought, the idea suddenly overwhelming. She’d told him almost as soon as she’d realized she was pregnant, but he’d left for Virginia long before she’d begun to show. The idea of a baby had been rather abstract for him over the past months. Here, seeing her rounded belly, it felt beautifully real for the first time.
“Hello, my angel,” he replied, opening his arms to her as she rushed towards him.
Her arms wrapped around him, nearly crushing him against her. She rose up on her toes to kiss him. Their lips met in a fast series of wet pecks, as if Eliza was attempting to squeeze in all the kisses they’d missed while they’d been apart. Her aim went wide, and she was suddenly kissing along his jaw, then his neck. He laughed at the tickling sensation. She pressed one last kiss to his shoulder before resting her head there, still squeezing him tight.
“I didn’t think you’d be home so soon,” she muttered into his uniform coat.
“I rode non-stop from Yorktown as soon as the General gave me leave,” he explained, cradling her against him gently, conscious of the little life between them. He felt steady in her arms, stronger than he had in days.
“You should have written me that you were so close. Papa’s going to want to arrange a dinner at the very least. He’s spoken of nothing but your heroism since he heard of your victory at Yorktown.”
“I don’t think I quite feel up to a dinner party.”
He felt terribly ill and wrung out from the hard journey, but more than that, all the accolades showered upon him after his successful mission to take the British redoubt made him feel slightly uncomfortable. When he thought of Yorktown, he still remembered screams in the dark, the smell of blood and gunpowder heavy in the air, and the sensation of his sword cutting deep into a man’s chest. It was one thing to share a companionable drink with his fellow officers, who had fought alongside him and well understood the horror of war; quite another to sit through dinner with New York’s most elite families. Perhaps with time and distance he’d be more able to toast to victory without being reminded of its cost, but right now the idea of celebrating such a scene with civilians felt jarring and wrong.
Eliza was studying him intently. Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face, because concern was fast eclipsing the pure joy that had radiated from her only moments before. Her hands soothed down his back gently. “Is something wrong, my love?”
“No.” He shook the dark thoughts from his mind and forced a smile. “I’ve missed you so much, Betsey. For months, I’ve wanted nothing more than to hold you in my arms. Now that we’re together, I’m surely the happiest and most content man that ever lived.”
She didn’t look entirely convinced by the little speech, but she kissed him again in lieu of pressing the issue. His hand found her belly as they kissed. He stroked down her side gently, and he felt movement beneath his palm, almost like someone very gently tapping him on the hand.
She chuckled into the kiss.
“Someone else is happy to see you,” she whispered.
His heartbeat quickened. He felt a grin spreading over his face. “Is that…?”
“Kicking,” she confirmed.
He stared down at the bump in wonder. His palm stroked over her belly softly, trying to feel more of the little taps. Eliza placed her hand on his, and she slowly guided him back and down nearer to the spot he’d first touched. “Here. Feel it?”
He nodded, slightly breathless. Impossibly little feet were pushing at his hand. So many nights over the past months he’d stared up at his tent and imagined their little son or daughter in Eliza’s arms. To feel those little feet now, so real, under his hand, was the most amazing sensation he’d ever experienced in his life. His eyes found Eliza’s.
“Our baby,” he said, an awed reverence in his voice.
She nodded, glowing with happiness. “Our baby.”
“How long ago did you first feel kicking?”
“It started as a sort of wriggling a few months ago. Now the baby seems to do nothing but kick,” she answered with a soft smile, her hand soothing over the other side of her belly as she spoke.
He stroked his thumb over her belly button. The kicking seemed to have stopped for the moment, but he rubbed his hand firmly over the swell of her stomach. If he could feel the baby, perhaps the baby could feel him, too. Kneeling down, he leaned close and whispered, “Papa’s home now. I can’t wait to meet you.” He pressed a kiss to the spot where the baby’s feet must have been before heaving himself back up into a standing position.
Eliza looked up at him fondly, her eyes bright, and she reached to stroke a hand over his cheek. She frowned as she touched his face, though, and her hand moved from his cheek to his forehead. “You feel a little warm, sweetheart. Are you sick?”
He opened his mouth, prepared to reassure her, but a soft gasp from the stairway behind them intervened. Philip Schuyler had paused on the landing. After a moment of staring, he surged forward and clapped Hamilton warmly on the back. “My God, son, this is a surprise. I can’t tell you how good it is to see you home safely.”
He managed a smile for his father-in-law. “Sir.”
“News of your heroism has preceded you. I would have arranged more fanfare had I known you were due back so soon. Why didn’t you write?”
“I’m just glad to be home, sir. A warm welcome from my family is all the fanfare I need,” he pleaded. His legs were starting to feel unsteady again, the surge of energy he’d experience at finally seeing his wife fading fast.
Schuyler’s expression softened, an understanding look coming over his face. Of course, he’d come home from a war himself more than once, Hamilton realized. He wondered if the overwhelming urge to crawl into bed and sleep for days was universal.
“You should change and go get some rest, son,” Schuyler counseled, patting his back gently.
“Yes, let’s get you into bed,” Eliza agreed, adjusting to his side so that his arm slung across her shoulders. “I think you have a fever.”
Schuyler placed his arm at Hamilton’s elbow to support him from the other side. Hamilton wanted to argue that he could make it upstairs under his own power, but one step forward set his head spinning again. Without the support, he’d likely have wilted to the floor. Schuyler’s arm moved around his back to support him more securely as they mounted the staircase.
His gaze quickly caught the large chunk missing from the railing. That must have been where the tomahawk landed, he realized, the deep scar in the wood a stark reminder of the Indian raid that had endangered his pregnant wife while he was away. Eliza and her family had managed to hide safely upstairs when the party broke into the house bearing guns and tomahawks, but apparently in all the chaos little Kitty Schuyler had been left in her bassinet downstairs. Peggy had bravely saved the infant, narrowly avoiding a tomahawk to her head as she fled upstairs. The evidence of the incident brought back the belated terror he’d felt at first hearing the report.
Black pressed in on his vision.
“Easy, son,” Schuyler encouraged, taking even more of his weight. “Keep your feet under you. You’re almost there.”
Eliza had followed his gaze to the rail, and she rested her hand over the missing piece. She smiled bravely up at him. “Everything’s fine, sweetheart,” she assured him.
With their assistance, he finally found himself seated on a soft bed. Eliza started to help him change out of his uniform while Schuyler retrieved his bag and dug through his kit to find a nightshirt. Laying the garment on the bed, Schuyler announced, “I’m going to send for Doctor Stringer.”
Being poked and prodded by a doctor was the last thing he wanted.
“That’s not necessary,” he argued weakly. “I just need to rest.”
He saw Eliza share a significant look with her father. Schuyler nodded a little, and sent him a sympathetic smile. “I quite insist, son.”
He sighed, and pulled his shirt free from his breeches and over his head. He heard Schuyler leave to send for the doctor, closing the door behind him. When Hamilton stood to remove his breeches, Eliza stepped closer and started to undo the buttons for him.
“I can manage that myself,” he said, irritation bleeding into his voice. “I’m not an invalid.”
She smirked up at him. Her thumbs hooked into the material on his hips as she pressed close and kissed him again. “I’m sure you can. But I’ve very much missed being able to undress you.”
The irritation fled as rapidly as it had come. Her hands traced up his hips and across his bare chest before once more sliding towards the buttons on his breeches, which she began to unfasten slowly, still smirking at him. Unfortunately, another wave of vertigo crashed over him, interrupting the intimate moment and sending him staggering back to sit heavily on the bed.
“Are you all right?” she asked softly, after he’d sat for a long moment with his head braced in his hands.
He nodded, frustrated, though when he met her eye he smiled despite his mood.
“You were flirting with me,” he groaned.
She laughed. Stooping down so her lips were close to his ear, she assured him in a sultry voice, “When you’re better, I’m going to do much more than flirt with you.”
“Don’t tease.”
She kissed him just below his earlobe. “I’m not teasing. I’m promising.”
He placed his hands on her hips and hummed unhappily. Why couldn’t he just be healthy today, of all days?
“Come on, let’s finish getting you into something more comfortable,” she suggested.
When he’d at last successfully donned the nightshirt, he slid his legs under the blankets and relaxed back against the pillows with a long, relieved sigh. Eliza sat on the bed beside him, though she remained atop the blankets. He rolled onto his side, closer to her.
He placed his hand over her belly again. “Is the baby moving?”
“Not right now,” she said, “but I’m sure you won’t have long to wait.” Her fingers stroked through his hair as she spoke, her nails scratching very gently against his scalp.
“Mm, that feels nice,” he sighed.
“Yeah?”
He nodded. Pushing up on his elbow, he moved closer still, resting his head on her chest. His hand remained on her stomach, near where he’d last felt the little taps, determined to feel the baby again. She adjusted to hold him to her, her fingers still combing through his hair rhythmically.
His eyes grew heavy as he waited.
He was drifting towards sleep when Eliza adjusted beneath him and slowly guided his hand to a different spot. He felt the little taps again, tiny feet nudging at his palm. The truth of his earlier assurance to Eliza asserted itself: here with his wife and child, he truly was the happiest and most contented of men.