Page 47 of The Widow's Scandalous Gentleman
Her voice was steady. “Now, we wait. We obey the terms of the suspension. We preserve what we can until clarity returns.”
“And how long do you expect this to continue?” he asked.
Thalia looked out toward the sea, which shimmered faintly in the distance. “As long as it must.”
“Forgive me,” Margaret said, stepping closer, “but I must ask plainly. What, precisely, is it that you are preserving?”
Jasper’s jaw tightened.
Thalia, however, did not flinch. “Dignity. Purpose. Shelter.”
Sebastian’s gaze did not leave her. “And you believe this retreat can survive the pressure now brought against it?”
“I believe it ought to,” Thalia said carefully. “Survival is not a matter of belief. It is a matter of endurance.”
There was a silence.
Then, quietly, Sebastian said, “Jasper has never stayed anywhere longer than duty required. And yet here, he stayed. That alone demands our attention.”
Jasper looked away at that. Margaret, as ever, noticed.
“I believe,” she said carefully, “we have seen enough to understand the situation in outline. But detail matters. Especially when estate futures are in question.”
Thalia gave a small nod. “Then I hope you will stay the day. Speak to the residents. See what we have built.”
Sebastian inclined his head. “We shall, thank you, Lady Greaves.”
She held his gaze a moment longer, then looked away—composed, resolved.
And what they choose to do with that understanding,she thought,is, of course, entirely theirs.
Chapter Nineteen
“If I may speak, Lady Greaves,” said Miss Violet Ashworth, stepping forward with the quiet poise of a woman long accustomed to commanding attention. “It seems to me the time has come for those most directly affected to speak plainly—regardless of whatever misunderstandings may have clouded matters until now. For what has been built here deserves a voice beyond rumour and speculation. It deserves to be seen for what it is: rare, necessary, and of inestimable value.”
Her tone was calm but unshakable, each word landing with the assurance of someone who had once held an audience in rapt silence beneath the chandeliers of Drury Lane. Time had tempered her fire into steel. That steel was now directed with clear-eyed conviction toward the ducal siblings seated before her.
The drawing room, dappled in amber light from the lowering afternoon sun, held its breath. Faces turned—residents, guests, staff—each bearing some trace of hope, of worry. Of fear that what they cherished might vanish under the scrutiny of noble judgment.
Thalia remained standing, her hands loosely clasped before her, grateful for Violet’s boldness and yet wary. She knew what it cost to speak with such honesty in front of influential audiences. The Vexleys were not society gossips—they were power. And power listened differently.
Violet’s chin lifted. “Many of us arrived here after injury—some public, some private. And in this place, under Lady Greaves’s guidance, we found not pity, but purpose. We created something enduring—not because it was easy, but because it was necessary.”
Beside her, Miss Ivy Fairweather moved to stand with quiet determination. Her hands, graceful and expressive, began to sign, her features alight with emotion. Kit stepped forward and gently translated:
“She says: Here, I was not a burden. I was seen. Heard. Valued. This place gave me more than shelter. It gave me my name back.”
No one interrupted. Ivy’s hands moved again, slower now.
“She says: Please don’t take it away. Help us save it.”
Then Mr Christopher Whiston stepped forward, the silence folding around him like velvet. His posture bore the remnants of the stage: shoulders back, voice schooled—but the tremor in his hand betrayed the stakes.
“Your Grace. Lady Margaret.” He bowed, not with theatrical flair, but with quiet respect. “If I may... I hope to explain what this Retreat has meant—to me, and to others.”
Margaret gave a nod, her eyes trained on him without judgment. Jasper stood nearby, watching in measured silence.
“I came to Seacliff Retreat at a time when no reputable stage would so much as entertain my name. I was not accused of theft, nor of moral outrage—only of association. My plays raised questions that unsettled the wrong people. And I paid for it.”
