Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"The carriage is ready, Your Grace," Laroux said dryly, holding a jacket while the valet, a boy called Riles, straightened Hector's cravat for the seventh time.
He had become used to dressing in finery he would usually not have bothered with, but Laroux had seen the addition of Riles to the household as encouragement to increase his wardrobe.
Hector sighed, looking at himself in the mirror with a critical eye. Laroux helped him with his dark blue jacket and then allowed him the dignity of smoothing down his ensemble instead of trying to do it for him. Hector knew he wanted to. He could see his fingers twitching.
The man in the mirror was nothing like who he had once been.
His hair was pulled back into a neat queue, and he was clean-shaven and even scented for some god unknown reason that Riles and Laroux together hadn't been able to explain.
His shirt was finer than any linen anyone he'd ever known had ever owned, with ruffs and a cravat tied neatly at his neck.
The vest was embroidered with a finely crafted pattern, and his coat fit his huge shoulders in a way that he had only dreamed of when he had been a strapping lad of nineteen and still working his way to the top of his profession.
The man in the mirror looked like a gentleman, but he was not a gentleman underneath, and everyone at the ball knew this.
Sometimes it feels like gilding a bear, he thought to himself grimly. It might glitter and shine but everyone still knows it's a bear nay matter what. Including the bear himself.
"You look very fine, Your Grace," Laroux said approvingly.
"I look like a zany," Hector said crossly, wishing the jacket didn't fit so well so he would have an excuse to fidget around in it.
"Not at all, Your Grace," Riles said in his desperately sincere way. He seemed to mean everything he said with a kind of intensity that made Hector both want to laugh and ask him if he was quite well. "You look the picture of a gentleman."
"That is indeed what I am worried about," Hector said dryly. "I shall collect me wife, we will be at the carriage shortly."
"Of course, Your Grace," Laroux said crisply, and Hector pretended he did not see his butler nudge Riles in the side with an elbow. He suspected that Laroux found the boy's enthusiasm as disconcerting as he did.
Oh, what he wouldn't give to be able to tear it all off and relax in his shirtsleeves and breeches like he would have back in Scotland before all of this came for him.
Hector rolled his shoulders in the perfectly fitted jacket one more time and stalked out to the stairs up to his wife's room to wait for her.
If there was one truth that subsumed all class and country, it was that ladies needed significantly longer to prepare for events than men did. They had so many pins, bits, pieces, sparkles, and baubles. It was dizzying to think about.
"Have you been waiting long, husband?"
Hector glanced up, having fallen into a reverie about the impact of some new legislation being introduced to control the import of building materials. The words on his lips died the second he saw his wife descending the stairs.
Alexandra was a beautiful woman, a lady of an inherent quality, a soft sensitivity, and intelligence that radiated from those startling, entrancing eyes of hers.
He had never realized how a change of dress could so thoroughly enhance a lady's beauty, however.
Her hair was pinned up cunningly on her head, brown curls looping in a complicated design that framed her serious face and made her large eyes look even larger.
She was wearing a lilac gown, simple in design, so simple in fact that it was almost wrong for her.
Even he could tell that it was not typically what he saw a duchess wear to the kind of event that they were attending.
However the simplicity somehow made her shine even brighter.
The soft glow of her eyes, the beautiful smoothness of her arms, her cunning small hands and long lashes.
The simple gown was like a simple frame, allowing the masterpiece to shine by not distracting from the incredible beauty of her. His eyes followed her down the steps.
She's a beauty, he thought. She's incredible.
Alexandra laughed a little, color rising in her cheeks as she reached her last step. "I cannot have struck you dumb, Your Grace, surely."
"Nay, of course nae," Hector reached out and placed his hands on her waist, sweeping her down the last step.
The way his hands felt on her slim waist was enough to make him want to keep her all to himself.
Why should he have to share her with the world out there, the world that would look down on her for being married to a man who wasn't born a gentleman?
Why couldn't he keep her with him where they would be both happy and safe?
"Husband," Alexandra was making the expression she always made when she disapproved of him, her nose scrunching up a little and her eyes narrowing in a way that was completely adorable. "You should not hold me so tightly, it is most improper."
"Och, sweetheart," he smiled down at her, loving the sparkle of her eyes and the dusting of soft freckles over her nose. "Is it nae me wife I'm holdin'? I daenae see a thing wrong with it."
"Husband," she said, hissing the word, her cheeks flaming and hands resting on his own but not pushing him away. "It's too intimate."
"And we are in our own home, are we nae? Who is goin' to judge us, our servants?"
She sniffed, pulling away from him and taking his arm instead. "We shall be late."
"I daenae hear ye arguing with me logic, wife," he said, a grin blooming on his face as he watched her refusing to look at him, a bright red flush darkening on her cheeks. "I think I cannae be told nae to hold me own wife in me own house by any sort of polite rules or nonsense."
She tsked and refused to answer, which was definitely a win for him. As he led her out to the carriage, he could swear he could also see a small smile dancing on her lips.
This was different from attending a ball with her sisters or her father. Alexandra was used to slipping into a ball, standing on the sidelines thoroughly invisible, and then returning home having successfully avoided too much attention from gentlemen.
She had never really been announced before. She had always been 'and party' when attending with one of her sisters after they were wed. People were not supposed to know her name.
Yet this time, as soon as Hector led her to the doors into the ballroom, the footman announced them to the whole party as 'the Duke and Duchess of Murray' and every head turned to look at them as though they were important guests.
They were important guests.
Hector ignored the staring and the slow ripple of murmuring voices as he took her down the steps and into the crowd.
His face was serene in a way she couldn't understand.
There was so much about him, in fact, that she didn't understand.
He didn't storm or shout or throw a tantrum, he didn't control or order her about. He -
He smiled a lot. He laughed.
It was frightening in a way. She never knew what he would do next.
If she had been asked to make a guess as to what Hector would do when put in a room with staring gentry, she would have said that he would be annoyed and huff over society and rules.
But he didn't. He ignored them so thoroughly that she had to double-check that they were really there.
"That must be the girl that his brother was meant to -"
Alexandra glanced in the direction of the whisper, tightening her grip on Hector's arm. It immediately died away. She could not pick out who amongst the sea of watching faces might have said it.
"So humiliating, left at the altar like -"
She glanced around again, heartbeat quickening.
They were talking about them, things that were cruel and cold and humiliating.
Not loud enough to really be heard, there was a sense of wariness to the crowd like they were intimidated by something - or someone.
She clung a little harder to her husband, his large looming figure lending her a sense of a sort of protection against the scorn and fascination all around them.
"Your Grace!" a man said brightly, moving towards them and bowing. "Welcome to my home. And your lovely wife, it is a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace."
Hector smiled, Alexandra could hear it in his voice. "It was our pleasure to be invited, Phillips. Thank you for the welcome."
Alexandra murmured her own thanks, her cheeks burning and her head swimming a little. It felt as though she could feel the eyes on her skin like dozens of pins being stuck into her. She didn't care what they were saying, she didn't! She just - wanted them to stop saying it.
"Come, let me introduce you to Lady Phillips," Lord Phillips said cheerfully.
He was a little bit like a merry terrier, energetic and good-natured as he swept them over to his wife and made introductions.
Alexandra made herself go through the right movements, letting the warmth of the conversation soothe her as she tried to bring herself back to normal.
Was this what it was always like for Hector? Was this her life now?
"Ah! Your Grace!" a man called out.
Alexandra looked up from her third glass of punch, surprised that someone other than the host was approaching them.
Hector had taken her on a circuit of the room, but it was clear that though everyone was quite frightened of outright offending her husband, they did not particularly want to socialize with him beyond the barest of good manners.
And yet this gentleman was searching him out, tailed by two ladies in gold and silver gowns with what were likely to be smiles hidden behind their open fans.
"Harkworth," Hector said calmly. "I did not know you would be attending Lord Phillips' ball."
"I did not expect Your Grace to be present either," the gentleman said. "May I introduce my daughters, the Honorable Misses Agnes and Edith Harkworth. This is His Grace the Duke of Murray."
Hector nodded to the girls, who curtseyed merrily. "Lord Hawksworth, Miss Harkworth and Miss Edith, my wife the Duchess of Murray."
Alexandra was a little surprised. He knew the appropriate pattern to introductions which she had not expected. Perhaps that was foolish of her, after all a successful businessman would have had to know how not to offend any gentlemen who dealt with him.
She nodded as well, noting the eager curiosity in the eyes of the young ladies and the absolute disinterest of the gentleman. If she had cared at all for his opinion she might have been offended.
"May I speak to Your Grace regarding the project we were discussing?"
Hector hummed and turned to Alexandra. "Is that agreeable to you, my dear?"
Alexandra was startled for a moment, surprised to be asked. Then she saw the gleam in his eye and realized that he was intentionally ensuring that Lord Harkworth respected her. "Quite agreeable, Your Grace."
"Very well," he said, squeezing her hand briefly. "I shall return shortly."
He stepped aside to speak lowly with the gentleman, leaving her with the two young ladies who had the looks of cats prowling around a baby bird.
"Your Grace, I was so hoping we would meet you tonight," Agnes said (or was it Edith?) delightedly, her eyes sparkling. "There is just so much I wanted to ask about!"
"Oh, me too! So much, we're all talking about it and it is in all the gossip sheets I do assure you," Edith said in a gushing voice (or was it Agnes?).
"What was it that you wanted to ask me about?" Alexandra said, worried that she knew the answer but hoping that no one could be that bold at a society event. She had never been interested in scandal or gossip papers, and being featured in one sounded like actual torture.
"Well," the one that Alexandra had decided was Agnes said slowly, smoothing down the glittery skirt of her silver gown and glancing at her sister under her eyelashes. "We wanted to ask you what it's like."
"Yes," Edith said, lowering her voice like they were bosom friends sharing confidences instead of strangers meeting at a ball who were not even acquaintances of each other. "Do tell. Tell us everything. What is it like being married to it?"
"I beg your pardon?" Alexandra felt a cold weight drop into her stomach in horror. "I do not understand the question."
"You know," Agnes said, her face alight with curiosity and fascination. "Being married to it. The beast."