Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The Duke of Murray, Hector Lennox, stormed towards the dower house that the Dowager, Miriam Lennox, his father's wife, occupied.
The sky above was a stormy gray and beginning to rain, but he was too furious to feel the first drops hitting his face.
Perhaps the heat of his fury was keeping him warm at last in this dreary country.
How dare the man, he thought to himself, striding up the steps to the front door and banging furiously against the wood. He was barely home from a business trip abroad, and already his half-brother was causing trouble.
Ah, Faither, if ye'd not left me to deal with the whole damn lot of them, he thought grimly as a servant came to the door and let him in with their usual reluctance.
Not one of the family servants stayed when he came to the Murray Estate; every one of them preferred to leave with the lady of the house and the previous heir.
No matter. He'd replaced them soon enough and raised the salaries to tweak the noses of those who had left.
"Your Grace?" the butler asked politely, his nose so far into the air that Hector wondered how he could see where he was going. "Was Her Grace expecting you?"
"Her Grace," Hector said with bared teeth. "Can see me whether she likes it or not, for I'll be having words with her about her son."
"Very good, Your Grace," the man said, looking for all the world like he wanted instead to send him away with a flea in his ear.
That would have been a sight better, Hector felt.
If anyone in this damned family would just show a moment of true feeling and say what they really felt instead of machinations and side glances and snide remarks that meant three different things all together, he'd be a happier man.
He grimly followed the butler and was announced into the Dowager's sitting room, where she was sitting primly on a settee near her lounging layabout of a son.
A fellow with no discretion and even less honor, a boy too wet and weak-minded to ever become a man.
Hector grimaced and nodded to the lady out of a fine sense of respect for women that his mother had taught him.
"Well," Miriam said coolly, her fierce dark eyes flashing with cold fury. "Whatever had we done to get a visit from Your Grace so soon after your return? We should be grateful for your attention, I'm sure."
"Madam," Hector said dryly. "I'm a simple fellow. I want a simple life ahead of me, ken? I daenae want to battle ye and I daenae want to be in yer house over and over because yer boy hasnae the sense that God gave to a chicken."
Benedict Lennox started up from the chaise, his cheeks flushing in anger, and Hector looked at him with interest. Perhaps the lad was finally going to make something of the enmity that boiled between them?
No.
After a moment of glaring, his brother spun and strode towards the window, giving Hector his back with as little respect as if he'd been a servant.
"How dare you speak to me about your brother so?" Miriam demanded, her hands clenched into tiny white fists in her lap. "Your manners disgrace you, sir!"
"I think ye'll find that you are meant to call me something else, madam," Hector said lightly, his tone deceptively mild as he removed his coat and set it down over the arm of a chair.
"And ye would be wise to understand that yer son there is lucky that I havenae lost me temper as yet, for if I had, we would be talkin' with our fists. "
"My son would never brawl with an unrefined boor such as yourself," Miriam snapped. "Get to your business, Your Grace, and then leave us be. We have much to do today, and we were not in for company."
"Me business is to find out what yer son was thinkin' when he grabbed a young lady at the Earl of Westcott's ball three days ago," he said, his fury barely restrained now.
If there was one thing he despised above all else, it was a man who would harm a lady.
To hear such tales about his own half-brother made him want to beat a proper lesson into the man and then scrub any ounce of familial connection they had from his own body.
Just thinking about how frightened the lass must have been, how frightened she probably still was with her reputation now in tatters, made his jaw clench and his fists itch for a fight.
"My son is an eligible young man," Miriam said pertly, looking away from him. "Ladies sometimes throw themselves at him. He cannot be held responsible for every poor hopeful who thinks that trapping him into a scandal is the best way to catch a good husband."
"Yer son is a wretch and a rake, as tis well known across the length and breadth of the country," Hector snarled, brushing aside her attempts to argue and crossing the room towards his half-brother in three great strides.
Without care for the formalities of the occasion, he laid a hand on his brother's shoulder and spun him about.
"Ye are to marry the lady, whether ye want to or not.
Ye've a duty to her now ye've ruined her and I'll be seein' that ye follow through and make it right. "
Benedict's face contorted into a sneer. "I shall do no such thing, Your Grace."
"Ye shall, and I will see to it that you shall. I'll nae have the name of the family dragged into the mud because of ye."
"Our name has been dragged through the mud quite thoroughly already," Miriam said coldly, standing just behind him. "Thanks to a Scottish bastard child brought in to replace the real heir of the family and ruining our reputation."
"Ah -" Hector turned his head and levelled a cold look at the woman. "That's a thing ye'll have to take up with me faither when ye see him, madam. I'll nae be held accountable for his choice in women nor his decisions in givin' me his title."
"You cannot force me to do anything," Benedict broke in before Miriam could respond. "I do not have to marry the girl and I shall not. I didn't do anything wrong. She should have thought twice before getting in between me and what I wanted."
Hector wondered if it would be worth the family friction to punch Benedict just once. It would be a very satisfying thing to do.
Still, what he was about to say might be even more satisfying.
"Ah but brother mine," he said, a little smile curling his lips with vicious satisfaction.
"Ye forget who holds the purse strings for yer family.
Ye marry the lass or I'll cut ye and yer mother off with nae a penny to yer names.
Ye'll find it mighty hard to carry on in society without funds, I think ye’ll see. "
Miriam did not gasp. She was too much of a lady to show that much feeling, but she clasped a hand to her chest and paled slightly. "You would never dare."
"I'll dare that and far more, madam," Hector said, looking into Benedict's eyes. "Ye'd do well to remember that in the future."
With a curse that would have made many a Glaswegian fisherman blush, Benedict flung out of the room, his face like thunder.
"She's just a viscount's daughter," Miriam Lennox said, her voice trembling slightly with some emotion. Rage, perhaps, Hector thought. Or fear. He wasn't sure she felt anything other than those emotions and a twisted pride. "She's only an Honorable Miss. She's not good enough for him."
She was a sight too good for him, Hector thought grimly. "Then he should have considered that before ruinin' her," he said out loud. "Enjoy yer day, stepmaither."
With a grin that was all teeth and threat, he turned on his heel and stormed from the house.
It was a long ride back to the Murray Estate. Miriam and Benedict moved to London with the entire household as soon as they were able. The air was better, Miriam had said, sneering at him. Benedict hadn't bothered to make any sort of excuse or apology.
It was the way he preferred it, though. If they were any closer than at least a few hours' ride away, he might have to deal with them in his home more often.
"Your Grace," the driver said. "Can you at least sit inside until we leave the city?"
"It's stuffy in there," Hector said firmly, crossing his long legs and leaning back on the perch next to the driver. It was still drizzling, and the rain was now clearing his head and helping him to let go of at least a little of his burning anger. "I'll be fine out here."
"Your Grace, it's not -"
"It's nae done," he said, grinning. "I ken, laddie. I ken. Ye let me worry about that and ye focus on getting' these bonnie lasses to get us home in time for supper."
The man shook his head and continued with his work, letting Hector relax and enjoy the ride. Watching the horses race in front of the carriage and the scenery fly by on either side was meditative, enough that he was able to unclench his fists by the time they arrived back at the estate.
Mr. Laroux had clearly heard their approach.
He was a slender man, all hair and style, and nothing like the butlers that any of Hector's friends had, but he was very good at his job, even if he was always trying to make Hector into some sort of fashion plate.
The only one remaining who had served under his father, Hector always felt as though Laroux was ever favorably comparing him to his father and being quietly pleased about it.
"I tried, Mr. Laroux," Ben, the driver, said glumly, jumping down from his seat. "I tried my best, sir, I promise."
"Stronger men than you have failed to impress upon His Grace what is the appropriate way to behave," Mr. Laroux said dryly, only a little of his natural Belgian accent still in his voice. "Please, Your Grace, let me take your coat. It's soaked through."
"Thank ye," Hector said simply, letting his man take his wet coat and bundle him inside. "If Mrs. Hopsted could warm a wee dram of whiskey with a little honey in it, I'll be mighty grateful to her."
"I am sure she can manage," Mr. Laroux said drolly. "Was your visit successful, Your Grace?"
"Maybe," Hector sat heavily in his favorite wingback armchair and spun it to face the fire, rubbing his hands together slowly. "I've said me piece. The weddin' will go ahead. What happens next is up to them."
“Do you expect trouble?”
Hector massaged his temples hard. He always expected trouble. That was part of being a successful businessman. Expect trouble, prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and hope that the good lord doesn’t see fit to kick your arse for being too big for your boots.
However, when it came to his family, he never knew what they were going to do next.
Their way of thinking was so strange and unpredictable to him.
He would never have expected anyone to act the way that they had consistently acted, and it made him feel as though he was unable to predict anything with any accuracy.
“I daenae ken,” he said slowly. “Ye’ve heard of me brother, what do ye think he’ll do? Do ye think he’ll follow orders?”
Mr. Laroux thought for a moment, his lips pinched into a tight line as he arranged everything Hector might need on the small table to his right. “I think that he will find some way to make it difficult, Your Grace. He is not the kind of man to look for marriage.”
“Then he shouldnae act as though he’s married to ladies,” Hector snarled, hand tightening on the armrest of his chair so that the wood creaked. “That’s nay way for a ‘gentleman’ to behave.”
“Indeed, it is not, Your Grace,” Mr. Laroux said firmly. “I quite agree with you. Let me get you that whiskey. As Mrs. Hopsted likes to say, you will catch a cold.”
“I’ve never had such a thing in my life,” he said with a reluctant laugh. “But I’ll take a whiskey and a hot meal.”
As Laroux left the room, Hector returned his gaze to the fire, deep in thought.
When his father had left him the Dukedom years ago, he had never expected the worst part of the business to be gaining new family.
Sure, he’d never felt any particular desire to meet the lady who had taken his mother’s place or the lad his father had deigned to raise, but he’d thought there would be civility—perhaps even cordiality, a word that Mr. Laroux adored.
His own cousins back in Scotland wrote him weekly and he missed the easy joy of family life, of striving to make something together and eating and drinking and laughing and fighting, but always having each other’s backs. The only thing that Benedict would have in his back was a dozen knives.
“Perhaps a wife will make a man of ye,” he muttered to himself, thinking again of the story he had been told of a girl who strode into a situation to save another from his brother’s advances.
Surely if anyone could handle this situation and perhaps even make the most of it, it would be a girl with fire like that.
He hoped so.
Otherwise he might be damning her to a fate worse than being ruined.