Alexander had seen Eliza Schuyler walk around the city every other day since arriving in New York for the first time.
"Who is that?" He had asked his first and only friend, Aaron Burr. He watched her talking with two other ladies. She was smiling in a way that showed off two beautiful dimples. His face was contorted into an expression of unbridled longing.
Aaron saw the look on Alexander's face and laughed. "I wouldn't consider them, if I were you. Those are the Schuyler sisters - Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy."
"Which one of the sisters is she?" Alexander nodded at the girl who had caught his eye. She was laughing now, oblivious to the way that she was making his heart wrench in his chest.
"That's Eliza." Aaron said. He shook his head, smiling. "Really, Alexander. You had better forget all about them. Her father is a general who owns half of New York. She's from a different world."
Alexander's shoulders slumped. He looked over his shoulder at the dock behind him. He had been working as a merchant clerk when he wasn't in school. It was the only way that he could afford to go to school at all.
With a heavy heart, he nodded. He agreed with Aaron and consigned himself to a lifetime of watching Eliza Schuyler walk around New York, never risking so much as a 'hello'. He tried to tell himself that he would be satisfied if he could only see her smile every once in a while.
He wasn't.
"Laurens said he'd kill himself if he had to hear you talk about Miss Schuyler one more time." Hercules Mulligan remarked as Alexander watched Eliza walk arm-in-arm with her older sister, Angelica.
She was wearing a blue dress, today. It made her eyes sparkle. Her hair, glossy in the sunlight, was tucked behind her ears. She stopped to greet just about everyone that she crossed paths with. Everyone seemed to love Eliza. Alexander was no exception.
Hercules rolled his eyes at the spellbound look on Alexander's face. He often hung out on the dock while Alexander worked, which meant he had plenty of time to observe his friend pining over an unattainable woman. Today, he was sprawled out on the dock, his back against a post and one leg tucked against his chest.
"Just talk to her." He said.
"You know that I cannot 'just talk to her'." Alexander grumbled, scowling at the stack of parchment in his hands. "I have no money, I have no title. I am a bastard, born in obscurity. If I wasn't arrested for simply approaching her, I believe she would flee at the sight of me."
"You're not that bad-looking." Hercules teased.
Alexander did not smile. He snorted and shook his head. "Thanks."
"Why don't you just get some respectable clothes and tell her that you're Laurens' cousin? If she thinks you're some well-to-do aristocrat, she'd have no reason to flee at the sight of you." Hercules ventured another joke.
He was joking, Alexander knew, but his eyes lit up.
"Herc, you're a genius."
"No." Hercules struggled to his feet. "I wasn't serious."
"But it would work." Alexander grinned.
"Laurens' father would kill you."
"Only if he found out." Alexander kept on grinning. His eyes shone with excitement. "He's all the way in England - one ball, and he'll be none the wiser."
"What if someone writes him, telling him that they were introduced to a nephew that he does not have?" Hercules asked, following Alexander as he stepped onto a merchant vessel to take inventory.
Alexander kept walking, scribbling notes onto the parchment without pause. "I won't draw any attention to myself. No one will even think to ask for my name."
Hercules barked out a laugh. "You're not going to draw attention to yourself? Hammie, you're fooling yourself if you really believe that."
"I don't care what any of those snobs think of me. I only want to speak with her. I've imagined it so many times…Herc. I have to speak with her." Alexander paused to look at Hercules, his mouth curving into a desperate frown. Hercules sighed and hung his head.
"You are crazy." He said.
"Yes." Alexander admitted, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards again.
"You're going to have to convince Laurens." Hercules added, obviously hoping that that would deter Alexander from enacting his fool's plan.
"I don't believe that will be a problem." Alexander responded, gleefully tallying the number of barrels of olive oil on the ship. He glanced over at Hercules before continuing his writing.
"Yeah." Hercules agreed grimly. It was his turn to frown. "I don't, either."
A/N: I'm baaaaack. This is not one of the stories I'd been planning on writing, but I wrote a few chapters of those and didn't like the result. This is the only story I liked well enough to stick with it. Hopefully, you all like it, too. I'm going to *try* to update weekly, but we all know how I am with schedules. I hope to see you next week, but if I don't...just leave me a review and yell at me. That usually works.