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There was no way he could prove any of it. Not unless Catherine Ring was willing to testify that Elma had been with child—and, from what he’d seen of her, he doubted she would admit it, even if she’d known. She must have known.

But what it told him was that Levi Weeks was even more of a cad than he’d previously imagined.

Was it once she’d lost his child that he’d promised to marry Elma—and began planning her murder?

Cadwallader extracted himself from the too small chair. It was time to forge the links of the unbreakable chain of evidence with which he would see Levi Weeks hang.

But first he needed to find some breeches without tea stains on them.

Chapter Twelve

I cannot be a general and a practicer of the law at the same time without doing injustice to the government and myself.

—Alexander Hamilton to James McHenry

New York City

February 24, 1800

It is very certain that the military career in this country offers too few inducements and it is equally certain that my present station in the army cannot very long continue under the plans which seem to govern . . .

The pen was a good one, the ink fresh, but Alexander felt like he was writing the letter in his own heart’s blood, each word squeezed out unwilling. His aide-de-camp, George Izard, had asked his advice about staying in his current position with Alexander or taking up an offered post as secretary to the minister plenipotentiary to Portugal.

It was galling having to put down on paper the truth Alexander had been avoiding as long as he could: his army’s hours were numbered.

Since returning from Albany, Alexander had flung himself into the army’s business, as if he could remedy by industry what others lacked in interest. But it wasn’t enough, it was never enough—they had halted enlistment, and he knew what that meant. It was a preliminary step to disbanding it entirely, everything Alexander had worked for, planned for, neglecting his family, his law practice, pouring out reams of correspondence, leaving his Eliza to drill the troops, enduring leaky tents and inadequate supplies, dipping into his own pocket to entertain dignitaries, badgering that idiot Adams for pay for his troops. . . .

For nothing. All for nothing.

Alexander could feel an abyss yawning beneath him. On the one side, all his plans: a military academy, a naval academy. Had anyone else given serious thought to how many steps per minute were ideal in a march? On the other, a howling void, all he’d built knocked down with the glorious unconcern of a small child building a block tower only to shatter it down again. Only this wasn’t a child’s toy, this was the republic they’d fought for with the lives of their comrades. Had they all forgotten so soon? If General Washington were still alive . . .

Grief oppressed him. Grief for the lives lost, for the lives still to be lost. General Washington, gone. His father-in-law, once a vibrant, powerful man, now plagued with illness. Alexander hadn’t wanted to worry Eliza, he had tried to make it sound as nothing, but during his stay in Albany his father-in-law had taken a turn so bad they had sent for Eliza’s youngest sister, Kitty. He’d rallied, thank the Lord, but it had struck Alexander to his core, the contrast between the Philip Schuyler he had so admired, a soldier, a statesman, a lord of the North, to a querulous old man in a bath chair who looked to Alexander to solve his financial and political difficulties.

And Alexander was happy to do so! His mind was constantly whirring, seeking sinecures for Angelica’s husband, so that Angelica might continue to cut a dash, and financial remedies for his father-in-law, so he could reign, as he had always reigned, from his seat in Albany. Raise Eliza’s brother’s son, get Eliza’s sister Peggy out of scrapes. All of that, Alexander would do all of that; he would raise an army, he would file motions, he would badger his friends with letters to stop Burr’s ambitions, but if he paused, even for a moment, it would all come crashing down and he would be left naked and shivering, revealed as the poor forked creature he was.

Retire, Eliza urged. Live the life of a country squire. But without occupation, what was he? Nothing but a bastard from an island so small it was barely a dot on the map. All his achievements—they felt so fleeting. He had come from nothing and in a moment he would return to nothing, and where would that leave his Eliza, his children, who trusted him, who believed in the myths he had spun around himself?

The door crashed open and Philip Church breezed in, red-cheeked with cold, and a faint smell of rum about him.

“Where have you been?”

Philip rubbed his cold hands together. “Betting on sleigh races. Cadwallader Colden paid some men from the livery stable on Broadway to race a sleigh to the Manhattan Well and back again. I won half a crown off Peter De Hart.”

“Sleigh races,” Alexander repeated, trying to still his annoyance at Philip, annoyance that wasn’t the boy’s fault but the world’s. He had been twenty and high-spirited once.

Sometimes it was hard to look at Philip and not think of the compromises he’d made, the bargains he’d struck, to keep John Church in employment so that Philip might wear a coat of the latest cut and waste half a crown on sleigh races.

Sleigh races.

Alexander set down his pen, his attention suddenly very focused. “What is Cadwallader Colden doing holding sleigh races?”

Philip, cheerful with cherry bounce, was unperturbed by Alexander’s sharp tone. “They’re saying Levi Weeks carried Julianna Sands off in a sleigh and this proves it.”

“Gulielma. Gulielma Sands.” The rumormongers could at least get the girl’s name right. It was the sloppiness Alexander found so offensive.

“Julianna sounds more romantical,” said Philip cheerfully.

“This isn’t a romance. It’s a woman’s life—and a man’s,” said Alexander sharply. He’d never thought of a sleigh. He’d hired Rhinelander to walk to the well and back, timing his progress, and had been comfortably assured he’d done what he ought, but this put a different complexion on matters entirely.