Work Text:
The first thing that strikes him is that she’s beautiful.
More so than any other woman he has laid eyes upon before. She lingers at the edge of the ball, a fan in front of her face to hide a wise coquettish smile, as she seems to survey the company surrounding them. In once glance, he can compose poems about her in his head, his fingers itching for parchment and a quill so that he might write down his every thought about her.
How is every other eye is not transfixed on her beauty seems unexplainable.
“You are staring,” his sister whispers, from her place by his side. Philip tears his gaze away from the goddess in the corner, to instead give Angie a stern and vaguely scandalized look. “Do not worry, certainly, she is too occupied to notice.”
He should rebuke Angie’s implications, but the words don’t come. Instead he asks, “What is her name?”
“That, my darling brother, is Miss Theodosia Burr. The daughter of father’s greatest enemy. The man who took grandfather’s senate seat away.”
Burr. Yes, Philip knows that name. Has heard the name often enough spoken by his father in angry or simply exasperated tones. Mother had always implied that they were old friends who simply disagreed on political matters, though father would insist otherwise.
In either case, his chances with the woman that looked as though she could be Aphrodite herself, seemed slimmer in an instant.
“Ah, alas.”
---
Philip had thought she would leave his mind.
What with his studies, graduation nearing, and the obvious obstacles that would prevent any hope at courtship – sitting in his room late at night writing poems to the beauty of Theodosia Burr felt almost foolish.
A waste of time, was what his friends had classified it as, when they made an attempt to draw him out of his room for the night and down to a bar. Drinks could soothe any heartache, but this was not a heartache.
No it was, divine inspiration.
There’s a sketch along the edge of the parchment, though he’s never been an artist. He draws her figure from memory from time to time, the soft smile, the dark hair and tanned skin that had seemed to shine under the candlelight. His sketches are never a true likeness.
He crafts letters to her from time to time, elegant prose that will never reach the hand of the lady to whom the words ought to belong.
Each letter is signed the same way: Yours, Philip Hamilton.
---
It feels as though it is something akin to fate, when he by chance finds her in the park. For a second he thinks that he is mistaken, certainly, it cannot be the same woman who stole his heart months ago reappeared there before him.
But it is.
Against all better judgement, he introduces himself, smiles in the way he knows will win the attention of ladies, and begs the honor of making her acquaintance.
It is only after he says his name, that a true smile seems to find its way onto her face. The sight is more beautiful than anything he could have ever imagined.
“Philip Hamilton.” He commits to memory the way she says his name. “Any relation to our former Secretary of State?”
“Yes, he is my father.”
Theodosia nods at that. “I thought so.”
“I hope that you will not judge me preemptively because of this.”
Surely though she has. Any moment now, he will be dismissed, she will continue to walk the park with her friends and he will be left with nothing but this moment to remember her by. Perhaps they will meet at another ball, if he is so lucky, he may even request a single dance with her.
“My father warning me to stay away from Hamilton’s. From what I have heard you are nothing but trouble.”
It’s not a direct refusal. No, her eyes are lit up with mirth, and for a second it feels like an opportunity.
“I hope you will not listen to him, but instead allow me an opportunity to prove myself to you?”
---
Theodosia is not a poet. Her prose is stilted, but direct, each word written as though to convey a purpose. A purpose so intimate that he dare not share her letters with any other set of eyes.
She does not write to him of love or fondness, not like his letters to her which are rife with flowery language, with sweet implication and confessions of her soul. Instead she write him of facts, she professes a knowledge far greater than any other woman he’s met. Debates political theory with him in one letter, remarks upon classical figures in another.
When his father catches him reading one of the letters on a rare evening home, a smile on his face, the words spill out from him.
“I am in love,” he explains. “I do not know for certain if she feels the same, but I know the beating of my own heart can only mean one thing.”
“Then you should tell her,” his father advises. “With all haste.”
“If only it were that easy, pops.”
“Why is it not? I have never known you to hesitate.”
A lack of impulse control ran in the family. He knew this, just as their pride surely did.
“Her father will not give his blessing of that much I am certain.”
“Have you done something to offend him?”
“No you have,” Philip explains, with a laughing grin. “You see the woman who has stolen my heart, is Miss Theodosia Burr.”
For a second his father stares at him, as though he must have heard wrong. There’s a curious look on his face, a mix between confusion and disgust. Philip wants to instantly explain, tell him how Theodosia is the brightest and kindest woman he has ever met. That her mother or nursemaids must have raised her into an incredible woman despite of her father’s political opinions, but the words do not come out properly.
In the end all his father has to say on the matter is, “You are right, he will not give you his blessing.”
---
“We could elope,” Philip says. The notion almost absurd as soon as it leaves his lips. And yet, for her he is desperate for the opportunity. “Once I finish my studies. My grandfather has a place upstate, he would let us stay there, and we could marry in secret.”
“I want my father at my wedding,” she insists.
Poised and elegant, sitting in the reading room of her home, while he paces a hole in the floor. This is why he is so fixated on her, the way she balances him out with her mere existence.
“I want my father’s approval, without it – I would never do something which might hurt him. You must understand.”
“I love you,” Philip insists.
Family be damned. If his parents had refused the match he would have ignored their advice, because Theodosia was more important than any approval he might gain, but she was not him.
That was abundantly clear.
“If we could only look beyond the unfortunate circumstances of your family-“
“Pardon me,” Theodosia says. She is angry. He can see that. Those bright and brilliant eyes are turned on him in fury. As though he is the one in the wrong here. “My family is the issue here.”
“I didn’t – that’s not what I meant, Theodosia, please let me explain.”
She doesn’t. Though that fury cools down, into a collected a calm angry.
“I would prefer if you left.”
---
Leave a letter for your next of kin.
That had been the advice his father had given, just in case the duel did not go in his favor. Though he has no wife or children to leave a letter for. He writes one for his mother, and one for his sister. One last poem for each of them.
He plans to burn them when he returns to his room, but the thought of never returning makes him pen them.
Though it is his last letter that brings him the greatest trouble. Quill pressed to the parchment so long after having written her name, that the finale r looks more similar to an n. Scrapping the letter is far too tempting, and yet he forces himself to carry through.
For the morning light brings too many uncertainties.
If you are reading this letter, then know I have gone to my grave with the memory of your love to ease my passage.
Yours eternally, Philip Hamilton.