-The Spinster Chronicles, 29 May 1817
Agony was a word upon which Graham had been pleased to dwell for the past several days. Even the sound of it was one that seemed to be pulled from the darkest depths of one’s soul. It should have been a more reverent word. Always spoken in a hushed tone. Bearing the weight of its burden at all times. Never used in vain.
Agony was all-encompassing.
He thought he’d known agony, but he was wrong. He had known grief; he had known pain; he had known sorrow, anger, hopelessness, and numbness.
He had not known agony.
Not until now.
For as long as he lived, he would never forget the moment Molly had torn into his study and told him that Edith had gone off with her cousin. A man with cruel eyes and a slender frame, travelling with two larger men who had held Molly while they waited for Edith. That Edith had sent Molly home with one word.
Family.
The weasel was part of her former family by marriage, but even without that word, Graham would have known who had taken her just by Molly’s description and the manner by which the event had taken place. That was not a family.
They were a family — Graham, Molly, and now Edith. There were no legal ties that bound Edith to them, but there were cords of love winding around them all and bringing them together.
She had sacrificed herself for family.
And Graham could only sit here.
Edith was gone. In danger, undoubtedly, and there was no telling what she could be enduring now.
And he was here.
He didn’t have a choice. There was nothing he could do in London that would solve the issue. Or so Henshaw, Ingram, Sterling, and the others had told him when he had gathered them all to discuss it.
He’d hotly reminded them that he could storm her house and be married to her in less than a day, thus giving her legal protection from the weasel.
Ingram, having spent too long looking at the finer details of the law lately, was able to point out that such an act might stop the abuse, but would not get Sir Reginald out of her life.
Nor would it help Graham’s ward when her time to come out eventually came. If her guardian was married to a woman whose reputation was so particularly smeared by ruin, Molly would never be accepted in Society.
Graham had been about to retort that he didn’t care when the next words stopped him.
“…which is why we have to ruin him first.”
An intriguing notion, which was why the group of them had spent the rest of the night and many of the early morning hours discussing their options and resources. Tony had suggested they bring Andrews into the discussion, but no one thought he needed to be brought in at that time.
He had only just come back from assignment, and he and Amelia were never seen apart.
But eventually, they had brought him in, and Graham was ever so grateful they had. The man’s mind was beyond impressive, and his strategic agility was unmatched by anyone of Graham’s acquaintance. He’d left almost immediately, Amelia accompanying him, to return to London to start working on the matter, as well as letting Amelia, and by extension, her mother, begin their work on the plans for the wedding.
Graham had wanted to shut down the house party and send the lot of his guests home, given that there was no reason for any of them to be there now. But every one of his friends had advised against it, suggested that such an action would do more harm to Edith than good, as it was. They could spread her own story, that her cousin had come to fetch her on urgent family business, and that her belongings would be sent for.
The truth would come out eventually, but they would have time to put various pieces in motion before that.
Henshaw had argued, alongside Graham, that Edith could suffer considerably at the hands of the weasel while the lot of them moved their chess pieces into position. What, he had countered, would be left to save of her if they waited so long?
For a man not in love with Edith, Henshaw did a fine job of behaving like one. His scowl could have matched Graham’s. His surly nature from the moment she had gone was Graham’s. His desire for revenge actually rivalled Graham’s. And no one was on Graham’s side with the same passion, drive, and fierceness as Henshaw.
What a pair they would have made had they nothing to risk and time enough to give Sir Reginald what he deserved.
Both of them were reminded of Owen, Edith’s brooding and hulking servant, as well as Edith’s brother, who had remained in London.
Word was sent to both immediately as to the situation at hand.
Then, one by one, his guests had left, assignments all around, and there was nothing more to be done but finish out his hosting duties. The remainder of the guests had left at the scheduled time, and Merrifield seemed darker and more hollow when no one else was left.
He wasn’t naïve enough to think that it was due to his guests that this was the case. They had only been a distraction; sights, sounds, and smells to occupy him while he avoided curling up in his study to give in to the howling creature of despair within him.
Agony called to him, and he could not let himself answer.
Edith had been the one to make the place glow and come alive, and it was her absence that darkened it. He’d never thought Merrifield lacking in any respect until she had gone from it.
She made everything and anything better simply by her presence.
He was the chief example of that.
“Graham?”
He looked up from where he sat behind his desk to see Eloise entering the room. “Aunt.”
She smiled gently, though her complexion was nearly gaunt in its pallor.
Edith’s departure had affected her as much as anybody else, and she hadn’t left her room more than a handful of times in the days following. She’d insisted that she wasn’t taking ill, forbade him from sending for a doctor, and kept to her bed to rest, though she never appeared particularly well rested.
“Eloise…” he murmured, seeing how weak she looked as she struggled to sit in the nearest chair.
She glared, which was the liveliest she had seemed in some time. “I will not crumble, nephew. I may not be strong, but I will not be pitied.”
He held his hands up in a show of surrender, then rested his elbows on the desk surface, exhaling slowly.
“Have you heard anything?” Eloise asked in a much softer voice.
Graham shook his head. “Not in days.” He rubbed his hands over his face, groaning low. “Every other man in this operation has a task to perform. Why should I be the one designated to wait?”
“Because you feel the most.”
He moved his hands just enough to look at her with a frown. “Shouldn’t that give me leave to do the most?”
Eloise lifted a dainty shoulder, folding her shawl tightly about her. “I don’t know. But I would worry that you would lose your head in an attempt to save her. That you would not keep yourself calm and might behave recklessly. Cooler heads must prevail.”
He glared at his aunt. “Cooler heads don’t love Edith as I do.”
“And I am pleased to hear you admit that you love her,” Eloise shot back without hesitation. “But you mean to tell me that Aubrey, Lord Ingram, does not have some love for Edith? Or Captain Sterling? Henshaw has no love for her?”
Graham stiffened in his seat. “I did not say I was the only one to love her,” he insisted quietly. “Only that they do not love her the same.”