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?"
"HerGrace," 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."
