𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕼𝖚𝖊𝖊𝖓'𝖘 𝕷𝖎𝖔𝖓: 𝕮𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖙

The Wives

The Aristocrats of Evil were a curious bunch. It was a secret society created by the British Crown to fulfill commands too dark for even the Scotland Yard, and it was made up of the most vicious people to walk the Earth: businessmen. The Aristocrats' families grew wealthy from the society's villainous deeds, all covered up by the fronts of the member's successful companies. It was an impressive facade that took a great deal of patience and caution to uphold, but each member did so flawlessly. And the ones who failed to do so were disposed of. There could be no chance of proper society getting even so much as an inkling of what happened behind the closed doors of the Aristocrats' meetings.

And because not a word could be spoken about what happened at these meetings, women were not allowed to join their husbands. They were told by these close-minded men that they would not understand the proceedings of such 'business' meetings. The wives and sisters and daughters were shut out and lied to, their husbands and brothers and fathers saying that they would grow bored of the politics and economics discussed. But no such things were ever brought up unless an evil and illegal deed accompanied them. In truth these men were all afraid that their female counterparts would outdo them or would somehow become so 'tainted' with what they heard in these meetings that they became corrupt and undesirable.

As a result of being locked out of the meetings, the wives and sisters and daughters would all gather in the lounge or garden for tea and gossip. They would each take turns telling everyone present, even the servants, what talk they had heard on the streets. If the men had ever considered that maybe such gossip would have benefited them in any way, they would've had half a brain to allow their wives into their meetings, because as business women themselves the wives could be just as vile as their husbands. No one, not even their own flesh and blood, was safe from these women. They seemed to know everything that happened in polite society, and more than one would care to admit about what happened in the underworld. Although they did not know exactly what was said behind the billiard room door, they were easily able to piece it together when they returned to their own manors with their husbands.

And this was how it was for almost the entire hidden history of the Aristocrats of Evil and its female counterpart which became known as 'The Wives'. And with each change in the Aristocrats of Evil came a change in The Wives. Whenever an older member's husband was to be 'retired' from the Aristocrats, The Wives always managed to find a way to create funds out of thin air for their friend. The Aristocrats might not have had any compassion for each other, but The Wives were closer knit than a coven. And when it was time for a new Aristocrat and Wife to join, the Wives would haze her in slowly. At first they would appear exactly how their husbands described them: a group of bored women who gossiped endlessly. But as time went on, the new wife would find herself enveloped less in menial gossip and more in the darkest secrets her husband possessed. It was the natural cycle of things: the men believed they were better than their wives so they excluded them and the women became practically able to run the world from the garden.

The Wives went on for so long that eventually wives were replaced by their daughters who were replaced by their daughters. Many families came and went with the decades, but there was one family in particular at the middle of it all: the Pembers. Raye Pember was the wife of a successful business man who had been running the Aristocrats of Evil for almost as long as it had existed, a family known as the Phantomhives serving as their right-hand men. Lady Raye was a darling little old woman, but under that mask she was more vicious and ruthless than any man. But Lady Raye was old, almost in her sixties, and sadly she was unable to have children. She knew neither she nor her husband had many years left, and without heirs both The Wives and Aristocrats of Evil would be left without proper leaders. Lady Raye didn't worry herself about the Aristocrats all that much though, the Phantomhive family known for their teal hair and dubbed 'The Crown's Watch Dogs' would make fine replacements for her husband. But The Wives would still need their own proper leadership.