Dear, Hamilton

Rumors Only Grow

THE PRESENT DAY/ NIGHT

After Hamilton finishes his tale, I'm left staring at him, speechless. I feel as if I remember little bits and pieces of what he's told me, but they're too hazy to make out just yet. 

"Does that help?" Hamilton asks into the dark. 

I nod, but then I think he probably can't see me nodding in the dark, so I say aloud, "Yes." I think over what he's told me and a question comes to mind. "So, I was gone for three months before I showed up again three weeks ago?"

"That's about right," Hamilton responds quietly. "One day you were here, the next you were gone."

The silence stretches thin as we sit there in that dark, empty bedroom, and my thoughts turn from my past in general to my past with Hamilton. And suddenly, all I can think about is that moment at the ball when he'd kissed me desperately before he had to leave to fight. The feel of his lips on mine before he had to pull away. 

As if he was scared that he would lose me. 

And now I want to kiss him, alone as we are in the room with all the privacy in the world. But I don't know how to initiate it. When we'd kissed earlier, we'd been in such a terrified and worried state of mind for each other that we did it unthinkingly. 

But here we are now in a dark, peaceful room, fully aware of one another. 

Gathering my courage, I turn towards him fully as I start softly, "Alexander-" 

I can see his eyes already on me, the longing so evident in them that it almost stops me short. 

"Yes?" he murmurs, drawing closer to me, our faces mere inches from each other, and I open my mouth to say something or maybe to close that gap between us, but then the door bursts open, stopping me short. 

Light spills into the room, the safe, comfortable darkness violently ripped away by the brutal, harsh light, and I whips towards the door as I jump to my feet, cheeks burning with embarrassment. I try to make out the person standing in the door through the blinding light, and I find it's Tench Tilghman. 

His eyes flash with hurt when they lock on mine, but his face quickly contorts into anger when he beholds Alexander behind me. 

"Sorry for interrupting," Tench says, but he sounds so insincere that I doubt it. "Angelica has been looking for you in a frenzy, Eliza. She was worried when you didn't show up twenty minutes ago." 

"Oh," I say lamely, my mind still a little foggy as if intoxicated from Hamilton's presence. 

Tench frowns disapprovingly at me. "Have you been in here this whole time?" he asks in a hard voice that sounds a touch too judgmental for my liking.

"Uh no, I had just finished washing off when I ran into Colonel Hamilton in the hallway," I find myself explaining, feeling dirty under Tench's scrutiny as if being with Hamilton is scandalous. 

Which it probably is considering we were caught together in a dark bedroom in a position that suggested that we maybe weren't so innocent. 

"Oh, well I'll escort you to your room," Tench suggests, opening the door wider. 

But suddenly, Hamilton is right beside me, a defiant look in his eyes as he states firmly, "I already have that handled, Tilghman, so you can go right back to Angelica and tell her Eliza's fine." 

Tench shifts his eyes between the two of us, his eyes narrowing and jaw working. "I'll tell Angelica that Eliza will be in the room in two minutes, just enough time to get there."