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 wea- riness 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 mourn- ing 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.