Page 48 of The Widow's Scandalous Gentleman
He paused, glancing around the room. “This place did not simply offer me a roof. It offered me recovery—not just of body or name, but of purpose. Under Lady Greaves’s direction, we were not merely tolerated. We were challenged. Nurtured. Treated as artists—not scandals.”
Sebastian, silent still, did not break his gaze.
Kit inhaled. “Some of us had reputations to recover. Others had names to reclaim. Some had never been given one at all. But here, under a structure that never pretended to mimic society, we found something better: a principled refuge. The kind that allows a person to do meaningful work.”
Miss Ivy Fairweather’s stepped forward; hands moving—fluid, deliberate, and filled with feeling. Kit now stood slightly behind her, eyes following the elegant arc of her fingers.
“She would like to speak,” Kit said gently. “And I will interpret, if I may.”
There was a respectful silence. Ivy turned slightly toward the Duke and Lady Margaret, and her hands began to shape her story.
“She says,” Kit translated carefully, “that before coming here, her deafness meant exclusion—from instruction, from opportunity, from the assumption that she had anything to offer. Most schools, most teachers, assumed she could not learn simply because she could not hear.”
His voice did not falter, though it softened.
“She says Lady Greaves saw her—not as broken, but as brilliant. She tailored instruction to Ivy’s strengths. Visual forms. Gesture. Demonstration. She taught her as she is—not as others wished her to be. And in doing so, she helped her become the artist she is.”
The Duke’s posture shifted slightly. Margaret, beside him, watched with a keen eye.
“She adds,” Kit said, “that her work—her landscapes—have recently drawn interest from critics who never once asked how she learned, only who had taught her.”
There was a pause as Ivy signed one last phrase, slower, more emphatic.
Kit swallowed, then looked directly at the Vexleys.
“She says: I have been allowed to belong.”
At this, even Violet’s composure trembled slightly.
It was Violet who stepped forward again, placing a gentle hand on Ivy’s shoulder before lifting her gaze to the siblings seated before them.
“Your Grace,” she said, her voice clear and sure, “Lady Margaret. I have lived long enough to see a great many charitable experiments. Some well-funded. Some well-meaning. Most, in the end, failed—not because they lacked coin or cleverness, but because they lacked courage.”
She straightened.
“This place did not fail. Not because it was safe, but because it was bold. It did not seek to mimic what society had already approved—it offered something else entirely. A standard not based on conformity, but on merit. On hope.”
Margaret’s expression shifted—slightly, but perceptibly.
“I was a performer once. The sort who filled theatres. And when that ended, as it does for all of us eventually, I expected the inevitable: obscurity, perhaps dependency. But instead, I was asked to teach. To advise. To give what I had rather than mourn its passing.”
She looked directly at Thalia.
“I was not made to feel that I had outlived my use. I was simply asked to give what I still could.”
A long silence followed.
Then Jasper stepped forward, his expression composed, though the emotion behind it simmered close to the surface.
“I must add my own voice,” he said, his tone quiet but firm. “Not to redeem myself—I do not expect that—but to affirm what has already been spoken.”
He turned to his brother and sister.
“When I first came here, I did so on behalf of our family. To assess, to report, to determine whether the land might be of interest. And I found far more than acreage or structure. I found courage. Art. Worth.”
He glanced toward Ivy, then Violet. Toward Kit, who stood with his hands loosely clasped.
“The Retreat does not ask to be pitied, nor saved. It asks only to be recognised for what it is: a place where potential is not dictated by background or circumstance, but drawn out by kindness and trust. I failed to understand that at first. I do not fail now.”
