Chapter Text
"Where is the maid?!"
You paused in brushing your hair, turned, and caught the eye of your husband. Armitage Hux, dressed in a white shirt and plain black trousers, was angrily strutting from his dressing room to the main bedroom.
"What is it?" You ask politely. He looks at you, pale green eyes as hard as glass.
"That wretched girl has failed to bring hot water...again." He all bit spits out the last word. "Yet again I am faced with having to shave in cold water. Cold!"
You sigh inwardly. Armitage was demanding, exacting...and completely obsessed with perfection. Everything had to be to his liking, and he was unafraid to voice his displeasure if it were not.
"I'll go-"
"You will not," he says, harshly. "It is not your job to do a servant's work!"
You put down your brush. "Armitage, please, be reasonable. You need hot water, I-"
He looks at you, his gaze frigid. "Why did I marry you?" he snaps. "Why did I marry someone who always has to disobey!"
You look down at your hands, twisting together in your lap. You know exactly why he married you. To quell the rumours that whispered through society that Armitage Hux was not son of Brendol Hux and his wife, but the product of a drunken encounter between his father and one of his own servants. Marrying you, daughter of a respectable surgeon who later opened a Pharmacy, and you someone who had attended University, gave him the sheen of societal approval that he desperately needed. Especially after his father disappeared, rumoured to have gone to a sanitotarium, where he had passed away shortly after.
He was a hard man to love, you mused. Now the owner of First Order, a business that was rapidly gaining a name throughout the country as the best manufacturers of guns and weapons, he was cold and indifferent. He was, however, determined that the marital vow of obey was adhered to from you. Although he had grudgingly permitted you to keep the Pharmacy your own parents had left you, and run it.
"Its disgraceful," he sneered, after an after-dinner Scotch. "My wife, working in a shop, like a common-"
"Its a pharmacy."
"Why do you always have to answer back?! Why, I should have left you that night at Peavey's gathering!"
A knock at the door broke into your thoughts. You got up, leaving Armitage to pace. At the door was Rose, holding a basin of steaming water, and wearing a worried expression.
"I'm so sorry, Ma'am," she said, obviously flustered. "The fire didn't catch, and we had to wait-"
"There is no excuse," a sharp voice interrupted. Hux was at the door, glaring at her. "If you cannot do as I command, I will have you replaced. You'll be sent back to the-"
"Thank you, Rose," you say, quickly. Taking the basin, you carry it into his dressing room with no further comment. You can feel your husband's silent rage. You turn to him, a thin figure, almost spindly.
"I don't need you to protect the servants."
You look at him. "Then what do you need me for, Armitage?"
He glares at you. "You know. And you won't do it."
You look at him. "Armitage, we've only been married five months. Its a little early to think about children."
He is properly glaring now. "This is the problem with over educated women. You get ideas above your station. All you should be intending to do is please me, and prepare to bear my children. Instead you go everyday to that squalid little shop, dealing with those commoners-"
You bite your lip. He's your husband. According to the law, he has the right to. According to the law, you're his property. The only reason he lets you keep the Pharmacy is because it brings in money. And Armitage loves money.
"Armitage, it is 1903." You look at him. "There are some countries where women even have the right to vote-"
At this his lip curls. "Oh, God," he sneers. "You're not going to become one of them, are you?!"
"One of what?"
"Those...Suffragettes." He spits the word out. "They are...unnatural. There is nothing of beauty or grace about them at all!" He looks at you. "Mind you, you were never much to look at, but that's not why I married you."
You feel the sting of that comment. Armitage is considered handsome by many, and he has made it clear that you are not equal to him. He turns to the mirror.
"I warn you," he says, his tone dangerous. "They are a pestilence. Encouraging women to think they know better than men."
"Armitage, I went to University. By your logic I am one of these despicable women who know better than men-"
He stands up, his face dripping with water, his razor in his hand. "Yes?"
"So...why did you marry me?"
At this, his face closes. "You know perfectly well why." He turns back to the basin. "Money."
You swallow. For all his hatred of your Pharmacy, he enjoys its income. "Thank you, Armitage."
"You're welcome." He is beginning to scrape the razor down the side of his face. "I'll tolerate you back chatting this morning. But if you don't start seriously thinking about producing my heir-"
You swallow. Leaving him would be a scandal, but only for you. He can commit adultery, have you banished, and the law will protect him. You nod.
"Very well Armitage."
He smiles, more a smirk.
"I knew you'd see things from my point of view. So no more talk about Suffragettes, if that is all right? You know that I allow you a degree of independence - I at least let you have your little shop. So, do you really need to join a bunch of rabble rousers and screeching harridans? It makes them all very unattractive." He holds out his hand. "You're not unattractive. Not a great beauty, but you're respectable, and that's what a man needs in a wife. Someone who is compliant, and you are."
You take his hand - its cold, and slightly bony. "Yes, Armitage. I agree."