Love, Theodosia

by Lori Anne Goldstein

Genres: Historical Fiction; American Romance

Synopsis

A Romeo & Juliet tale for Hamilton! fans.

Love, Theodosia is a smart, funny, swoony take on a fiercely intelligent woman (Aaron Burr's daughter, Theodosia) with feminist ideas and ideals far ahead of her time. Not only a work of well-researched historical fiction, but a refreshing spin on the Hamiltonian era and the characters we have grown to know and love so well. Goldstein shines a bright light on Theodosia, who has long deserved center stage, a young woman struggling to be heard in a turbulent time for our nation. It's also a heartbreaking romance of two star-crossed lovers, an achingly bittersweet “what if.”

In Love Theodosia, Alexander Hamilton's son Philip and Burr's daughter Theodosia become smitten, though she is engaged to an artist and Philip is a rakish cad. But the two find each other's intellect irresistible, and in what unrolls like a Jane Austen novel of manners we find ourselves entangled with the Hamilton family once again as the children of famous enemies are driven together despite every reason not to be.

Release date: November 16, 2021

Publisher: Arcade

Print pages: 336

Sample

PROLOGUE

Georgetown County, South Carolina

November 1801

THE INABILITY TO BREATHE STRIKES HER the most. The function so automatic, without thought or intent, that only in its absence does it make its presence known. Unlike the feeling, just as involuntary, simmering under her skin, whispering in the palm fronds overhead, swirling in the air around her as if one tight grasp at the exact right moment could secure it, bring it in, close to her breast where the ache rages strongest. A feeling living deep in her core whether fingers are entwined or parted—separated by the distance of a gently lit ballroom, a maze of grimy streets, or the length of the Eastern seaboard. A feeling intensified in loss.

Her hand presses the newspaper clipping to her belly and the letter accompanying it flutters to the hardwood floor.

Permanence sharpens every moment. The caressing of a cheek, the sharing of laughter, the merging of hearts and minds for a period so brief it may scarcely warrant a footnote in her time on this earth yet defining who she once was and who she would become.

Such is the power of the human mind. Memory feeds love as much as fertile soil grows the kernels of rice atop the endless rows of green stalks in the fields outside her window. If only life were lived in individual slices, each day with its own beginning, middle, and end. Nothing before. Nothing to come. Starting anew with the first morning breath and concluding each night with a mind that closes along with one’s eyes. Joy or sorrow contained within like a book once read and discarded, never to be thought of again.

But memory is as cruel as it is skilled, spinning sorrow and joy into a fiber that cannot be broken even with the strongest of wills. Remembering ravages the heart like the longest of summer droughts, but forgetting turns traitor on the soul. And staying true to that is all she has left.

CHAPTER 1

New York City

May 1800

THE CIRCLE MAY AS WELL HAVE been a coop. Theodosia threaded her fingers together, set her hands in her lap, and apologized to her eardrums.

Across from her, Lottie Jewell’s trill soprano reverberated off the walls of the parlor. Not even the abundance of velvet cushions tufted in Prussian blue could dampen the sound. The ring of chairs and the women seated in them encroached upon her, and she wished her corset wasn’t laced so tight.

A ripple of polite applause followed Lottie’s final note, and she gave a small curtsy along with her lopsided smile as she sat back down. The ray of sunlight streaming in through the tall windows behind her shrunk too slowly.

Theodosia should have arranged for their coachman to come for her sooner. She’d forgotten just how insufferable salons could be. Though not even she could turn down an invitation to one hosted by such an important member of New York City society as the commodore’s wife.

“A pure delight,” Mrs. Frances Nicholson said, rising to her feet and offering a final sharp clap of her hands. She gestured to the red-haired slip of a girl in an apron and cap disappearing into the crimson curtain that hung from the ceiling. “A pause to fill our glasses. Though I do offer my apologies for we appear to be out of burgundy, a hazard for hosting the senator.”

Glances cast Theodosia’s way, but her smile remained as solid as her spine.

“The commodore fears such imports may continue to be difficult to find despite the revolution in France coming to a close,” Mrs. Nicholson said. “He told his guests as they entered this same room not more than a week ago that if some in this town have their way, we’ll be a nation of cider drinkers before long.”

Theodosia unclogged her ears. Finally a topic worthy of discussion. Even if it were inspired by her family and its affinity for all things French. The senator—former senator—draining the Nicholson stores of burgundy was her father. Though he didn’t indulge heavily, she could picture him sipping more than usual in the Nicholson townhome, which had become a meeting place for the anti-Federalist movement. When it wasn’t hosting society ladies and their salons, of course.

Salons such as this prided themselves on being sociable places where those in attendance could elevate talk beyond routine reports of weather and travel, yet the reality was banal repartee, off-key singing, and the occasional dull reading, all of it usually devolving into gossip, especially in salons attended solely by women. As this one was.

But purposely or not, had Mrs. Nicholson actually begun to steer the conversation into one that consumed their male counterparts in pubs and on street corners as much as in the grand mansions and elegant townhomes lining the streets of the city?

“My William wouldn’t be heartbroken,” said Kitty Few, Mrs. Nicholson’s daughter. “He’s discovered a fondness for cider since our return.”

The resettling of Kitty and her family into the city from years spent in Georgia had prompted this gathering. Theodosia fought a shudder, imagining endless days in the blistering heat of the unrefined South, teeming with its swarms of disease-ridden insects as much as languorous ladies.

“More than ale,” Kitty continued. “William swears by the brews coming from those orchards along the East River. Believes the breeze infuses a brininess that makes it the perfect match for oysters.”

“Ooh, such ugly creatures!” Lottie exclaimed, nearly causing the white plume jutting from the bow atop her head to take flight. “No matter the sale on every street corner, I never imagined I could swallow something that looked like that. And alive! But the other day, I was persuaded—”

“By a boy!” The simultaneous singsong tease rang out from Kitty’s younger sister, Hannah Gallatin, and Caty Church, a petite young woman with ginger hair and Theodosia’s only real friend in the group.

Lottie flushed. She tilted her head in a useless attempt to mask her rosy cheeks with her ringlets of blonde curls.

Right, then. Theodosia pressed her hands together and thought of all the things that needed her attention at home. At seventeen, she’d borne responsibility for running her household since her mother died six years ago. Yet she was here. Listening to grown women giggling about boys. Grown women who’d dusted and layered their powders and perfumes with such a heavy hand that the scent of lavender and rose petals adhered to Theodosia’s nostrils.

She struggled to take in a full breath as the Nicholsons’ servant girl, holding a cut-glass decanter with a strength that belied the Irish girl’s pale thin arms, moved in front of her. Theodosia had already consumed her self-allotted, respectable, half glass of wine and thus politely declined. The girl poured a healthy portion for Kitty, and Theodosia resisted the urge to summon her—and the only way to make time move faster—back.

Theodosia distracted herself by assessing the room. Along with the fashionable blue velvet were chairs of mahogany with cushions of red damask and high-backed winged chairs covered in thick beige linen. A portrait of the commodore in his Revolutionary War uniform hung on the opposite wall. Theodosia knew the artist without having to search for the signature, not only because he was a friend of her father’s and commissioned by many in her father’s circle, but because she knew the strokes and textures in the portrait he had painted of her as well as she knew the actual twists of her dark auburn hair and arch of her eyebrows. She could identify the same brush in the artist’s other works. She had come to know the artist, more and more each day.

She pressed her palm above the square neckline of her dress, the small frill lining the edge insufficient to hide the heat spreading across her fair skin. It wasn’t so much the topic of boys that bored Theodosia but the giggling women.

Movement in the doorway drew her attention. A young girl of maybe nine or ten hovered in the hall. Her wiry arms held a book Theodosia recognized. Theodosia’s involuntary nod of approval must have given the girl the courage she sought, for she crossed the threshold into the room.

“Mary,” Mrs. Nicholson said with displeasure. “Is this not the parlor?”

The girl’s shoulders rose to her ears, and Mrs. Nicholson’s lips thinned.

Kitty tilted her head at the girl. “I would hope you would show your grandmother you’ve been taught better manners than that.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Then what is your response? Were you not told to remain upstairs with your sister?”

“Yes, Mother . . . Grandmother, and I was, but I needed help.”

Mrs. Nicholson laughed. “Help that none of our six servants could offer?”

The pride with which she laid out the number ruffled Theodosia. Friend of the family though the commodore may be, all information could be useful information. Theodosia would relay this to her father.

The girl, Mary, shook her head.

“Why not?” Mrs. Nicholson said.

“Because none of them can read.”

Theodosia sensed tension though illiteracy was not unusual for servants outside of her own home. Her father had made it a priority that their servants were taught to read and write.

“Oh well, out with it, Mary,” her mother said in resignation. “What is it you are trying to do?”

“Read these to Matilda,” Mary said, raising in the air the work of the Roman poet Ovid. “Like Father does.”

A harmonious laugh rounded the circle of women. Girls did not read Ovid in the original form, because girls did not read Latin. Most girls. Certainly not with full mastery. Theodosia’s education was a great source of pride for her father, and he’d never held her back from displaying it.

She addressed Mrs. Nicholson. “I may be able to help.”

A conspiratorial look passed between Kitty and Mrs. Nicholson, but the elder said, “How generous of you, Theodosia.”

Caty nodded encouragingly, and Theodosia smiled in gratitude. She’d missed Caty, who had only returned from living abroad with her family a few months ago.

Mary scurried across the room and stood before Theodosia. She opened the book and pointed.

A gentle smirk tugged at Theodosia’s lips. “A romantic already?”

Yet the girl’s face was so earnest that Theodosia took hold of the book with equal resolve and began, “Amores. Love. Thus it will be; slender arrows are lodged in my heart and love vexes the chest that it has seized. Shall I surrender or stir up the sudden flame by fighting it?” Theodosia felt a thickening in her throat. “I will surrender—a burden becomes light when it is carried willingly.”

All at once came the sight of her mother’s brow heavy with sweat, the stench of sick and night soil adhering to Theodosia’s skin no matter how hard she scrubbed, the tears that soaked through her skirts as her father wept before her . . . Theodosia breathed through it, though the burden they shared would forever weigh down them both.

The single surge of applause came from Mary. The girl’s politeness highlighted its absence in the group of women. Quickly, Caty chimed in and led a soft wave of clapping that soon filled the air.

Mary’s big brown eyes shined with wonder. “I want to do that.”

Lucinda Wilson, seated beside Theodosia, tsk-tsked. “Why you’ve no need. Unless your aim is to be a spinster. A needle and thread will do you much more good.”

Theodosia clenched the book with her long fingers before passing the poetry volume back to Mary. “You can do anything you wish, so long as you have a fire in your belly. Do you have that?”

The girl nodded.

“Good. Then all you need is a translation dictionary. Keep an eye out for the post. There just might be something in it for you.”

Mary hugged the book tight against her chest, and Kitty called upon the servant girl to usher her daughter out of the room. Kitty apologized first to her mother and then to the group, and Theodosia settled back in for more of Lottie’s love life.

As the women reengaged in conversation, Theodosia’s eyes drifted to the hall. Pride surged at the sight of Mary inching up the stairs, neck bent, escaped tendrils of her simply tied-back blonde hair shielding her face as she buried her head in the book.

Back in the parlor, Lucinda trained her eyes on Theodosia. She wore the same haughty look as always. Be it a dance or a party, no society event would be complete without Lucinda Wilson’s judging eyes. If a bow or a buckle were out of place, Lucinda would make sure everyone knew. She’d never get the chance with Theodosia.

Lucinda rotated her head, taking in everyone in the circle. “We owe Mary and Theodosia a thank-you. They’ve led us to a proper subject for our afternoon. Salons and poems go together like George and Martha Washington, do they not?”

Theodosia forced a nod.

“Splendid,” Lucinda said. “Would you care to lead us, Theodosia?”

No, not at all.

“Certainly.” Theodosia began from memory, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love—”

“Oh no,” Lucinda said with a throaty laugh. “Not recitation. The game is creation.”

Theodosia’s spine stiffened. She sat back and gave a deferential nod to Lucinda. “Then by all means.”

Lucinda’s eyes brightened. She perched herself at the edge of her chair and ensured all the attention was on her. She began:

“An imposter in our midst,

Why would destroy our bliss!

Be a smudge,

A blight,

On what we all know is right.”

Lucinda pursed her lips, angled her goose-like neck, and continued.

“Man and wife,

Joined against strife,

In their God-given roles,

True to our souls.

The path we are to walk forever clear,

Thus ’tis our duty when the imposter nears,

To set our gaze beyond and offer a sneer!”

Giggles, applause, stolen glances Theodosia’s way. She plastered on a smile and clapped along with everyone else.

Several of the women took a turn, yet Lucinda swooped in after each with another pithy little rhyme. She bested them all. Twice.

Theodosia could quote and recite every poet from Ovid to Shakespeare to Thomas Wyatt. Time spent writing amateur verse like Lucinda’s was an indulgence. A trivial pursuit. The studies and duties of Theodosia’s life precluded such frivolity.

How many hours must Lucinda have whiled away practicing writing rhymes? With what? This very goal of impromptu salon recitations and excelling at rhyming games like crambo? While Theodosia hosted dinners for everyone from Mohawk Indian chief Colonel Joseph Brant to General Washington himself?

Theodosia’s features maintained a calm, pleasant exterior despite the storm swirling beneath her skin, one she feared she’d externalized when a crash in the front hall brought half the ladies in the parlor to their feet.

“Sir, I must insist that you leave,” came an exasperated male voice. Presumably the servant—one of six—who had earlier escorted the salon guests into the parlor.

“We are of like mind.” A younger man’s voice, slow and heavy with enunciation, spilled into the room shortly before the young man himself. “For leaving is exactly why I’m arriving.” He stumbled into the parlor, clasping the top half of a porcelain vase. The vase had been—and perhaps the bottom half still was—home to a bouquet of orange tulips set on the table in the front hall.

The young man’s dark hair was cut short with a somewhat frizzy and windswept mop on top and clipped sideburns winding around his ears. He wore tight black leather boots over his knee breeches, though one leg saw all but a lone button undone. His double-breasted waistcoat fit snug about his chest, all the more visible for he lacked a coat. Undoubtedly his unruly outside reflected the same of his inside.

Though at the moment his insides were soaked in liquor.

“My deepest apologies, Mrs. Nicholson,” he said carefully and without a slur. “It seems I’m a tad on the early side, but I couldn’t help overhearing. And I am nothing if not a lover of extemporaneous versification.”

He over-enunciated the word “lover,” and Lottie let out a short squeal.

“Early for what, young Philip?” Mrs. Nicholson said.

“Ah, my reputation precedes me. Incognito though I try to be.” He grinned, and half the ladies in the room looked on the verge of needing smelling salts. “I’m merely here to escort a Miss Lottie Jewell home.”

With her dark brown eyes growing wide, Lottie shook her head, feigning disapproval at Philip’s state, but her crimson cheeks gave away her desire for the young man, as handsome as his father despite the boy’s current disheveled state.

“However, since I happen to have arrived at this moment . . .” Philip tipped his chin to Lucinda. “While Miss Wilson most assuredly offers sturdy competition, I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge.” His eyes roamed those of the ladies in the parlor. When they met Theodosia’s, he winked.

An image of a young Philip doing the same in grade school entered her mind. He hadn’t lost the showman tendencies he’d exhibited at the French school they’d both attended before Philip was shipped off to boarding school. She’d barely seen him in recent years, though she heard he was attending Columbia College. Majoring in the consumption of ale, it would appear. With high marks.

After receiving a nod from her mother, Kitty slid her chair back to allow Philip to enter the circle. He offered the broken vase to Mrs. Nicholson and sidestepped to the center. He pulled on the hem of his waistcoat and clasped his hands behind his back.

“A maiden, a lass,

One with a good measure of sass,

Sought by men, young and old,

And oh, what a sight to behold!

If only one could grab ahold,

What a tale could be told!”

“Philip!” Mrs. Nicholson cried, though the upward tic of her lips betrayed her.

Philip bowed in apology though spurts of laughter flitted about the room. “My lips are not always as connected to my brain as might be desired. I promise to atone if you indulge me once more.” He lowered his chin to his chest, which billowed with his breath before he began:

“Devotion from the divine

Must thoughts align

This skin lived in by one

Created by another

Growing ever tougher

A coat, a shield, an armored breast plate

So thick, nothing to penetrate

Not life from without

Not life from within

Why not, then, a life of sin

For we strive

And writhe

Hoping for that feel of being alive”

His words lingered in the air, settling on Theodosia’s exposed skin, slipping beneath. Restrained yet strong, imbued with melancholy, and delivered with a sincerity that Theodosia would wager had never left Philip’s lips before. She ran through all she knew, struggling to place the refrain and its author. If Theodosia could not name the poet, not a single woman in attendance would be able to. They’d think it was his. Not a one able to deny that he’d eclipsed Lucinda in her trivial game.

Theodosia sat quietly amused at the indignation on Lucinda’s face. And then Philip raised his head and looked directly at her. The room erupted in applause, but it wasn’t until the flapping of Lucinda’s elbow jarred Theodosia that she brought her hands together the same as everyone else in the room.

“Quite lovely, Philip,” Mrs. Nicholson said. “You’d be a welcome addition to a mixed salon.”

“Though likely not here.” Philip gestured to the painting of the commodore.

“Perhaps not.”

“What’s that old verse about a name smelling?”

“Sweet. Would smell as sweet.”

“Depends on the name, I would think.”

“And the perspective.” Mrs. Nicholson held his gaze before adding, “But today we are a perspective of women, so I must ask that you excuse yourself.”

“Right. Right, you go,” Lottie said in an unconvincing plea.

With one more bow that displayed a tear on the side of his breeches, Philip obliged—“assisted” by the footman who plucked the vase from Mrs. Nicholson with one hand and shoved Philip with the other.

“Such sweet sorrow!” Philip’s shout from the front hall was followed by the sound of the door closing shut.

A whistling from the street preceded a repeat of his “A maiden, a lass,” that took what he had begun much further. When he sang of “entering the temple of Venus,” Mrs. Nicholson covered her ears. Hurried steps in the hall led to the door opening and the footman barreling into the street, shooing Philip as if he was a stray tomcat.

An awkward silence descended on the room, and then, all at once, gossip about Philip burst forth from every corner of the parlor.

Shades of his father . . .

Two simultaneously I heard . . .

Grades well above . . .

No matter, my temple may just have an open door . . .

Tittering all around, drowning out Philip’s singing and the footman’s admonishments and Theodosia’s ability to think. Or participate. How this lot would love nothing more than for her to layer kindling atop their idle talk pitting father against father. War hero against war hero. Friend against enemy. She could no more engage than she could stay silent. Either action would incite unwanted gossip. All she could do was leave.

“My apologies. The heat.” Theodosia placed a hand to her chest and stood as she exaggerated her excuse. “So unusual for the month of May, isn’t it?”

Despite Caty’s pleading look, Theodosia thanked Mrs. Nicholson and exited into the front hall. She accepted her shawl and lace cap from the sweaty footman as he frantically returned to his post. She passed through the open door, wrapped her hand around the railing, and filled her lungs on the front steps of the three-story townhome.

The air outside may have been laden with the odor of manure and rotting fruit, but Theodosia breathed it in for it smelled of freedom.

Being a sought-after neighborhood toward the lower tip of the city, the Nicholsons’ street bustled with men and women, carriages and horses, and the stray pig, its pink snout consuming the detritus of city life. She glanced up and down, but their coachman, Sam, would not arrive with the carriage for some time.

She strode down the stairs and into the street, knowing what the women on the opposite side of the window would think if they set sight upon her. Their judgment lacked subtlety as much as self-respect. Gossip-hungry, dithering fools who refused to see themselves as capable in thought as their husbands and brothers and fathers—many even delighting in their ignorance.

Perhaps it was part rebellion, but Theodosia began the walk herself, relishing the liberation after sitting for so long. Unlike her father, she’d never become accustomed to extended periods seated at her desk; movement in body always fueled her mind. She’d mastered the art of reading while in motion long ago.

Theodosia rounded the corner and nearly stopped short. Philip was leaning against a lamppost whose oil had yet to be lit for the evening.

Surprise wiped away the roguish grin on his face. “I admit I was expecting Lottie, but still, it’s a pleasure to see you again, Miss Theodosia.”

“Yes, likewise.” Theodosia’s response was polite but terse. Their fathers had a long history of opposing views that had reached greater and more intense depths in the preceding year.

Her father, a former Federalist, had embraced the Republican party and subsequently won the Senate seat once belonging to Philip’s grandfather. Since then, her father and Philip’s, a leader of the Federalist party, had been working against one another, vying for party control of the state legislature. Of vital importance as it was this legislature—and those having the majority in it—that would select the state’s delegates to the electoral college. Most believed it was New York State that would determine the fate of the upcoming presidential election of 1800. Which they could’ve been discussing in the salon instead of Lottie Jewell’s new fondness for oysters.

Thanks to some “boy” . . .

Theodosia clutched the cord of her reticule tighter around her wrist, letting the small bag float against the fabric of her gown as she issued a curt nod to Philip and continued on her way.

Philip fell into staggered step beside her. “Tell me, how were you able to pull yourself away from the salon at the exact moment it was getting good?”

“Unless you have mastered the art of being in two places simultaneously, this is a conclusion you make how?” Theodosia asked without a pause in her stride.

“Because I am confident those dear ladies finally have a topic worth discussing.”

“Is that your aim in life, then, to be gossip fodder?”

“I’ve no aim, Miss Theodosia.”

“That much is clear.” Her quip had more of an edge than she’d intended, and a silence took over. She expected at each corner he would make his goodbyes, and yet he remained. As the two continued west, the city streets gave way to more rural surroundings with increasingly wider and longer spans of green grass and rolling hills. The stench that came from too many horses and people in too small a space gave way to the delicate scent of apple blossoms and the earthiness of hardy oak trees.

She’d traveled to and from the city on her own before, though her father disliked it. Yet in this she wondered which he would have more of an aversion to: her unescorted walk or her escort being Philip.

“Would you care to offer a critique?” Philip finally said.

“You should wear a coat. And discover a comb.”

Philip laughed, a full, round sound that sprang forth with such genuine pleasure that Theodosia felt her own cheeks lift.

“Sound advice,” he said. “But in this instance I was speaking of my poem.”

“Your poem? You mean your recitation?”

“No, I mean the poem, my poem.”

“You’re saying you came up with that on the spot?”

Philip cocked his head. “Well, if I am to be entirely truthful—”

“Aha, I knew it wasn’t yours.”

“And here we’ve arrived at your aim.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Being right. I remember that about you. You always have to be right. Or think you are.”

“It’s not a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of fact.” Her lips dropped all vestiges of that smile he’d almost engendered. “The better one is educated, the more they are right.”

“A knowledge of books cannot replace a knowledge of life. Not that anyone with their wits about them would want it to.”

“And you would know much of the latter and less of the former, is that so?”

Philip shrugged. “If the rumors are to be believed.”

“And what are those rumors?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I don’t participate in gossip.”

“A shame. Happens to be a tremendous amount of fun.”

Theodosia felt a headache coming on. “Can we return to the poem? Whose is it?”

“I’ve said. It’s mine. The truth part is that I didn’t come up with it on the spot. Not all of it, at least. I’ve been working on it for some time.”

“You write poetry? Do you not study at Columbia College?”

“I thought you didn’t participate in gossip.”

“The attending of an institution is fact, not gossip. And I would think Columbia College would require a work ethic that would preclude writing poetry.”

“But you don’t know, do you?”

Because women cannot attend. Yet.

“If you could attend,” Philip continued, “you’d discover college has pursuits both in and outside of the classroom entirely worth pursuing. If your father would allow it, of course.”

“And what do you know of my father?”

“As much as you know about mine, I suspect. They’re both heroes of war. They understand how important it is to know your enemy.”

“They aren’t enemies. They just disagree, because your father is wrong.”

“Probably.”

Theodosia halted. “Probably? Do you not defend your own family?”

“My father is old enough to defend himself. And wipe his own nose and arse. But I do listen to rumors, and it seems the same cannot be said of yours.”

“Philip Hamilton, you insult us both and embarrass yourself.”

“And you, Miss Theodosia Burr, do not deny it. Your father has always been too dependent on you. How disappointing that the same appears to be true in reverse.”

Anger propelled her forward, but she stayed true to the etiquette Philip lacked and managed a “Good day, Mr. Hamilton.”

“An escort doesn’t abandon his duties before seeing them through to completion.”

“I doubt you have the disposition to complete anything but the emptying of a pint of ale. This is far enough. You’re not behaving like a gentleman—”

“Thankfully. Gentlemen are so dull. Truly, where’s the girl I knew who once on a dare locked a pig in the school outhouse and nearly got Tommy McIntyre’s bum bitten off?”

“She grew up.” After a tongue-lashing from Papa that stung worse than any switch could have. “Something you might try.”

“Not if it means being a snobbish bore.”

“I should instead be an aimless drunk, seeking pleasure in the skirts of young girls whose only thoughts are the ones they’re told to have?”

“Is there an actual contest between those choices?”

“You’re a disgrace to your father, Mr. Hamilton.”

“Better than being a puppet.”

Theodosia’s arms flew out and she shoved him. “You are . . . a . . . rapscallion scoundrel!”

That laughter once again, and this time, Theodosia’s lips pursed, and she bit her tongue before she let loose the vent boiling up inside.

With thundering footfalls, she marched away from him, toward the plank set over the ditch in the marshes of Lispenard’s Meadows that would take her to the footpath and then home.

“If only one could grab ahold, what a tale could be told!” Philip shouted after her.

Theodosia clenched her fists until her nails dug into her skin. Her feet settled into the familiar gravel and she thanked every stone and every pebble that would lead her home. Inexplicably, with her next step, she found herself pausing to look back. He stood, facing her, with an enormous grin on his smug face.

His smug, infuriating face.

His smug, infuriatingly pleasing face.

“This is why I despise salons,” she muttered under her breath.