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Synopsis
Perfect for fans of Sherry Thomas and Deanna Raybourn, taking us from the city’s gilded mansions to its meanest streets, Mollie Ann Cox’s debut historical mystery transports readers to center stage in a time of grave political danger.
New York, 1804. America’s beloved Alexander Hamilton lies dead after a duel with Aaron Burr. Meanwhile, Eliza Hamilton’s eighteen-year-old son, Alexander Jr., was seen fighting with a man in a tavern the night before his father’s duel and quickly comes under suspicion for murder when the man turns up dead.
Eliza searches for ways to clear her son’s name, even as she is grieving, but as she combs through her late husband’s papers, she finds evidence of a plot to steal money from the government during his tenure as secretary of state. Hamilton was accused of stealing that money, and it was a scandal that almost broke the family—but is Eliza now holding proof of Alexander’s innocence?
Deep in debt and despair, with eight children to support, Eliza turns to selling her handmade lace—and is drawn into a mysterious network of widow lacemakers who are intimately connected to New York’s high-society families. They know their dead husbands’ secrets—and soon, Eliza begins to piece together the truth.
There’s a dark plot connected with the duel, as one by one, witnesses to the bout are being killed. Now, Eliza must not only clear her husband’s and son’s names but keep herself out of the killer’s sights.
Release date: December 12, 2023
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Print pages: 320
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The Lace Widow
Mollie Ann Cox
New York City, 1804
Eliza Hamilton focused on the milky-gray pigeons circling Trinity Church’s spire. She strained for a good view from the carriage window as her sons William and John slumped onto their sister, Angel, snoring lightly against her. Now, sweaty, spent, and rumpled, the children had behaved well through the entire ordeal of a day.
The birds flew downward to the graveyard. Eliza twisted around to watch the spire until it disappeared from her view, as if somehow she’d glimpse her husband—now dead for ten days. As if by her staring hard enough, he’d rise from the ground, wrap his arms around her with his familiar warmth and comfort, and tell her the duel and his murder were the worst kind of jest.
Eliza’s throat tightened. She swallowed hard, but a sob escaped. Angel sat forward and patted her lap. Hot tears sprang and Eliza twisted her mouth, trying to hold it in.
Her bones ached with each bump the carriage wheels hit along Wall Street, heading toward Bloomingdale Road along the North River and their Harlem home, the Grange. Away from the noise, crowds, and smells of the city, Eliza and Hamilton had found respite at last at their uptown home. She’d hated to leave their little paradise, but her business was timely: justice for Aaron Burr must be swift.
Angel slid forward on the seat. “Mama, why did the lady talk about Papa like that?”
Why, indeed? Eliza shuddered. How could she explain this to her daughter? At just nineteen, Angel, named after her Aunt Angelica, was an innocent. Besides, with the death of her older brother Philip, two years ago, Angel had suffered a nervous collapse. She’d not recovered. Now, with the loss of her father, Eliza worried Angel would never live a normal life. Eliza had considered leaving her daughter at home for the day, but it unsettled her not to have Angel nearby. Only Eliza could calm her daughter’s spells.
Eliza contemplated her words, trying to keep an even and optimistic tone. “I don’t know. But we changed her position, and that’s the important thing, my dear. We’ve done everything we can to see that New York society shuns Aaron Burr.”
“But how could Lady Collins not have realized Burr murdered our father?” Angel wiped her brow with the back of her sleeve.
Murder. Eliza drew inward, crumpling into herself, almost as if she’d been punched. There she wanted to remain, but as she looked at her young sons asleep and her daughter’s emphatic face, she searched her mind for the right words.
“I don’t know, but we must make them all realize. We will find justice for his death. If it’s the last thing I do. We’ll continue to campaign against Burr. We can’t trust our fledgling judicial system. If left to his own devices, he’ll be a free man. We can’t have that.” If anybody was on the fence about Burr’s guilt and what his act had wrought for the Hamilton family, they no longer would be by the end of Eliza’s visits. But, despite the tableau they’d presented, Eliza in widow’s weeds with her children hand in hand, Lady Collins had nothing kind to say about their dear Hamilton. She’d gone on about the “nature of duels” and the “foolishness of him not firing,” even though one should never speak ill of the dead. By the end of their visit, she’d agreed that Burr must go to prison and be taken out of polite society. She also agreed that as his widow, Eliza Hamilton could mourn as she wished.
“As to the women ‘guardians’ of mourning traditions with their tongues wagging, I’ve more important matters to tend. I don’t like their prying natures. If anybody should dare to think you didn’t love your husband because you’re not observing the strictest of the traditions, then why should you care about them?” Lady Collins’s voice had lifted.
Eliza agreed. She’d not wallow in her mourning when she had work to do. They cut her husband down, but they would not cut his legacy short. She promised him. After everything he’d done in helping to forge this new country—all the sleepless nights, the sore, callused, ink-stained fingers from his countless hours of writing, and much personal turmoil—she’d see he’d be remembered well. Her husband had not been perfect. This she grasped more than anyone. Certainly more so than the brash Lady Collins. But what man or woman could lay claim to perfection?
The carriage swayed back and forth, rattling, then yanked sideways. It came to a jolting halt, throwing them left. “What’s going on?” Angel clutched little William and John, now awake. “Mama? Are we being robbed?”
The boys squealed and clung closer to the weathered leather seats.
Eliza righted herself and the children. “Hush. It’ll be alright.” There’d been a string of robberies along the North River, but none happened in broad daylight. The carriage lifted and creaked as Davey McNally, their driver, dismounted. He quieted the startled horses, then opened the door.
“I’m sorry, m’lady. Trouble up ahead. It’ll resolve soon enough, I should think.” He stood, thick and sturdy as an oak, his fiery red beard glowing in the sun.
“What is it?” She poked her head out the door, straining to see through the gathering crowd.
“Nothing that a fine lady should fret about.” He held his hands up as if to stop her from exiting.
“Nonsense, man. I’ve dressed soldier’s wounds, been at the bloody bedsides of both my son and husband—and birthed nine children.” Her eyes met his as her jaw tightened. “Help me out of this carriage or step aside.”
“I canna let ye.” He veered more into his Irish homeland accent as he crossed his arms.
Eliza ignored him, kicked down the step, moved him aside, and made her way onto the dusty street. She swallowed a mouthful of dust and dirt, coughing then slipping her lavender-scented handkerchief out of her bodice to cover her mouth and nose. Several carriages sat askew and off to the side of the cobble street. A crowd of people gathered close to the banks of the river. Constables arrived, driving a carriage with a body wagon behind, horse clomping and wagon rattling.
“Step aside,” one of the constables yelled as he dismounted. Throngs of people moved in all directions. Gray, brown, and blue skirts and jackets danced in front of Eliza.
Eliza tramped through the parting crowd, careful not to catch her boot heel on a cobblestone. A swollen body lay on the ground in front of them. Hair the color of Hamilton’s plastered what must be a cheek. For a split second, Eliza’s mind slipped back to her husband’s deathbed a mere eleven days ago, and in her mind’s eye she glimpsed Hamilton there instead of the body, swollen, blue, tangled in weeds and tattered clothes. The mind and memory were strange. Shaking, she squinted her eyes against the sun. Eliza drew in the air as sick threatened to creep up her throat. She swallowed to avoid retching on the street. She tugged at the collar of her itchy mourning dress. Air. She needed more air. The sweltering heat offered nothing for her lungs.
Several men lifted the dripping body. Eliza shifted her gaze away. The man was pulled away from the riverbank. Quite dead. She gnawed the interior of her mouth to stop from gasping, clutching her stomach to ward away the sick. What a horrible end for him—whoever he was.
As the men carried the body by her, she glimpsed the face. A pulse of recognition tormented Eliza as she studied his bloated face. Yes—he was a friend of her husband’s, who’d been with him during the duel. A man who’d tried to help him, who carried his body to the boat that sailed to Manhattan and stood vigil outside the house where he died. John Van Der Gloss. She tamped down the scream caught in her throat as she caught pieces of conversation from the crowd around her.
“That’s no accident.”
“Look at the gash across his neck. Good Lord.”
“One of the duel witnesses.”
Everybody understood which duel. It was the only duel on the minds of New Yorkers. Eliza froze, unable to move. Heat rushed through her. Was this related to the duel? Why were these men discussing the duel now?
“Mrs. General Hamilton,” Davey said, loud enough for the noisy men in the crowd to turn their heads toward her. She glared at them as she lifted her chin. The men lowered their eyes and one slithered away.
Their words sent her pulse racing. John had witnessed the duel. He’d helped her husband. She searched her mind. She’d an inkling there was more to the duel than what she knew—what anybody knew. John understood the duel, probably more than Eliza herself. Maybe someone killed him for that reason. If that was the case, other witnesses might be harmed as well. Waves of panic jabbed at her.
She recalled the day before the duel. Hamilton had paced in their bedroom. “If anything happens to me, I want you to take the children and go to your father.”
“Why are you talking like this?” Eliza’s hair had pricked up on her neck.
He turned to her and cupped her hands in his. His blue eyes filled with concern and fear. “Eliza, please!”
“This is our home. Why go to my father and leave this place?”
He brought her hands to his lips. “Eliza, you know I don’t like to worry you. But there have been threats. Maybe nothing more than idle ones. We simply don’t know.”
“Threats?” Eliza pulled away from him. “What threats? Alexander?”
“I can’t get into it right now and need to go. I’m late for a meeting. We’ll talk about this later. I’ll tell you everything, just not now.”
“Don’t walk out that door, Alexander Hamilton,” she said.
He turned and grimaced. “Later, I promise, my love. We need to talk about this. Just please promise that if something happens to me, you will get our children to safety.”
Now, as Eliza remembered the day, and Hamilton’s demeanor, she chilled. She wondered if this incident was connected to what her husband had warned her of. Where her children were concerned, she couldn’t take any chances. This blow struck too close to home. She’d ready the entire family for her father’s home in Albany tomorrow.
In the meantime, the constables heaved the body into a wagon. The driver hitched himself to the driver’s seat and drove off with the bloated body of John Van Der Gloss jiggling behind him.
“Mrs. General Hamilton.” Davey held up his arm. “May I take you back to the carriage?”
“His poor wife.” She willed away a tear, swallowed the creeping pain in her throat, and grabbed Davey’s arm to steady herself. Lightheaded, she pulled at the top of her dress. At only forty-seven, Eliza was ill-prepared to wear widow’s weeds. It didn’t suit her. And she was aware that Mrs. Rose Van Der Gloss was much younger than herself. Eliza’s heart broke for her. Even though she didn’t know her well, they’d both lost their husbands. Eliza would pray for her.
“What do you know of this?” she asked Davey as he prepared to shut the carriage door.
“Only as much as you. I just drove by.”
She refrained from poking him in the chest. “That’s not what I mean. I mean the same as what that man said. That it wasn’t an accident, it may have had something to do with …”
“Rumors, my lady. Nothing more than flapping tongues.” His eyes sparked with warmth.
But a knot formed in her stomach. It was an all-too-familiar knot. Being the wife of Alexander Hamilton meant ignoring rumors and gossip if she were to find any kind of contentment. Of course, being his wife meant many other things. Those things for which she now ached. Just to have him by her side. To fall asleep once more to the rhythm of his breath.
Eliza had assumed marriage to Hamilton would be an exciting prospect. No young bride could see into the future, but on Eliza’s wedding day, surrounded by her family at their home, she felt the fear of uncertainty as much as excitement. He was a man of little means, but she, her father, and a bevy of countrymen believed in his political brilliance. To be the bride of such a bright and bold man was heady. She had often asked herself if she was up to the task. The only thing she didn’t question was how much she loved him. She vowed to do her best as his wife and prayed it would suffice.
And in truth, it was the love between them that saved them time and time again. Through the cold and lonely nights during the war, the months of anguish forming a new government, the ever-constant rumors, infidelity, and the death of their son Philip. Even though she’d been a practical young woman, her ideas of love and romance were those of an innocent girl. She’d struggled to think clearly, her heart racing wildly with every glance from Hamilton. Eliza’s view of their love had become tempered. Of course, there had still been moments of romance—but the relationship grew deeper, filled with ordinary quiet moments as well as countless quarrels. Through it all, she’d never doubted his love for her and for their children.
His loss pierced her soul. But each time she slipped into a dark, drifting state, her children pulled her back. They needed her.
“Traffic is moving. We best be going.” Davey shut the creaky door and muttered to the horses. The carriage dipped with his weight as he lifted himself to the driver’s seat.
Eliza turned back to the three of her children accompanying her. Had she done right in bringing them along? She and Hamilton both agreed that it was pointless to shield them from reality. But, oh, how she wished otherwise. Sometimes she longed to take them to a remote island or mountain, where they could run free and grow unhampered by people knowing their famous father. But she could not. Her jaw clenched. The best thing was arming them with knowledge. Your father was a great man, but he was also a good man. He loved this country, and he loved you.Preserving his legacy was not just important for the country, it was vital for their children.
Angel raised her head from her nail-biting. “Are you well, Mama? You are quite pale.”
Foreboding swept through Eliza’s body, and bone thick weariness threatened at her edges. A tug of fear. A premonition of danger. “I’m fine, my dear.”
And she would be.
“That’s no accident.” “One of the duel’s witnesses.” Eliza balled her hands into fists, vowing that she would not sink into mourning and fade away, like a forgotten belle. She ignored the impulse to take to her bed, to follow her husband into the grave, or simply to sob until raw. She’d already done that last week. She was the wife of a great man, the daughter of another, and was determined to conduct herself in such a manner.
After the two-hour carriage ride home, Eliza craved nothing more than to change out of her heavy clothes and sit in the garden. Since her oldest son’s death in a duel two years ago, she and Hamilton had found refuge there among the tulips, hyacinths, and lilies. He often teased her about her farming roots and how much knowledge she had retained from her youth about planting, herbal remedies, and such.
“I thought I was marrying an astute general’s daughter, not a farm girl,” he’d said.
“Why can’t a woman be both?”
He’d laughed. “A woman, especially Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, can be all that and more.”
She was all that and more. Even though she left behind her barefoot childhood on the farm and in the woods for the city, as she grew into adulthood she sometimes longed for the days of freedom to explore a stream, climb a tree, or track deer through the woods.
She’d learned much through formal schooling, but excelled at gardening, brewing herbal remedies, and handcrafting—whether embroidery, lacemaking, or beading wampum, as she learned to do from the Iroquois. When Eliza was a child, the local tribe were more than her friends; they were family. One night, during a political trip with her father, Eliza’s friend Two-Kettles-Together braided her hair in two plaits like the Iroquois girls wore and led her through an adoption ceremony. She was welcomed into the tribe as “One-of-Us.”
She showed Two-Kettles-Together how to embroider, which she picked up quickly as it was so similar to the stitching of wampum beads. They busied themselves during rainy days with such activities. Both girls loved to ride horses and chase one another in the forest.
Eliza witnessed another way of living after taking part in ceremonies. She learned much from Two-Kettles-Together, but what she loved the most was dancing. Later, when she shared the dances with her sisters and mother, they squealed in reaction to the coarse movements. Eliza had merely shrugged and laughed.
But her childhood neighborhood friend, Maggie, loved the dances and the stories she brought home from her adventures with her father. The two girls fashioned drums from hatboxes and danced until they couldn’t move.
“It’s so much fun,” Maggie had said, breathless. “So much easier than dancing with a partner.”
Eliza agreed. At thirteen, both girls struggled to learn the formal dances they’d be required to do in a few years as part of New York society.
Dancing aside, Two-Kettles-Together had taught Eliza more useful things than any of her formal schoolteachers—things like using willow bark to help with pain, predicting an oncoming storm by watching cloud patterns, and identifying which animals were nearby from observing their scat.
Eliza didn’t know what happened to Two-Kettles-Together, as the older she grew Eliza was discouraged from traveling with her father. Instead, she was sent to the city for another kind of education. But when she thought of Two-Kettles-Together, her heart warmed.
Eliza smiled, remembering, but as Davey pulled up to the front door, her smile faded. She had visitors.
“Shall I pull around back, m’lady?”
She’d been shirking her duty as the grieving widow of the great Alexander Hamilton. Throngs of people wanted to express their condolences and sense of loss. Exhausted from a day of visits, she wanted to retreat and rest, but guilt picked at her. She sighed. “I’ll be fine here, but please take the children around to the back.”
On entering her house, Eliza gasped to see her son, Alexander Jr., who’d only left to go back to school yesterday. As she walked farther into the parlor, he stood, as did the man next to him.
“Mother.” Alexander Jr. greeted her with a stiff embrace and a kiss on her cheek. A tingle traveled up her spine. Something was wrong. What was he doing here?
“Madam, I’m truly sorry to bother you at a—” the man started to say when Angelica Schuyler Church, Eliza’s sister, stepped into the room, placing herself between Eliza and the stranger. Angelica’s jaw twitched and her complexion flushed the same as it had the time one of their brothers had teased Eliza until she cried.
Whatever was happening was not good. Eliza searched Alexander’s face for answers.
“Please, let’s sit down.” Angelica led Eliza to the settee in the sitting room with the others. Angelica had been staying with Eliza since Hamilton died, taking care of countless details. Eliza sat on the side of the settee.
“What is it?” Her eyes scanned her son, her sister, and the strange man standing at the edge of the room, with his hands held behind his back, shifting his weight.
“Mother, I—”
Angelica held up her hand. “A young man escorted home by a constable needs to sit quietly.” Alexander slumped over in his chair.
“Constable?” Eliza clutched her breast.
“Aye, he was in a brawl in the wee hours of the morning.” Angelica patted Eliza’s hand. “As if you don’t have enough heartache, dear sister.”
The constable stepped forward. “With all due respect, Mrs. Church, ’twas a good bit more than a brawl. And the gentleman he fought with turned up dead today.”
Eliza gasped, searching for words.
“Of course he didn’t take the man’s life. This is absurd!” Angelica hissed.
Even though Eliza didn’t think her son capable of killing a man, she appreciated that his temperament resembled his father’s. And it also worried her. “What happened?”
Alexander lifted his chin, straightened his shoulders, and looked at his mother before glancing away. “I had a bit too much drink and overheard him talking. I asked him about what he said and he, uh, overreacted. Said he should whip me for my impertinence.”
Eliza eyed the constable, then looked back at her son. Call it mother’s intuition, or years of being the wife of Alexander Hamilton, but Eliza only half believed this story. There had to be more to this. “What did he say that upset you?”
“That’s not important,” the constable stated, his square jaw lifting as he pursed his lips. “What’s important is the young man attacked him. Beat him to a pulp.”
“I swear I didn’t. I only hit him once, he went down, and I ran. That’s the last I saw of him. I promise.” Wisps of his red curls stuck to his sweaty forehead. Eliza refrained from reaching out to brush them away.
“But we have witnesses who claim otherwise,” the constable said in a quiet voice, with one eyebrow lifted, as if waiting for a reaction.
“What witnesses? A bunch of drunks in a tavern?” Angelica crossed her arms and her dress sleeves twisted.
The constable straightened his coat as his face hardened.
Eliza swallowed. “I need to speak to my son alone. Constable? Angelica? If you will excuse us.”
Angelica’s jaw twitched again, but she stood gracefully and escorted the constable out of the room, ...
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