He was abysmal at billiards, but he did find them an adequate activity to quiet his mind when he had too much on it. He’d never seek to play in earnest with other men, but alone, he could easily pass the time there.
He might do so, once he found Eloise and saw to her. She’d seemed more fatigued than he would have liked of late, and more than once, he had considered cancelling the house party. But between his determination to help Edith and his aunt’s insistence on having the event, he’d let it all continue.
Time would only tell if it was a worthy endeavor.
He strode down to the main level only to find that Eloise was nowhere to be found. None of the servants had seen her recently, and she was not in her rooms. Considering she was no horsewoman, and never walked to the village, there could be only one place left.
Shaking his head, Graham left the house, wanting to laugh and growl at the same time. His aunt refused to accept that she had limitations and that she would do well to obey them. She would walk the gardens and then be nearly bedridden the day after in recovery. For all her declarations of not being sickly, her constitution was not one of strength on even the best days. More than once, he had considered bringing her to London to see better physicians than what they had in nearby Linfield.
Eloise would not hear of it and swore by Dr. Benson and his treatments. Graham had no complaints about the man himself, but his aunt had not had improvement to her health and stamina in some time. It was entirely possible that nothing could be done by any physician, but he would have given a great deal to try.
“Good day, milord!” one of the gardeners’ assistants called from the hedgerow with a wave.
Graham nodded with a smile, enjoying the fact that he did not have to force it or remind himself of politeness. Here at Merrifield, Lord Radcliffe smiled at his tenants and servants, and could even be prevailed upon to speak with them.
The same could not necessarily be said for his neighbors, but there was no sense in giving up his reserve on all fronts.
He ducked as he entered the garden through the smaller entrance, not wishing to circle all the way around to the main gate. Scanning the paths and low bushes, he frowned, seeing nothing and no one. His aunt would not have gone through the maze, unless she had completely lost her ever-sharp faculties, so she must have been on the other side of the garden behind the roses.
With all the meandering paths his mother had laid down during her renovation of the garden some twenty years ago, it would take him as long to reach the roses as it would have done to go around.
Nothing for it, though.
Graham walked quickly on the stones, hopping over the low bushes where he could, glancing up at the windows purely out of habit. Any of his guests would have thought him unhinged, and Molly would have found him laughable. He wasn’t sure which of the impressions he would prefer to have left, but it would be best for all concerned if he were not seen at all.
Eloise would pay dearly if he were.
Rounding the last of the bushes and lifting the low-hanging wisteria out of his way, Graham moved into the last part of the garden, only to stop in his tracks.
Eloise sat on a bench at the end of the lane he presently stood on.
And she was not alone.
Striking green eyes raised from the private conversation and widened as they clashed with his gaze.
Holy heavens.
Graham swallowed, his fingers sliding against each other by his sides. Edith looked even lovelier than she had upon her arrival, a simple cream calico gown enhancing every aspect of her. She had forgone the deep green traveling cloak from before. The brilliance it had lent to her already magnificent eyes had left Graham unable to present the warm and welcoming greeting he had intended. All he had managed was his habitual reserve, bare politeness, and looking her over as though something might have happened to her since he’d seen her last.
He’d meant to ask her about her state rather than look it over. He’d meant to show her how pleased he was that she had come, that she was here, and that he could spend some time getting to know her in this place. He’d managed none of those things.
And now she was sitting in his garden with his aunt.
And he was barely dressed. Fully clothed, but hardly respectable. Morgan would kill him. Provided Graham recovered enough to face anyone ever again.
Seeing Edith’s reaction, Eloise turned and smiled brilliantly. “Graham! Come join us, won’t you? You see that I have met Edith, and we have been walking the gardens. She has been so generous to keep to my pace and insists we rest far too often. I’ve a mind to keep her as my nursemaid; do help me to persuade her.”
Graham informed his feet that they ought to move, and they did so, albeit with a touch of awkwardness, and he forced his hands into his pockets, more to keep them occupied than anything else.
“I don’t believe a woman of such a status as Edith would be acceptable as a nursemaid, Aunt, no matter how qualified she may be.”
Edith swallowed, and her hands twitched as they lay in her lap. “Status is as status does,” she murmured, averting her gaze.
“True enough, dear,” Eloise chimed, smiling at her new friend. “Who said that?”
Edith’s lips pulled into a smile that tugged at something behind Graham’s navel. “Edith Leveson. Widow, Spinster, and Scot.”
“Spinster?” Eloise replied with a laugh. “Darling Edith, you are scarcely twenty-five, if you are a day, and you are a widow. Nothing spinsterly about you.”
Graham quite agreed, but he also knew full well to what Edith was referring. Yet it was not his secret to tell, so he merely remained silent, watching.
“No’ that kind of spinster, Eloise,” she told his aunt. “I write for the Spinster Chronicles. A Society paper in London.”
“Oh, I know all about the Chronicles!” Eloise retorted with a wave of her hand.
“You do?” Edith and Graham said together, sharing a stunned look.
Eloise looked between the two of them. “Of course! Miranda sends every edition on to me. I adore every word. Brava, my dear.”
Edith blinked and looked back at Graham in bewilderment.
He could only shrug. “They are quite clever. I cannot claim to have read every word, but what I have read, I enjoy.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that along,” Edith said with a small smile, her eyes nearly dancing. She looked at Eloise again. “And I am twenty-seven.”
“Pah!” Eloise shook her head, making a face. “Still a child, I’d say.”
“Because you are so aged,” Graham pointed out, giving his aunt a severe look. “I have no idea what makes you a capable judge of age.”
Edith snickered behind a hand, and his eyes flicked to hers as he smiled. The sound of her laughter could have danced on the breeze, and he felt like a fool for thinking so.
A charmed fool, but a fool all the same.
“I am older than my age,” Eloise insisted, narrowing her eyes at him, though her lips still quirked in a smile. “And I am still your aunt. I am entitled to the wisdom of my generation.”
“Your generation.” Graham pretended to consider that, looking up at the sky. “Your generation. Wouldn’t that practically be the same generation to which Edith and I belong, hmm? You are closer in age to us than to your closest sibling, after all.”
Eloise exhaled a short breath through her nose, though he could see her fighting laughter. “You see what I must put up with, Edith? The impudence! What shall I do with him?”