Page 50 of Dalliances & Devotion (The Truitts 2)

Of all the things that could’ve popped out of Armstrong’s mouth, that was the last one he would’ve expected. David blinked and pinched himself to make sure he was awake. “Sir?” He rubbed his eyes before reaching and slipping back on his spectacles. “But...”

“We had a bargain, you see.” Armstrong inhaled, before leaning over and fiddling with some items on a table. Minutes later the glimmer of a lantern illuminated his face. “I was rather desperate. The farm, my family’s legacy, was mortgaged to the hilt. Lands had gone fallow during my time in the military and my pension wasn’t enough. And back then, I wasn’t in any shape to handle the matter, handle the responsibility.”

David wrinkled his nose. Where was Armstrong going with this?

Armstrong grimaced. “After the war, after I returned, and there were no more battles, no more action, no more bodies, no more energy...” A shadow crossed the major’s face and a haunted look came into his eye.

David’s breath stopped in his throat as a faint murmur in the back of his brain grew in volume, the same way it always did when it was too quiet and he had too little to do, when he hadn’t worn his body down enough at work. The gunfire, the horses, the grunts, and the screams. The sounds always came first, before the smells and the flashes of vision.

“I couldn’t move. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t do anything. And I most certainly could not sleep.” He shook his head and tilted his chin in David’s direction. “I’m sure you know how that is.”

All too well. “I do.”

Armstrong rested his head in his hands for a moment. “Who do you see, Zisskind?” Even in the faint glow, the fact the older man’s eyes were rimmed in red was unmistakable. “I see John Riverton, my best friend from West Point. He took a shot in the head at Manassas. We were in the left flank and...” Armstrong sighed. “Anyway, I wandered for a few years and was in Philadelphia spending time with Rittenhouse. He was your lieutenant after Hazlett, wasn’t he?”

David could only nod as his mind shook and stuttered. Charles Hazlett. Shot the same day as Simon. Their superior but barely older than either of them. Like Armstrong and Benjamin Rittenhouse. And the smell was back—wet grass and woods and gunpowder. Pretty soon the cries would start.

With all his might, David gripped onto Armstrong’s voice, onto the story, so he didn’t get dragged back there.

“Thad invited us to some party at one of his family’s properties, a house on Delancey Street, a brick beast. His parents were in England and he and Belle were about to join them. Some sort of send-off. It was Ben who pointed Amalia out to me, gave me the bit of gossip regarding her recent divorce. I think. Or maybe it was Thad himself.”

The older man tutted with his tongue. “Anyway, that’s not really important. She was important. Many women would’ve retreated from society or at least acted lost and abashed, but no, not Amalia. Head high, she greeted every guest and danced with whomever requested, old, young, eligible or not, treating everyone with the same warmth, as if nothing had happened to her, as if her life hadn’t been torn asunder.”

Sometimes I like to think of my hair and makeup as armor. I wake each morning battling a million whispers about mistakes I’ve made. With enough powder and polish, I can ignore it, or at least force them to talk about something else.

David’s heart ached. He’d been invited to that party. He’d been invited to dozens of Truitt parties in Philadelphia over the years. Thad always sought him out and he’d always said “no.” If he’d only said “yes.” Regret flared in him. He pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing himself back into the conversation. “And you wanted that?”

“No.” The major shook his head. “I mean I wanted her courage, I wanted to bottle it and spray it on—make myself new again—make it all stop.” Armstrong’s chest heaved. “But she couldn’t give me that. Instead, she listened to my problems and offered a solution.”

“What?” David almost fell on the floor. Not at all what he expected.

“You see...” Armstrong adjusted himself. “Amalia needed money too. Which is rather ironic as her family is in the banking business. But her parents were indisposed and they control the family finances and no bank would give a single woman a loan.”

He gasped. “She married you for money?”

“Technically, she married me to get both of us money.” Armstrong gave a hollow chuckle into the darkness. “We obtained a loan, as a couple, because of her parents’ reputation. It paid off the old mortgage and was enough to save the poor woman.”

He frowned. “What woman?”

“The one that her charity was going to help.” A creak rang out as Armstrong turned on his side. “You know about her charity, don’t you?”

“I thought I did, but I’m beginning to believe otherwise.” His mind raced, turning over all the information he had.

Another deep, rumbling laugh. “That can happen. She speaks rather quickly and her mind works in unusual ways. Not in straight lines.” Armstrong cracked his knuckles. “Anyway, her charity: it funds divorces. Or more, gets women out of troublesome marital situations.”

David froze. That’s what Amalia had been doing all these years? Helping people...like his mother? That’s where the money was going, what her column and probably a great deal of her allowance were keeping afloat. Why she needed Ethan. He wrinkled his nose. Why weren’t her parents helping?

“That can be expensive,” was all he managed to say.

“Very much so.” Armstrong sighed again. “And, for some reason, she’s not particularly good at asking for assistance from her family, even when they’re around. But back then, it was, well, an emergency. The woman was pregnant and the husband was going to have her declared incompetent and those places, those asylums...as someone who’s often only a hair away from being trapped in one myself, I can tell you, they are not places for pregnant women. It was a mess.”

“An expensive mess,” David muttered. He shivered a little. Who could be that evil? What sort of husband? Even his father hadn’t done something like that.

“Quite. But Amalia succeeded. Got the funds and we milled around for long enough that our marriage couldn’t be a sham and so her parents would pay out the loan as part of the divorce settlement. So everyone got what they needed.” The older man paused. “At quite a personal cost to Amalia.”

“She was miserable here, wasn’t she?” He didn’t really have to ask.

“Definitively.” Armstrong nodded. “I wish it could’ve been different. That we could’ve been suited as something more than friends. But we weren’t.”

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