Hamilton and Peggy! by L. M. Elliott

Author:L. M. Elliott
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Summer

Journals of French officers under Rochambeau:

The fair sex here is really unusual in its modesty and sweetness of demeanor. Nature has endowed the women of Rhode Island with very fine features; their complexion is clear; their hands and feet generally small . . . One sees few malformed women . . . They all like dancing, and they engage in it unpretentiously, as is their manner in general.

—Baron Ludwig von Closen, Rochambeau aide-de-camp

We were frequently invited to private houses. There seemed to be a rivalry among the residents to see who would serve the richest fare and have the largest number of guests at dinner.

—Baron Gaspard de Gallatin

JOHN CARTER SLAMMED DOWN HIS GLASS OF Madeira, his wine sloshing onto the tablecloth. Peggy realized the man was drunk. But if her sister was embarrassed, it did not show. Angelica continued to smile regally, keeping her eyes glued to her husband, as if what he was saying was profoundly interesting.

Peggy sat across from her in a small clapboard house that Carter was renting in Newport, Rhode Island. They were not alone. Lafayette had arrived with messages for Rochambeau from Washington. But the French army had landed only a few days earlier and was frantically fortifying the harbor and town, having spotted the British fleet lurking off the coast. Lafayette’s meeting must wait. Most men would have been insulted by that dismissal by his own countryman, but the ebullient Lafayette instead happily accepted Angelica’s dinner invitation. He brought with him his own brother-in-law, Vicomte de Noailles, and Hamilton’s most dedicated jester, McHenry, who was now Lafayette’s aide-de-camp. Plus, his old friend the Marquis de Fleury, the Frenchman he planned to matchmake with Peggy. She had to give Lafayette credit. Fleury was—well, in a word, gorgeous. Disarmingly so.

“So I told them,” crowed Carter, “when they were dining at my house—captives, mind you—and they still dared to raise a glass to the king—I told them that for every village and farm that Burgoyne and his officers and German devil Hessians had pillaged and set fire to, that we should behead one of their officers. Then we’d put those heads in small barrels, salt them, and ship them all back to England at once. That certainly would send the king the message that his henchmen don’t belong in America any longer!” He pounded the table and guffawed. “Well, you should have seen Baroness von Reidesel’s pretty little face crumple. She looked at me as if I were some monster!”

A stunned silence fell around the table. Of course most everyone there felt the same outrage at British atrocities, but the gory suggestion of pickled heads was a bit barbaric. It was particularly cruel for Carter to needle the young baroness in such a way, since her Hessian husband was in Boston as a prisoner of war.

Peggy felt her stomach twist. Was he that uncouth and mean in the way he talked to Angelica in private? She could find no clue on her beautiful sister’s party-perfect expression.

And what

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