“That was where it happened,” she said. Bridget shuddered and closed her eyes as the events of that awful day resurfaced before her mind’s eye. She saw the lake before her, the water obscured by fog—eerie with foreboding.
She saw Mary galloping across the marches, her riding habit a vivid green that stood out against the gray of the skies.
“Mary leaped off her horse and ran to my side, telling me hastily what she’d witnessed and heard that day. She told me of her confrontation with Bragg. I-I can still hear the fear in her voice as she spoke of him.
“’His eyes burned with rage,’ Mary said. ’I thought he would kill me there and then when I told him to leave. Oh, what a fool I was to think that he was a different kind of man. How silly I have been!’
“I told her she could not blame herself. She could not have known. But before I could say any more, hoofbeats sounded behind us.
“‘It’s him,’ Mary whispered, clearly terrified. When I looked behind her, my blood almost froze to see Bragg riding hard towards us. He pulled up and leaped off his horse just as Mary jumped to her feet.
“‘I told you to leave!’ she shouted. Mary was strong-willed, and always had a quick temper, but I knew it was a mistake to speak to a man like him that way.
“‘I will not be told what to do by a woman,’ Bragg shouted back. ‘How dare you speak to me this way?’
‘“I speak to a scoundrel the way he deserves to be spoken to. Nobody harms those under my protection,” Mary shouted at him.
‘“You forget your place, Lady Mary,’ Bragg said, and he sounded so threatening, we were both very frightened. But Mary wouldn’t relent.
‘“Lord Bragg, I will have you chased out of Hertfordshire like the dog you are,’ she said. It was the wrong thing to say, and I knew it.” Bridget shuddered as the memories flooded through her. It was hard to put into words the full horror of what she had witnessed that night.
“What happened next was so… so unbelievable, it hardly seemed real. It seemed to happen slowly yet so quickly at the same time. When I saw Bragg pick up a rock without any hesitation, I-I froze. I shall never forget the look on his face—it was pure evil. The next thing I knew, he ran forward and brought the rock down on Mary’s head—I could do nothing, nothing. Blood sprayed from her head, hitting me in the face. Mary screamed and fell down—oh, it was awful, that scream, I shall-I shall never forget it. I couldn’t believe it. One moment she was alive, vibrant and defiant, and the next, she was gone,” Bridget whispered.
Fanny gasped, and Bridget could not continue; she burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands as she sobbed. Graham held her shoulder and squeezed comfortingly, letting her weep. He exchanged a look with his mother to find her still steady, perhaps even more so than before, as if the story had strengthened her.
Bridget sniffed, and she looked sorrowfully from Graham to Fanny. “I am so,sosorry,” she choked out. “I was there, yet I did nothing to save her.”
“You did nothing wrong, dear,” Fanny said. “The man is a brute. If you had tried to stop him, all you would have done is to have put yourself in danger.”
“And yet here I am,” Bridget said, shaking her head sadly. “Still in danger.”
Graham frowned. “I have wondered about that,” he said. “Why have you kept his secret for so long? Why agree to marry him, with all you know?”
“Because,” Bridget said, “he threatened to hurt my mother, and… it is shameful to admit, but he bought up my father’s gambling debts. If I was to expose him, he told me it would destroy the Sedgwick name.”
“The man is a menace. A murderous horror of a creature. He must be stopped. My darling sister killed by so vile a man, and for what?” Graham shook his head.
“For wanting to do the right thing, for standing up for what was right, as she always did,” Fanny said quietly, sorrow tinging her words.
Graham could not stay seated any longer. He rose to pace in front of the fire, stroking the short beard now gracing his jawline. He knew the circumstances were far from ideal, but there was a way he could deal with Lord Bragg and still protect Bridget, sheltering the Sedgwicks from ruin while also bringing about justice for Mary.
There was one way to save her. She needed to marry well. After the scandal with Bragg, her prospects would be ruined. But Graham…
Graham loved her, and he could deny it no longer. However, before he had a chance to so much as allow that feeling to sink in, he was distracted by a mournful wail that escaped his mother’s throat.
“Oh, Mary,” Fanny muttered. When he turned, he saw that his mother’s shoulders had rolled forward, and her head hung low, one hand pressed against her face.
“Mother,” Graham said and hurried to her side. He took her hand in his. “My dearest Mother. This is all such a terrible shock for you.”
“For us all,” she said without looking up. Then, as he and Bridget watched, a tear fell from her eye and dropped onto the tip of her half-boot, then another, and another. Graham perched beside her, one arm around her shoulders as he motioned for Bridget.
“Fetch Esther, would you? My mother’s maid?”
Graham held his mother's hand as she sobbed and rested her head against his shoulder. Shame and guilt washed over him as he realized that if he had only been there, if he had kept a closer eye on them all, perhaps none of this would have happened. It was, however, too late.
A serpent had slithered its way into his family, and nobody had been there to cast it out because the one who ought to have done so had been away in London—frolicking.
“Mother, I must beg your pardon for allowing this to happen,” he said as Bridget slipped out of the room. His mother shook her head into his shoulder.