Washington Advises~~From A MASTER PASSION

For George Washington's Birthday, thought I'd offer a snippet from A MASTER PASSION, one which takes place in Morristown, where, for two winters, the Revolutionary Army encamped.

A MASTER PASSION-read more

“Your Excellency.” Hamilton saluted and stepped close to the commander’s desk.

“Ah, Colonel Hamilton.” Confronted by that weary, wintry face, Hamilton feared the worst.

 

 If anything has gone wrong with the rum consignment, I am about to catch hell.

“I have here a letter full of conundrums from Mr. van Pelt.”

The letter was passed. Hamilton speedily scanned it, thanking his lucky stars as he did so. As irksome as this new problem was, it was apothecary supplies, not the all-important rum consignment.

Standing tall, Hamilton summarized in a few brief sentences the recent transactions he’d had with van Pelt so Washington could fully understand where the matter stood. Washington nodded his gray head, listening.

While he talked, Hamilton’s mind darted to a possible solution. This allowed him to conclude with a suggestion. He was relieved when the commander nodded.

“Try it, Colonel. Still, it’s damned hard to do business with our Congress promising—but never quite delivering—the money.”

 

Hamilton nodded emphatically. Lack of funds was the distilled essence of the Continental Army’s troubles.

“Write me a letter to this refractory gentleman. Intimate we’ll have what we need one way or another. Twist his tail a little. We’ll send it off under my signature, first thing in the morning.”

Hamilton seated himself at a nearby writing desk and found paper. Washington appeared grimmer than usual. It had been a long day, and the added strain of socializing with the patriot gentry had made it even longer.

 

If you were an ordinary man, George Washington, you would yawn and stretch, lean back in your chair and close your eyes.

Instead, the General picked up another piece of correspondence and proceeded to study it, grave as a monument. Hamilton tapped his quill on the edge of the inkwell and searched for the words to prod Mr. van Pelt.

Embers of blue and rose glowed upon the hearth, illuminating blackened logs. A winter wind, like a starving dog, snuffled around the corners of the house.

After half an hour, Hamilton had crafted a letter. While he stood at attention, anxious and weary, Washington read it over, nodded, and then signed with a flourish.

“Excellent, Colonel Hamilton. As much and as little as needs to be said. That last sentence, which could be construed as a threat, will probably elicit some action.”

A cold, slight smile of approval curved the General’s lips as he dried the ink with a sprinkle of sand

As Hamilton inwardly heaved a sigh of relief, Washington spoke again.

“One last matter, Colonel.”

Now what? Every muscle in his body begged to go upstairs, to fall into his narrow camp bed, and plummet into unconsciousness.

With precision, Washington folded the letter. He fired wax and let it drip onto the crease, setting his seal precisely. As this went on, there was silence, nothing but wind and crinkling coals. Hamilton was motionless. Washington was a ponderous thinker, and long pauses were common. What the General finally articulated, however, was neither about the commissary or the war.

“You could do far worse, you know, Colonel Hamilton.”

“Sir?”

Washington lifted his head and regarded him levelly. “Than a little winter campaigning, my boy, directed toward capturing the heart of a certain charming newcomer to our assembly.”

With alarm, Hamilton recognized amusement in those cold blue eyes. The “my boy” signaled that the usually distant Washington intended their conversation to be personal...

 

 

~~Juliet Waldron

All my Historical Novels

 

A MASTER PASSION is available @

http://www.bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-juliet/

A Master Passion, the story of Alexander & his Betsy

A Master Passion / Smashwords

A Master Passion / Barnes & Noble

Master Passion / KOBO

And please do check out these great Books We Love Writers at Sunday Snippets:

 

 

 

 

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/

(Tricia McGill)http://mizging.blogspot.com

(Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/

(Connie Vines)

 

 

"...the groveling condition of a Clerk..."

The work-a-day trials of a teen-age clerk

from A MASTER PASSION:

 

 

“You goddamned puffed-up little nobody!” The planter had Alex by the shirt.

Ordinarily, he would have defended himself, but this was an important customer, so, instead, he only twisted and ducked. The ham fist struck his back, almost knocking the breath out of him as he wrenched free.

“I’ll teach you to talk back!”

It had not been because of anything, really, but simply because the fellow was in a foul mood. He’d entered the store in a rage and passed it along in the casual fashion a man might kick a cur in the street. Mr. Cruger watched from the back, but made no move to interfere.

The customer is always right. Especially this son-of-a bitch! And Cruger’s absolute indifference to right or wrong, is the best the filthy snake can do….

At quitting time, Alexander was off down the beach. He hated his life and everyone in it.

“God help me, or even the Devil.” He spoke aloud, feeling supremely daring. “When the next war comes, I shall jump ship and run straight to it.”

There was a special place to which Alexander went whenever he wanted to be alone. It was a rough trek through a forbidding grove of twisted manchineel and then up a brush-covered headland. After a slow ledge-to-ledge descent down the cliff face, he’d reach an outcrop a mere twenty feet above high tide, but hidden from anyone above.

 

Today, all he wanted was to stretch out, to listen to the boom of the waves. He anticipated a rare moment of fantasy, one that involved sailing away, maybe to some distant war, or maybe to America to see his friend Ned Stevens...

~~ Juliet V. Waldron
http://www.julietwaldron.com
Historical novels with grit and passion

 

A MASTER PASSION

Available here:

http://www.bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-juliet/

http://amzn.com/B00V8UT9I0

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/538709

https://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/a-master-passion-the-story-of-alexander-and-elizabeth-hamilton

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-master-passion-the-story-of-alexander-and-elizabeth-hamilton-juliet-waldron/1122410105?ean=9781771456746

 

Check out these Books We Love Writers on Sunday Snippets

 

 

 

 

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/

http://mizging.blogspot.com (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines

 

THE MASTER PASSION, BOOK TWO

  Betsy travels home with a sick child, leaving her husband alone and at work for the government in Philadelphia.

 

 

 

 

It had been warm for the past few days, an unpleasant echo of the city from which she’d fled, but today those welcome cloud castles were once more on the prowl. Under the shade of an ancient apple tree red cows ruminated, flopping their tails against the flies. Betsy moved quickly, but as she passed beneath the original decrepit denizens of the orchard, with their thick trunks, a childhood memory gave her pause.

Looking up, she found that she’d come beneath the same tree she’d climbed into all those long years ago. It was scarred and had lost limbs, but it still stood, much as she remembered. She thought of the terror she’d felt imagining more Indians lurking in the woods behind the potato patch, scalping knives sharp.

Gone forever!

 

No more would brown half-brothers arrive from the forest to collect manhood presents. At Albany there were hardly any Indians anymore, the great tribes shriveled to almost nothing by war, white man's incursion and disease. Their cruelty and their kindness, their knowledge, their mystery—all vanishing from the land along with their totem brothers—the moose and the beaver, the bear and the wolf.

A gust of wind caught her attention. Aroused by the sight of black clouds west, Betsy lifted her arms to the sky. Her sleeves fell back and there was her own brown skin, green veins, the pulse and whisper of the new life she carried in her belly.

Had that love of place, the compulsion that always drove her home, come from an unknown ancestress, a woodland woman whose child some Dutch ancestor had brought home?

 

Or is just that I was born and bred here, and the food which fed me in childhood came from this earth, drunk through the roots of Papa's fields and fruit trees? This land, here by this river--it's is part of my flesh, too.

 

 

~Juliet Waldron

Read More of The Master Passion @

http://amzn.com/B00V8UT910

 

and see other historical novels and 'Biofic' @

http://bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-Juliet

 

 

 

 

 

THE MASTER PASSION ~ Betsy Schuyler

 

 

Chapter Two ~ The Pastures, Albany, NY

 

The girls had strayed too deep into the old pasture to run back to the red brick pile of their house, so they hid. Angelica grabbed little Peggy and together they crouched inside a big hole within the trunk of one of the squat, ancient fruit trees, one that Papa said had been brought as rootstock by the very first Dutch settlers.

 When they’d first spied the Indians, Betsy had been climbing to pick apples. It was too late to climb down, so she tucked long skirts over her knees and made herself into a small bundle, hugging the trunk and praying the leaves would cover her. As the party passed directly beneath her, she froze and tried not to think of the old war stories the servants told, about how Indians had killed her Uncle ’Bram—shot dead right on his Saratoga doorstep.

 These intruders were wearing buckskin trousers, homespun shirts and hats with foxtails and feathers. The European touches were a good sign, for this was the way Indians dressed when making a formal visit to Albany.

 There was a woman, too, walking very erect. Beside her marched a boy. He must have recently joined the men’s lodge, for his head was newly plucked, pale as a butchered hog on either side of the bristling strip of hair. He looked straight up, met her eyes, and then, without a word, continued on with his elders.

 Betsy knew these Indians were Mohawks, a tribe with whom her father was on good terms. Nevertheless, trained, as all frontier children were, to hide from strangers, she didn’t twitch.

 Today’s Indians must have had a claim on Papa, for they went directly to the wing of the imposing brick house which contained his study. A few minutes later, in the distance, they saw their father come out to greet them.

 Sometimes, if Chiefs arrived in rain or snow, they would be invited in to sit cross-legged in the downstairs great room with Papa. Here they dipped their dinner out of three-legged pots carried in from the kitchen. Betsy and her sisters, would slip out of their room, down the staircase, and try to get a peek through the door which led into the study wing. Here, if they were lucky, they’d see warriors sitting-crossed legged on the carpet, solemnly gazing around at the French panoramic wallpaper and up to the crystal chandelier.

 Relieved that these were only visitors, Betsy climbed down to join her sisters. They collected their dolls and walked slowly back to the house, Betsy holding Margaret’s sticky little hand. They met slaves already carrying out carpets and furs.

“Let’s sit here.” Angelica, the oldest, and always the leader, took a seat on one of the long benches along the study wing. “We can watch.”

Peggy, however, was done with outside. She wanted to go in, and began to complain. They were close to the kitchen now, and the smell coming from there made her think of the treats she could wheedle from the women there.

“I want a koekje!”

Peggy strained at Betsy’s hand and, after a little pulling, Betsy gave up and simply let her go. One of the house slaves at work there would certainly take charge of her little sister. Peggy went charging away, as fast as her short legs would carry her, toward the kitchen door.

While they watched, a pavilion arose beneath the biggest maple, and a fire was made beside that. Tables and carpets came out, and an entire joint of beef was carried from the kitchen.

 Then, a commotion began. Mama was at the center of it, although this was a surprise. Their Mama rarely lost her temper. She came out of the kitchen door, hauling Ruby, one of the slave girls, by the arm. She had a hazel switch in hand.

 “Ruby, if I set you to watch my girls, you are not to let them out of your sight!” Mama switched Ruby’s legs, and poor Ruby hopped up and down in her short skirts, shrieking.

 “Why is Mama so cross?” Angelica asked, as Mrs. Ross, their plump Scots governess, herded them away into the house and upstairs.

Something was very wrong. Mama never lost her temper!

 

* * *

 

 

Read more about Alexander Hamilton and Betsy Schuyler, their very different childhoods, their Revolutionary War courtship and their sometimes stormy marriage.

 

http://amzn.com/B00V8UT910

 

and see all my historical novels at:

 

http://bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-Juliet

 

 

 

 

 

Angel's Flight/Excerpt for Friday Free bits

 

 

 

 http://amzn.com/B0098CSH5Q

 

 

 

 

 

 

Captured by the cruel redcoat officer who has been pursuing her, Angelica

considers her options. Believing that Jack, her new husband, has just been murdered, her family threatened with death, she resolves to agree to Major Armistead's demands.  

 

 

...As she sat there, drained, a strange feeling fluttered deep in her belly. She’d felt it for the first time only a few days ago. The sensation was as if a butterfly had been released, wings tapping the walls of some secret cave.

I must talk to Harriet, or Mary McGregor. One or the other, they can tell me. In spite of what has happened to my dear mate, the egg may already be in the nest. And, if that is so, what I suspect, then I must survive. Survive any way I can!

Cruel fate has once again destroyed the man I love, but this time, perhaps, something of him, of his love, remains. A miraculous someone I can hug, and kiss.

Fumbling in the pocket, she withdrew her thimble and thread; she pulled a length of cotton through the needle. It will be stronger now, she promised herself.

What God has joined together—

Slowly, Angelica pulled the ragged edges of the tear together. She knew what her answer to George Armistead would be. She would save her family. If she had lost Jack, she would not shame his memory with cowardice.

“Chains do not hold a marriage together.” Angelica spoke aloud to the empty room, imagining Jack was there with her. She pulled cotton through the edges, neatly mending the rent. "It’s the threads-- hundreds of tiny threads--which sew people together through the years..."

~~Juliet Waldron
See all my historical novels at:

http://www.julietwaldron.com

Buy the Book:

 http://amzn.com/B0098CSH5Q

Friday Freebits ~ GENESEE

#frifreebits

"Genesee van Cortlandt," her cousin giggled. "Good Lord! What are you doing? You'll break your neck."

     The prettily rounded figure of a young Dutch woman with rosy cheeks and an enviable head of tumbling honey brown curls leaned out an open window. Close by the substantial two-storey brick house a huge tree grew, an apple tree with spreading limbs, a tree her father had been so fond of that he had put his workmen to the trouble of enduring its presence while they built the house.

     The speaker was in fashionable undress – a shift and stays covered by a crewel-stitched morning gown that had, in quieter times, come from London. Behind her a couple of well-dressed and well fed Black girls crowded, peering out the window and adding their exclamations to hers.

     "Look at Miss Jenny," one of them cried. "Just like a cat!"

     On a broad limb of the tree, a limb which had been rudely cropped in order to keep it from intersecting with the wall of the house, her long straight black hair held with a scarlet ribbon, without a cap and dressed only in a fine white muslin shift, was a slender, supple girl. For a heartbeat, she steadied herself and then proceeded on small brown bare feet along the mottled limb.

     Genesee didn't acknowledge the others. All her attention was focused on balancing. There would be a whipping descent through a lattice of branches to a bone-snapping conclusion if something went wrong.      Jenny knew what she was doing was foolhardy. Still, it was always fun to play the wild frontier woman and shock her elegant Cousin 'Nelia.

~~ From the Epic Best Historical Novel, GENESEE

http://amzn.com/B004BSH1R2

Follow the link to other Books We Love Author Friday Freebits!

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