“It’s good of you to ask, dearest, but no. My granddaughters have the matter in hand.” Martha smiled. “That’s the advantage of an old-fashioned kitchen, you know. If one is cooking over an open hearth, one can do it almost anywhere and get an edible result. I suspect that those English cooks who’ve become completely accustomed to closed stoves and Rumford Roasters would find themselves at a loss if they suddenly had to go back to pot-chains and Dutch ovens.”

She glanced across the Blue Parlor at Nelly and Dolley’s young sister Anna, who had taken it upon themselves to entertain the three Congressmen, a former colonel of the Continental Army and his wife whom Martha barely remembered, and two complete strangers—a married couple from New York City bearing a letter of introduction from Gouverneur Morris—who had turned up at the door of Mount Vernon to “pay their respects” and gape at Washington’s house, Washington’s tomb, and Washington’s widow.

Though Jemmy and Dolley had paid a visit of condolence just after George’s death—in the dead of winter—she had herself been in a state of eerie numbness. It was good to see, among the gawking strangers, a friend she wanted to see.

“Mr. Jefferson intends to have a cooking-stove put in, at any rate,” said Dolley. “Not to speak of modern water-closets, so that dreadful little privy can be torn down, that stands in full view of Pennsylvania Avenue, for all the world to see. Mr. Madison and I are staying with him, until we can find a house of our own.”

“Are there houses available?” Martha’s own single view of the Federal City had been of marsh and pastureland, carpenters’ sheds and heaps of rubble: a world of cattle, birds, and roving swine through which those sixty-foot-wide avenues cut forlorn swathes leading nowhere.

“Indeed. And more being built every day.”

“I own I’m astonished. Of course Eliza’s husband speculates in land there, but it appears that’s quite a different thing from actually building houses for people to live in.” She tried to keep the tartness out of her voice and didn’t succeed: Mr. Thomas Law was a sore spot in the family. The middle-aged Englishman had arrived in the Federal City five years ago—when it really was only a few sheds and a brick-pit—with a dark-eyed half-caste son in tow, who was now at Harvard. Rumor credited him with two more, and Martha could not rid herself of the suspicion that he’d proposed to Eliza only because he knew she was the President’s granddaughter…

And that Eliza had accepted only because Pattie was on the brink of getting married before her.

Dolley went on, “We shall probably take one of the houses in the same row as the State Department, on the Georgetown road, though Mr. Jefferson would have us stay in the Mansion with him through the whole of his term. I think he doth miss the company of his family. He likes to know there is someone in the house with him.”

Across the parlor, Mr. Waln of Pennsylvania said impatiently, “Yes, yes, General Washington was a great believer in the principles of liberty. But he can never have countenanced the license that would result, were girls educated as boys are! We have all seen what comes of that, in France.”

“He certainly educated the slaves that he released,” pointed out Mrs. Colonel Harris self-righteously.

“That’s not the same thing at all! He didn’t believe in their general education…”

“I shall ask Mr. Lear, when next I’m in Georgetown,” declared Congressman Waln. “He corresponded a good deal with the President, and should know.”

“And I shall write to Judge Washington…”

“Of course that ‘row’ is just six little houses standing in the midst of a marsh,” added Dolley thoughtfully, calling Martha’s worried attention back. “But while I’m under Mr. Jefferson’s roof, I shall attempt to convince him that it is not aristocratical to observe diplomatic protocol, which I gather he came to hate in France. I rather think he feels he owes it to the Democratic-Republicans who voted for him, to have it known that seating at his dinners is pêle-mêle and without regard to rules of precedence. But he needlessly sets back his own cause by offending those who are used to it.”

“It is a great pity,” said Martha, “that he never married again.”

An indefinable expression flitted across Dolley’s blue eyes. “Perhaps he never found a woman of his own station, who could endure to be his wife.” For a moment Martha had the impression that Dolley was thinking of someone specific—surely not that artist’s wife in Paris she’d heard rumor of from Abigail? “And whoever she might be,” Dolley went on briskly, “I think she would have a struggle of it, to supplant Patsy in his heart.”

“Of course,” agreed Martha, recalling what she had gathered of the older daughter’s fierce protectiveness toward her father. “And understandable, of course…But it is a pity that Mr. Jefferson hasn’t someone to temper his Republican ideals with a little social common sense.”

Her eyes met Dolley’s, and Dolley smiled, knowing exactly what Martha meant.

“Mr. Madison doesn’t understand either, of course,” Dolley said softly. “Though I think, neither doth he understand why Mr. Jefferson is so determined to answer his own front door himself in his bedroom-slippers. I have heard Mr. Jefferson speak many times against women trying to influence politics—having seen how the ladies of the French salons could make or disgrace the King’s ministers there. But men will build society wherever they are, and be influenced by it for good or ill. And even a Philosopher King surely hath need of a hostess, not only to make calls on the wives of those who shall be useful to his policies, but to make sure that none who come to his door feel slighted.”

“Well,” agreed Martha, “it is the women who actually run things, you know, whether Mr. Jefferson likes it or not.”

Dolley chuckled. “Think what influence Citizen Genêt might have wielded, had he brought with him an amiable wife!”

They both laughed at that, and at the first natural break in the conversation on the other side of the parlor, Dolley invited an opinion of Mrs. Harris, to draw the talk into a general group. Watching Dolley charm the Honorable Representatives from New York and Pennsylvania, Martha reflected again that pro-French or pro-English—and she had certainly entertained enough Frenchmen around the ill-lit dining-tables at Valley Forge and the Hudson Heights—or whatever one felt about alliances and treaties and the National Bank, it took more than a man to govern the country.

There almost had to be a woman beside him and only half a pace behind, to make sure things were run smoothly. Whatever Mr. Jefferson liked to think, politics did not exist in a vacuum. They were a part of men’s hearts, and as such, they existed side by side with the other things men kept in their hearts, like the desire for friendship and good company in the evening.

She smiled at the thought of her young friend welcoming diplomats in the blaze of candlelight, and presiding over dinners that were more than simply dinners. Invisibly setting the stage upon which the nation’s leader would be seen to speak his lines.

Guard my back, George had said to her, long ago in this parlor: through the soft birdsong of the May morning she could almost hear the sob of that January wind around the eaves. And guarding a general’s back—and a ruler’s—was a hero’s task in itself.

Abigail had guarded her John’s, admirably.

And Patsy Jefferson having given over the position in favor of a husband and children of her own, Dolley would, Martha thought, do an admirable labor of guarding Mr. Jefferson’s. Or rather, the pair of them, Dolley and Mr. Madison working as a team, Dolley socially and Mr. Madison—that crafty little kingmaker—politically.

As she bade Dolley and the other company good-bye after dinner, Martha reflected she would never have believed she’d welcome into her heart the wife of the man who had stolen her peace.

Which only went to show that one never knew what “happily ever after” was going to consist of.

The Honorable Congressman Waln was still squabbling with Colonel Harris and his wife about whether or not George would have advocated education for young ladies—he’d certainly paid for Harriot’s—as they were climbing into their own carriages, each of them quoting examples as if every word George had spoken had been holy writ. The Pennsylvania Congressman’s insistence that he was going to ask Tobias Lear about it—the former tutor had spent most of the past year sorting through George’s correspondence—brought back to Martha the ugly memory of the private letter Jefferson had sent a friend, in which he’d expressed his opinion of George’s support of the British constitution, likening him to Samson having his head shorn by the “harlot England.” The friend, good Democratic-Republican that he was, had published it, to score a political point. Completely aside from George’s hurt feelings—the matter had very nearly come to a duel—the political implications had been horrific.

The recollection of some of the things George had called various Congressmen over the years in letters to her brought home to her what had to be done…

And why.

“Lady Washington?”

She looked up, to see Dolley watching her with concern in her lovely blue eyes. Colonel Harris’s chaise, and Mr. Thompkins’s rented vehicle, stood already a little way off on the potholed circle of the drive—which Lawrence had sworn he’d given orders weeks ago to be repaired. Dolley’s carriage waited, with young Anna, and the other two ladies, invited to share the ride as far as Georgetown, already inside.