Just got to chapter 44, and have a question

Isn’t the Marlowe family considered “better” (for lack of a better term in my mind) than the Mataro family? So why is Hadrian seen as not as good as Anaïs and Dorian? And I don’t mean that caste wise I meant in a physical sense. They make it seem like he’s shorter than them, even though he comes from a martial family and has been doing martial related stuff all his life, so it’s natural he’d grow healthier, alongside his family wants to be bigger for better fighting prowess. This plus him being from a higher standing family would/should give him better birth augments. So why is he shorter and more obviously/importantly, seen as uglier than them?

Hadrian likens himself to one of his sketches while Anaïs to an oil painting.

And when he was speaking to their fathers, Hadrian was being super formal and acting as a lower caste to them. I get he was trying to get on their god side and not be found out. But count Mataro didn’t seem to show much “respect” to Hadrian once the initial conversation ended. Even though he had the advantage in the conversation, the count didn’t put much respect/dignity to Hadrian even though he is a much higher lord.

This is in no way any form of criticism or condemnation of the book. I love it so far, I just want to get it clarified without any spoilers.

And I have a second question, are each of the books about Hadrian? I bought the second book but haven’t read the summary but all the other books have someone on it that doesn’t match Hadrian’s description so I was curious about if they are still centered on Hadrian since I have grown fond of him.

Thanks for answering