That Hatter knows how to dance is unanticipated. That he's actually good at it is a real revelation.
"I'm touched, really, I am," he says drily when she says as much, leaning in so she can hear him over the crowd and the music, his hand in the small of her back guiding her around the ballroom floor. "Your confidence in my abilities is astounding."
He is still surprising her.
When they go up to congratulate Jack and the Duchess – the Queen, now, both of them newly crowned – she is nervous. Not because of Jack, but because of his wife; she is an intimidatingly lovely woman and the perfect Queen for Jack but Alice wonders all the same if she knows that she wasn't Jack's first choice. From the reserved smile, Alice guesses so. The Duchess's carefully neutral, pleasant gaze wavers for just a minute, slipping down to Alice's arm, and as her eyebrow arches Alice's stomach plummets.
Alice tries to ignore it, lifting her chin with no small amount of pride. But before she knows what she's doing, she is fidgeting with the sleeve of her dress, unthinkingly twisting it down to cover her wrist, worrying at the fabric with her fingers while she talks.
She doesn't realize she's doing it until Hatter reaches down to take her hand in his.
That night in their room, when she has abandoned her heels by the door and is brushing out her hair to go to sleep, Hatter takes the comb out of her hand, puts it down with measured and exaggerated delicacy and turns her wrist over.
She swallows. "I know," she says. "I'm being stupid about it."
"You're not," Hatter says. His breath tickles her skin. "She is. But she's a stupid cow. Don't worry about what she thinks."
He kisses the underside of her arm with languorous slowness, fingers still twined tight in hers, lips tracing their way up the curling green tattoo that irrevocably marks her as other with featherlight lips. With her free hand, Alice reaches out to cups his face, thumb brushing over his stubbled cheek, her heart too full to speak.