Page 26 of The Jilted Duchess
It was not unusual to stay on the dancefloor waiting for the next piece of music, but Alexandra knew that they were just drawing more attention to the fact that they were husband and wife dancing together, and all the associated scandals that were linked to her and Hector would just make it all the juicier.
You should take him back to the punch, find someone that you both can speak to, mingle, look respectable and proper,she thought to herself.You should do the next thing you need to do to make sure that you don't cause him any more scandal. Don't be a fool, Lexi.
Maybe she was a little bit more of a fool than she had ever expected.
She could tell that Hector was letting her take the lead. It was another strange thing that he did sometimes. He was perfectly capable of commanding her, controlling her or the situation,being a firm hand to his household, but he didn't seem to feel the need to prove it the way so many men seemed to.
She knew a few ladies who had married men they had thought were kind and thoughtful, only to find that when those ladies tried to do their duties around the house, their husbands were forever picking at them, scolding them, and making sure that they knew who was in charge.
Hector was not that insecure. He gave her the space to choose, he let her control her own surroundings, and it meant so much more to know that he could stop her if he tried, but he simply did not care to.
"Are we going another round?" he said softly at last as the fiddles started again.
Alexandra just nodded, not quite trusting herself to explain why. She didn't understand why, in fact. She just knew that it was safe in his arms, and they were speaking more fully than they had in some time, about more important things than she had yet been able to glean about him.
She didn't want to stop just yet.
Even if he did tread on her poor toes, almost immediately.
"Follow my steps," she murmured, telegraphing her movements as subtly as she could. She was rather impressed in fact that he was managing an approximation of the correct movements,his eyes darting from her fact swiftly to what the other dancers were doing in order to ensure he did not move too differently. However, it was clear how out of place he felt and the relief on his face as he picked up what she was doing immediately and started to follow her was palpable.
"Thank ye, me dear," he said, smiling down at her. As always, his bright smile quite changed the harsh planes of his face from something intimidating to a merry picture that she likened in her mind to an engraving in one of Theodore's books. It was a picture of the Greek god Pan, a wild and carefree creature with a broad, merry smile on his face.
Perhaps there was a little of that wildness to Hector, too. The way he always looked as though he would be better suited to a strange moor, laughing over the antics of a dog and facing the wildness of nature without fear.
"Of course," she said. "I did rather force you to dance."
"You did nay such thing," he protested. "I am happy indeed to be dancing with me dear wife. Ye look lovely, me dear."
Alexandra flushed a little and looked away from the sincerity in his face. No one had ever said that to her before, especially not when she had always been around Margaret's loveliness or Evelina's refined grace or Louisa's soft, pretty face. "You look very fine yourself."
"Ach, thank ye," he grinned immediately. "Laroux took special pains to make sure. I think ye may know a little about how interested he is in me dress and ensurin' that I look the part."
She looked at him quickly, thinking back to when he had found her and Laroux talking in the garden. All the things that she had discovered about him from the butler rushed through her head, and she felt herself flushing in embarrassment. How much had he heard? Did he know how she had been prying into his family and past? Did he know how she had been questioning the servants about him?
"Now, I did hear Laroux pretending like he doesnae have a thought in his mind about me stepmaither," Hector said, twinkling at her as he managed to turn her around the floor with very little awkwardness, his big frame moving with surprising grace amongst the other dancers. "So I shall enlighten ye on that matter meself. Perhaps ye can understand that the Dowager has nay kind feelin's towards me. After all, she did think that the former Marquess was heir apparent to the Dukedom with nay competition and here I am, son of a woman she never knew or met who turns out to have even been married to her husband before she was. It's nae exactly a matter that breeds good feelings."
"But it is not your fault, Your Grace," Alexandra said, forcing down the urge to call him Hector instead and soothe him. "She cannot blame you for your father's choices, surely."
"Have ye never heard of visiting a faither's sins upon his sons?" Hector asked drolly. "Very devout of her, I am sure. She wouldlike my position to be full of scandal and trouble so that she can destabilize Murray and try to lobby to get her son in my place. It is nae gonna work, but she isnae going to give up without trying."
Alexandra frowned, imagining how hard that must be to deal with all the time, the endless pressure from people who were the last of his family, trying to undermine him further than he already was just by the circumstances of his birth and upbringing. She missed a step and Hector adroitly carried her in a little swoop so they were back on the beat, a move that certainly wasn't part of the usual dance but made her heart skip a beat. "And your -your brother?"
She didn't like to think about the Marquess. The very short interaction she had been forced into with him had been enough for a lifetime. Sometimes at night, she could still feel the way he had grabbed her, see the intensity of his gaze, the way that he had leered at her, and themeaninghis look had carried.
"I daenae have any polite words for Benedict," Hector said, his own expression souring. "A lad with too much freedom and nae enough control is what I thought about him, but he's nae getting better, just getting worse as time goes on. I have been trying to find him since the wedding but he's hidden himself well wherever he is."
"Oh!" Alexandra couldn't help the little exclamation, and flushed as she felt the movement of silks and satins around her as the other dancers glanced in her direction. She lowered her voice. "I did not realise that you were still looking for him."
"Och, of course I am," Hector said firmly. "Did ye think I would let him insult ye so without doin' somethin' about it? I have a lot of people looking for him throughout England and Scotland, even some in Wales and Ireland as well. I am writin' to me people in the Continent in case he decided a little European holiday would do him any good."
Alexandra's eyes widened a little. She had always known that Hector was intimidating, even dangerously powerful, but she had never guessed how far his reach really stretched. "Can you do that?"
"Of course, I can," he said with warm firmness. "Some people might think that all the power is in the powerful members of thetonthat ye might know. I started small, and until recently I was just a tradesman and businessman in Scotland, but I have money and I have power that reaches farther than some nobles. There's many businesses and people that would do a great deal to keep me tradin' with them."
He didn't mean to boast; it was no more than stating a fact. Hector had always found the way that gentlemen and minor lords looked down on him before he had ascended to his own title rather amusing. Their incomes of several thousand a year and aunt who was a Countess hardly compared to being able to stop or send a fleet of trading ships at a word, or reach out to the government in Sweden to negotiate a deal over a supply of iron and wood, and collaboration over new plans for a factory.
They might think that they had all the power, but they frequently underestimated the people who kept their world running. It was why Notley, Thornton, St. Vincent, and Gordon had been a breath of fresh air. They had at least liked him for a sharp business mind and a good friend, not for what prestige he could bring them, and they had never made him feel as though they saw him as lesser than them.
