Chapter 32

  Gwen didn’t opt for a house tour, reflexively deciding on the gardens. Feeling stifled, the outdoors enticed her with open skies and wide spaces.

  The cause of her agitation, however, remained very much by her side as Hektor followed her silently. Gwen discreetly took his measure.

  Beside her stood a gangly teenager whose body warred with adolescence, with the adolescence winning. He was a limber lad, tall for his age, bronze skinned and long limbed. His hair was cropped short at the sides and the unruly black mane at the top was misbehaving against being set by a comb.

  Gwen found his face a difficult study. Having seen the Duchess in person, Gwen could spot some of Sabina’s likeness in her son. He had her thick brows and sharp cheeks. He also inherited her big, round dark eyes, deep set unlike her fox like.

  Beyond which, Gwen was a loss for comparisons. She couldn’t find any similarities with his half-brothers as well. While both the Raegan Brothers were famously handsome, pretty even, Hektor wasn’t.

  Not for the first time, Gwen wondered as to the identity of Hektor’s father. She wasn’t the only one who did, for nearly everyone had gossiped and guessed at it at some point. It remained one of the most famous unsolved mysteries in Ithica.

  No one knew or had found out who Duchess Sabina had taken to bed and sired her youngest.

  Conception was rare amongst the aether blessed and it was a dice throw for the children to be born aether blessed as well. Sabina was either the luckiest or the most formidable woman to have birthed three children who were all of them aether blessed. It only added to her legend.

  Gwen found Hektor to be pointedly average in in that regard. She could have passed him by on the street and he wouldn’t have stood out to her. He was boringly unremarkable.

  Realizing that she was perhaps being overly harsh, Gwen gave Hektor a second look over.

  She noted that his face and shoulders were slightly large for his frame. Perhaps if he filled out, he could be a physical specimen given his height. He had a square jaw and Gwen could tell that he hadn’t started shaving yet. And yet, despite his youthfulness, there was a savageness to his features that clashed with the finer traits he had inherited from Sabina. They seemed a poor waste of beauty on him in Gwen’s opinion.

  Hektor would occasionally catch her staring, only to offer a smile and not say anything. His mannerisms a pleasant surprise to Gwen, prompting her to note that Hektor was an affable sort, cordial and well mannered.

  But that did not take away from her rising vexation. That beyond all the excuses, Hektor was a child.

  And she was not.

  Gwen had fooled herself into thinking that she was ready. That she was prepared to play her part. Accentuate her charms and play her fiancé for a fiddle.

  Along with her family, Gwen had planned for and anticipated meeting Sabina’s bastard. She had decided on as to how she would entice Hektor. How she would manipulate him and work towards having him dancing in the palm of her hand.

  It was all preordained. Gwen hardly ever had to try to bewitch others. Men or women, it didn’t matter. They all fell before her beauty.

  But ever since she had first laid eyes on him, the first thing that she had realized was that Hektor was a kid.

  And it was sickening! That Gwen Croft had been brought low to woo a boy that had not even begun to shave! That she was to be engaged to such a teen, paraded alongside him like a prized bride to be. Even with herself only twenty four, she was robbing the cradle with a boy eight years younger than her!

  Made all the more sordid as Hektor didn’t look at her with any lust or desire. He refrained from even walking close to her. As much a gentleman as a well behaved child, Gwen was confident that the boy was inexperienced with intimacy. Forget sex, she was willing to wager that the virgin boy hadn’t even had his first kiss!

  It wasn’t what she had been expecting. Suddenly it wasn’t a political alliance or an arranged marriage. It was very much her taking advantage of a child. While Gwen wasn’t a saint by any means, she felt revolted.

  “What upsets you, Miss Croft?”

  Gwen was shaken out of her doldrums by Hektor’s inquiry.

  “Pardon?” she uttered, fishing for time to collect her wits.

  “Ever since we have met, I get the impression that you are not most pleased with me. Have I done something wrong?”

  Gwen kept walking, keeping to the garden pathways as she tried to salvage her folly. Hektor’s frankness had caught her off guard.

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  “You are mistaken, Master Hektor,” Gwen turned up the charm and smiled prettily. “I’m afraid that I may not have left the best first impression.”

  Hektor didn’t appear convinced and Gwen could see the boy struggling with indecision.

  “Please, call me Hektor,” he urged.

  “Only if you call me Gwen.”

  “As you say,” Hektor agreed with a smile. “I am not the best with people, Gwen. And I fare poorer with strangers still. But I have been trying to get better at it. Which is how I can tell that you haven’t been trying at all.”

  Gwen only gave Hektor a look.

  “Forgive my rudeness, Miss Croft,” Hektor backpedaled. “I did not want any misunderstandings to fester between us and I am trying, poorly I see now, to avoid that.”

  Gwen sighed and stepped closer to Hektor, looping her arm in his. “The fault is mine. I have not been at my best.”

  Gwen led the way, guiding Hektor along on their stroll. Her cold demeanor thawing.

  Hektor took a chance to try again, “May I ask why?”

  With her heels, Gwen had to look down at Hektor to shake her head lightly, her tresses getting caught in the wind.

  Hektor conceded. “As you wish. I was only curious. I was expecting something altogether different.”

  “And what were you expecting?” Gwen asked the loaded question.

  “That is a trap, Miss Gwen” Hektor said playfully. “All I could dare say was that I did not expect you to be so withdrawn.”

  Leaving the decision entirely up to her, Hektor didn’t intrude any further. Gwen was of a mind to change the topic of conversation, but her intuition gave her pause. Against her better judgement, she felt compelled to be honest with boy beside her. To return to him the same courtesy that he had shown her.

  “When I saw you, I realized for the first time just how young you were,” Gwen broke the silence.

  Hektor stumbled a little at Gwen’s sudden admission. Gwen was kind enough not to comment on his clumsiness. He hadn’t been expecting an answer, let alone such a direct one.

  “I am confused, Miss,” he admitted.

  Gwen could have handled the situation a lot of different ways. Perhaps she was feeling bold and rebellious, or just as well that she wasn’t as savvy as she thought herself to be. Either way, Gwen couldn’t be bothered to come up with a lie.

  “As am I,” Gwen admitted. “I knew about you all this time, but it became all too real when I saw you. And I found it all,” she searched for a delicate word, “unsavory. It shook me that I was to be engaged to someone so young.”

  They both went silent as they digested Gwen’s confession. Gwen feared that she may have overstepped and had been too blunt while Hektor was furrowed brows and lost to his thoughts.

  “That speaks well of your character, Miss,” said Hektor with slow deliberation. “I confess that I had not thought of it that way. I would be none too pleased to be engaged to an eight year old myself.

  “Well, I suppose both of us would be happier not to be engaged at all,” said Hektor.

  Gwen bestowed him the most genuine smile of the day.

  “You are justified, Miss,” Hektor nodded. “But such things are not uncommon in political marriages. I know people that had been betrothed even before their birth.”

  Gwen frowned. “That isn’t an endorsement.”

  Hektor shook his head. “No, it isn’t. It is a difference in upbringing. I always knew that there was a very real possibility that I would have an arranged marriage or be wed for political means. Thus, I was somewhat prepared you could say. Irony abounds; my biggest complaint is the same as yours,” Hektor said with a wistful smile.

  Gwen urged him on for an answer.

  “That I am too young, Miss Gwen,” Hektor clarified.

  Gwen laughed and it was a wonderous thing. Hektor could see what a dangerous creature Gwen could be. As Nazeer would say, ‘The best women are troublesome women’. And Gwen Croft was certainly a troublesome woman.

  “Where does that leave us, I wonder,” said Gwen with a smile to her voice.

  Hektor prepared himself to deliver his most important message. “I have no quarrel with you or your family, Gwen,” he said with all the sincerity he could muster. “I have no intentions to interfere or cause any trouble.”

  Gwen had a condescending smile as she asked, “Are you sure? Are you truly not angry at us?”

  “I was,” Hektor confessed. “And then I wasn’t.”

  Gwen waited on him to explain.

  “If I was to be angry at the you, then I had to be angry with my mother, the Crown, and Lady Webb. And I would still be made a count and engaged all the same. It would have changed nothing and made everything worse.”

  Gwen found the logic sensible, but when had people been sensible? Contrary to Hektor’s attempts, Gwen’s wariness increased.

  “The question remains; where does that leave us?” Gwen repeated, passing by blooming rose bushes.

  “I will do as I am told,” Hektor answered. “I am more worried about becoming a count than becoming your fiancé. No offence intended,” he quickly added.

  Gwen laughed. “That speaks highly of your character,” she repeated the compliment he had given her earlier, to Hektor’s blushes.

  “Thank you, Gwen,” he said shyly.

  “So, you come in good faith?”

  “Yes,” Hektor eagerly nodded, ecstatic that they were reaching an understanding.

  “And trust? Can I trust you?” Gwen asked as they neared a fountain of half nude sculptures.

  “We can’t,” Hektor stated immediately, including that he couldn’t trust her. “Our actions will have to make do.”

  “To what end?’

  “We start with respect and common courtesy, and see where it takes us,” he hedged.

  Gwen rounded the fountain, dipping her fingers in the basin. “You do yourself a disservice with that silver tongue of yours, Hektor.”

  Hektor didn’t know what to make of that particular compliment. He wondered if Gwen was accusing him of being manipulative.

  “We do not need to be adversaries,” Hektor reasoned delicately. “We can try to be friends first.”

  “Friends?” Gwen honed in, not caring to ask what Hektor meant by ‘first’.

  “Yes. Keep things simple. Aside from when we have to pretend to be a couple, we do not pretend at all.”

  Gwen had to concede that the boy was talking a lot of sense. Could it be too good to be true? Hektor gave her the impression that he was being honest. But it wasn’t just Hektor alone with her in this mess. There were too many stakes on the table, too many people in on the game.

  Could she trust the boy?

  “What do you want, Hektor?” Gwen asked directly.

  “I need to get through this month,” Hektor muttered with a hidden desperation. “Things will settle down then.”

  Gwen could see the blind hope that he clung on to and she knew that Hektor didn’t believe it himself.

  “What do you want of me?” Gwen clarified.

  “Oh,” Hektor rubbed the back of his head. “The same courtesy that I shall extend to you; to not interfere and cause undue trouble.”

  Gwen returned to loop Hektor’s arm. “That seems reasonable. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you see me as some monster and want to flee,” she teased, squeezing his arm towards her bust.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Hektor joked, oblivious to Gwen’s shenanigans.