Page 31 of The Jilted Duchess
"I was not really trying to snoop," she said, laughing a little. "I was just interested in the -"
"In the numbers?"
"That is it, yes. Do you find me terribly strange?"
Hector shook his head, moving so he could look down directly into her lovely green eyes. "Nay. Ye know what ye like. Ye know what yer mind enjoys. That's a beautiful thing, nae somethin' to make ye doubt yer worth. Ye are a fine lady and I'm glad to have ye at me side."
She smiled up at him, eyes bright with something he couldn't quite understand, and he felt his heart skip a beat. He hoped that she could look at him like that for the rest of his days. The thought startled him, unexpected and sudden. But he couldn't brush it off. It was too real.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Now," he took her hand and led her to a small settee at the side of the room, inviting her to sit, which she did. "Ye've been kind enough to tell me about yourself, my dear. It's only fair - and I think we are both great ones for fairness - that I tell ye something as well. Is there anything in particular that you want to know? I ken ye've asked a few things about me."
"I hope you don't mind," Alexandra said softly, looking up at him and making him conscious immediately how much he was looming over her. He crouched so that they were almost eye to eye, meeting her gaze head-on. "I know it was very curious of me to -"
"Daenae be daft!" he said briskly, not wanting to hear her twist her reasonable actions into an apology crafted clearly for an unreasonable-tempered man who wouldn't understand her, no matter how she tried to explain herself. "What, are ye not meant to wonder what kind of a man ye've tied yourself to? Are ye meant to just trust to fate and time about it? Nay, I am naeoffended, wife. Ye did the best thing ye could for yerself and that is exactly what ye should have done."
She smiled a little, her eyes lighting up the way that they did when he encouraged her instead of scolding her. "Very well. You asked me yourself how I knew that you were being defrauded, but it is quite unusual for a gentleman to be used to such things as household ledgers. I imagine your stepmother herself managed them until you moved in. How were you able to unearth the fraudulent transactions yourself?"
"Ah," he said, smiling a little and sinking back on his haunches to consider the question. "I think it is because I have always been the one in charge of meself. There's never been anyone between me and the dealin's of life, if ye ken what I mean?"
"Oh." She thought about it, her nose wrinkling a little adorably. "So - you had done your own accounts before so you were more familiar with the process?"
"I imagine many a bachelor who doesnae have servants to manage for him has to do so," Hector said drolly. "But also since I was wee - a lad of fifteen - when me ma passed, I was on me own. I had to manage me salary and me expenses meself, had to make sure that every pence did as much work as it could. We werenae well off. We dinnae live in complete poverty, she had a job for her family's shop until she got sick, and I picked up jobs meself from young. But we never had plenty. We ate enough meals, but the meals were bread and a bit of cheese. We were warm in the winter, but the warmth was a half shovel of coal at night and a great many blankets.
It was a hard life, a lot of work. When she died, I found we had a lot of debts, and the house went. I was on me own. Me wages barely covered me rent and the shoes I needed for me new job. I knew the price of everythin' on the market, made a little extra sortin' out good deals for men around the factory, and even helpin' out the foreman some. I could get a fine piece of fish for their misses for less than they were payin' for it, or a half-pound of oranges that they couldnae get themselves. I made connections and met people, and I was good at it. So ye ken, once I glanced at these accounts, I could see what she was doing immediately."
"Why are you not stopping her?" Alexandra burst out, her face flushing a little in strong feeling. "She's robbing you, husband! She is taking money from you wherever she can!"
"Ach," Hector shrugged his shoulders. "When I first came here, I pitied the lady. She thought she was married to me faither, and she thought she was the true Duchess and mother to the heir. To suddenly lose all her certainty in her life must have been hard for her. Far as I'm concerned, it's nay more than my faither's estate owes her for years of bigamy."
Alexandra spluttered a little, clearly a great deal more bothered than he had ever been. The expenses barely made a dent in the fortune that rolled into the estate quarterly on the investments that the Murray family had made over the years. "Why does she do it?"
"That's a harder question." He rolled his eyes a little at the thought of the sharp-tongued, too-proud woman who constantlytalked to him as though he were a bootboy. "I daenae ken why she is how she is. It is clear she had nay affection for her husband, but she dotes on me half-brother. She maybe felt it gave her some small amount of power or maybe she couldnae make do with her pin money and felt she couldnae talk to my faither about it."
"She gets an allowance now, doesn't she?"
"She has her own fortune, but aye I gave her a generous allowance and covered the basic expenses as well up until recently. That's what all this -" he gestured at the letters in their fine, feminine hand and bitter, cruel words. "has been about. I told her and her son that if he dinnae do right by ye, I would cut them from me purse. Seems they thought I wouldnae go through with it."
Alexandra realized, seeing Hector grin a little as he looked at the letters, that these missives that had filled her with such outrage were amusing him. He found themfunny.
"Are you not concerned by her threats?"
"Me? Nay, of course, I am nae. She'd have to admit a fair few things herself to tell the story and she is never gonna do that. She's far too attached to her own image. I know they were hopin' my reputation would be damaged by Benedict leaving you at the altar and then again hopin' I'd be too embarrassed to quarrel with them." He paused, grinned at her merrily like a schoolboywho had just performed a truly masterful prank. "I like to count the different ways she plays the victim in the letters. In one, she said that she was a poor widow woman destined to a life of penury."
A laugh bubbled out of Alexandra against her will. "Penury?She has a house full of servants in a very fashionable part of London from what I have heard."
"Aye, it's as far from penury as ye can get." Hector chuckled, so clearly unbothered by the cruel things his stepmother had written that Alexandra herself began to see how they might be a little funny. Not being called a harpy, of course, but some of the rest of the histrionic writings. “Och, she does go on and on. Like she thinks if she just pesters me enough I shall change my mind. I daenae do that.”
"Thank you," Alexandra said abruptly, looking down at her lap so she wouldn't have to meet his searching blue eyes. "For - standing up for me. I know that there would never have been a wedding in the first place if it were not for you, and then you even married me to save me. I owe you a great deal."
"Nay," he said softly, catching her chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilting it up so they were looking into each other's eyes. Her heart gave a sudden lurch in her chest, like she might suddenly faint from how breathless she had become. "I never need gratitude for doin' what is right. Ye deserved protection, more than I could give to ye to start with. I am glad indeed that ye never married my brother -"
"Me too," Alexandra burst out, her face heating and her skin tingling from where he touched her. It was confusing, sending her senses reeling, making her feel dazed and confused. "I hated that I had no choice. He - does not seem to be a gentleman."
"And neither am I," Hector said cheerfully. "But a very different kind of nae gentleman."
"Yes, you are at least honorable," Alexandra said. “I am glad, too, that I married you."
