That Could Be Enough

By Alyssa Cole

Mercy Alston knows the best thing to do with pesky feelings like "love" and "hope": avoid them at all cost. Serving as a maid to Eliza Hamilton, and an assistant in the woman's stubborn desire to preserve her late husband's legacy, has driven that point home for Mercy—as have her own previous heartbreaks. When Andromeda Stiel shows up at Hamilton Grange for an interview in her grandfather's stead, Mercy's resolution to live a quiet, pain-free life is tested by the beautiful, flirtatious, and entirely overwhelming dressmaker.

 

Andromeda is a woman who knows what she wants and resolutely overcomes anything that tries to stop her. She's a seamstress, shopkeeper, and soon to be owner of her very own boarding house—if she doesn't get distracted by Mercy, a luminescent woman furiously trying to dim her own light. Andromeda is intrigued, and when Mercy declares that she doesn't believe in love—well, Andromeda does love a challenge.

 

They find in each other both friendship and a fierce attraction that won't be denied. Mercy begins dusting off the parts of herself she'd locked away for safekeeping, and Andromeda finds in Mercy something more fulfilling than the thrill of the chase. Neither is prepared for love, though, and both must learn to trust in the possibility that it will be enough.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seditious Sisters
• Release date: Jun 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386895121

Alyssa Cole

Alyssa Cole is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers and romance (historical, contemporary, and sci-fi). Her books have received critical acclaim from Library Journal, BuzzFeed, Kirkus, Booklist, Jezebel, Vulture, Book Riot, Entertainment Weekly, and various other outlets. When she’s not working, she can usually be found watching anime or wrangling her many pets.

Book preview

Chapter One

Harlem, 1820

Mercy shivered in the bracing morning air of her room and pulled her wrap more tightly about herself. She grumbled at the cold seeping up from the ground, then caught herself—it was better than the dank Gold Street cellar of her childhood. Perhaps her years at The Grange had made her soft at last, despite the hard work that kept her perpetually occupied.

She made her way across the small servants’ quarters, walking confidently though there was no window and the sun’s rays didn’t illuminate her path. She could find anything in the darkness of her room after ten years at The Grange. That was the benefit of a simple, orderly life: no surprises to trip her up. Everything was as it should be.

She pulled out the chair at her desk, an old wooden thing that had made its circuit through the Hamilton children and now belonged to her. When she was young and foolish, she’d imagined she’d have her own writing desk in a home filled with laughter and warmth; lofty dreams for an orphaned Negro girl scraping by in New York City. She’d been promised those things many times over, but whispers in the darkness meant nothing once exposed to the harsh light of reality. She’d gotten her desk, at the very least.

It was a reliable and lovely old thing. She spread her hand over the surface in the darkness, traced her finger over the name Philip gouged deep into the wood. Mercy had always wondered if it was his handiwork, or a child’s attempt at memorial to their brother. Perhaps it had been Angelica, who’d never recovered from the shock of his loss. These Hamiltons didn’t let go of what they’d cherished. They tended to their love like keepers of the flame, nourishing it with ridiculous hope and hoarded memories. Mercy didn’t understand them; she’d smothered her own flames, drowned them in tears and stirred the ashes until she was sure no embers remained.

She was fine now. She had a position in the home of a respected family. A room. A desk.

She’d received the desk after Mrs. Hamilton realized that Mercy could be of assistance with her interviews with, oh, just about anyone who’d ever crossed paths with Alexander Hamilton. Those damned, never-ending interviews that the widow threw so much energy into—both her own and that of everyone in her vicinity. That’s what the desk was for: the work of preserving a legacy, and not even Mrs. Hamilton’s own. Mercy sometimes wondered who Elizabeth Schuyler had been, and if she’d ever suspected that one day she would be sacrificed on the altar of her own devotion.

That was the thing no one told you: great love took more than it gave, and the greatest love could obliterate everything you’d been. It could eat up every bit of you—your past, your hopes and dreams—it was all-consuming, never satiated. Mercy’s literacy and adeptness with words had been recruited to feed that awful hunger on behalf of Mrs. Eliza Hamilton, and thus Mercy’s room had been outfitted with a desk. It was for efficiency’s sake, nothing more.

Mrs. Hamilton didn’t know about the words that had once pounded in Mercy’s heart and in her skull and forced themselves through the nib of her quill like blood welling from a wound. Mrs. Hamilton didn’t know the words had stopped, casualties of Mercy’s own great love—they had been Mercy’s sacrifice. It was all for the best, really. Those words had been dangerous.

Mercy had a brief flash of memory: paper curling into ash. Her words—her world—being consumed by flames. A smile that she had once found lovely marred by contempt.

Don’t be foolish, Mercy. You seek beauty in everything, but sometimes there is no beauty in the truth.

Mercy still dutifully wrote every evening; the words were bland and dull now, but they were her own. She didn’t know why she still indulged the urge; perhaps she retained a bit of the willfulness that had gotten her strappings for stealing books from the orphanage’s library. Perhaps she was worried she’d simply disappear if she stopped putting pen to paper.

She reached for the striker and flint, lit the melted-down nub of her candle, and slid her journal in front of her. She tapped a finger on the page to ensure the ink had dried overnight, though if she smudged her banal musings it wouldn’t be a tragic loss to the world of letters.

Awoke. Drank tea and ate a biscuit—must find new recipe for Sarah. Swept the parlor, study, and hall. Transcribed copy of E.H.’s interview with a Lieutenant Connor as requested by J.H. Sorted pack of correspondence between A.H. and C.M. ca. 1799, received from the lawyer of C.M. Walked Angelica about the grounds three times; she did not want to talk but was serene. Dusted Alexander in the foyer. Cleaned the front-facing windows and windowsills. Bathed. Yearned.

Mercy straightened in her seat, the abrupt scrape of the chair legs against the floor disturbing the morning quiet. That and the sudden skipping beat of her heart.

Yearned?

She had been exhausted the previous evening when she recorded her daily activities, but tired enough to slip and write that? It was rubbish, and she had no time for rubbish that wasn’t being sorted or disposed of, especially not on an interview day.

She dipped her quill into the inkpot and carefully scratched out the word, starting with a line beneath it and then layering upward, walling it out.

Slept, she wrote in the space after the dark bruise of ink she’d created. That word was more fitting. Accurate, succinct, and something that was allowed to her in this life.

She stood up and dressed, slowly pulling on her stays, chemise, and gown as she did every morning. She did up the buttons slowly and methodically; better to take her time than have to undo them and start again. She’d learned over the years that prudence in all things was the best course. It wasn’t exciting, but she no longer had the constitution for excitement.

She lifted her elbow toward the ceiling and lowered her head to sniff; her dress would need a wash soon. Perhaps she’d try one of the suggestions she’d seen in the Provincial Freeman. She’d been meaning to try the brown soap and borax solution on her own clothing before washing anything in the household with it, but it was time-consuming with the overnight soak. Or maybe she’d get a new dress so she could go longer between washings. She had enough saved for one, for several really, but it seemed a bit futile. Who would notice?

She used a boar-bristle brush to scrape her thick hair down into a bun, squeezing a snood over the mass as big as her fist. With a tightening of her apron strings, she left her room and headed up toward the rectangle of morning light at the top of the stairs. When she’d first arrived, it had struck her that this particular moment was an ascension of sorts, and she had written just that in one of her letters to Jane.

Ascending the stairs into glorious light; like heaven’s embrace after darkest night.

That letter was nothing but ash, as was the feeling that had pushed the words from her. Now she called it what it was: starting her workday. There was nothing poetic about it.

Mercy reached the top of the stairs and froze, caught up in the invisible grip of shock and pleasure and awe that had once been commonplace for her.

Beautiful. My heart…

There was an angel standing at the end of the hallway. Mercy was an irredeemable sinner, she’d been told, but she wasn’t mistaken about the divine being before her.

Buttery rays of morning sun fought for the opportunity to dapple and highlight the woman at the end of the hall. Bright spots of lights formed a corona above her, the warm light silhouetting the shape of her against the wall of the foyer—and what a shape.

Her vivid green dress was expertly tailored, managing to be both sharp and soft as it hugged her curves, nipped in at the waist, then flared out to flow toward the floor. Mercy wasn’t aware of the latest fashions, but she was sure the dress was on the outer limits of propriety. The bodice enhanced and drew

Reviews for That Could Be Enough

[Ekene Ogbue · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another sweet story from Ms. Romance herself. This was so sweet

[Jo McGregor · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was very sweet, but so short! It felt as though the characters were carefully established and then it was immediately over, which is a shame because it's an interesting dynamic. Oh well.