Page 28 of The Widow's Scandalous Gentleman
Jasper stepped forward. “Do go on.”
“The time has come,” she said, “to set aside the pretence—at least in part. Not to surrender, mind you. But to seize control of the narrative. They come expecting scandal, invention, and impropriety. Let us give them... the unexpected truth instead.”
A ripple of confusion passed between them.
“Truth?” Thalia asked carefully.
“Indeed,” Violet said. “The kind that unsettles rather than satisfies their expectations. The kind that reframes their inquiry before they can frame it themselves. The truth is: this household is more orderly, more disciplined, and more morally purposeful than half the estates they hail from. But we must make that truth impossible to ignore. And that, my dears, is theatre.”
Jasper blinked. “You mean to perform authenticity?”
“I mean to reveal it,” Violet replied. “Strategically. With precision. They have come expecting shame. Let us give them virtue—on our own terms. That is the play I propose.”
Around them, the fire sank into glowing embers, casting long shadows across the faces of those who had made Seacliff their home. The hour was late, the stakes perilously high—but the first notes of purpose had returned to the room.
Thalia nodded once, slowly. “Then we have until tomorrow to ready ourselves.”
“And every moment between now and then,” Violet added, already turning toward the hall, “must be used to ensure that when your brother’s legal entourage arrives—papers in hand—they find not a scandal to exploit but a standard to fear.”
The others began to rise—each bearing the weight of the night’s revelations, and the urgency of what now must be done.
But Thalia lingered a moment longer by the hearth, her gaze fixed on the fire, her mind racing through possibility, risk—and something softer, closer, rising between her and the man who had begun this performance as a convenience... and might yet become something far more dangerous to her than ruin.
Someone she might not wish to let go.
Chapter Thirteen
“I confess I was wholly unprepared for the viciousness of this morning’s assault upon our establishment’s character,” said Lady Thalia Greaves, her voice tight with shock. “TheBrighton Heraldhas published accusations so calculated and cruel they surpass even Lady Gossamer’s most malicious conjectures. It is a deliberate campaign, cloaked in moral concern, to dismantle both the reputations of our residents and the very existence of our community.”
She stood before the morning room windows, the offending newspaper trembling in her grasp. Her usually composed features betrayed a devastation born not of scandal alone, but of the deliberate destruction of everything she had worked to accomplish through careful planning and dedicated effort to create a sanctuary where artistic talent could flourish without interference from those who viewed unconventional domestic arrangements as threats to established social order.
The front page bore the inflammatory headline:“Scandalous Retreat: An Investigation into the Irregular Arrangements that Threaten Brighton’s Moral Character.”The article betrayed an unsettling degree of familiarity with their daily operations and the private circumstances of their residents—information that could only have been obtained through systematic surveillance and careful coordination among multiple sources of information.
Lord Jasper moved to stand beside her with obvious concern for both her emotional state and the broader implications of such a public attack upon the establishment’s reputation, his own features reflecting the sort of grim determination that had characterised his response to previous crises, though the comprehensive nature of the newspaper’s accusations suggested challenges that exceeded anything they had previously faced.
The article’s calculated precision revealed, to Thalia’s growing horror, the culmination of weeks—perhaps longer—of espionage. The accusations were not the product of idle gossip, but the result of a campaign that had infiltrated their sanctuary like a military operation, gathering intelligence to be unleashed at their moment of greatest vulnerability.
“The article claims Miss Fairweather’s deafness is divine judgment for immoral behaviour,” Thalia read aloud, her voice trembling with suppressed fury. “And it dismisses her art as nothing more than desperate attempts to attract maleattention through exhibitions that proper ladies would consider beneath their dignity and social station.”
“Such claims are not merely false,” Jasper replied, his voice low with anger, “but cowardly. They target those least able to defend themselves, shaming a woman whose silence is no protection against public cruelty.”
TheHeraldcontinued its assault with equal ferocity, turning next to Kit’s theatrical ambitions—dismissing them as signs of moral decay, symptomatic of the so-called dissolute artistic circles he frequented. The piece painted these communities as havens for the idle and degenerate, populated by those unsuited to respectable society by virtue of their very creativity.
“Mr Whiston’s plays are described as ‘dangerous propaganda’ meant to corrupt young minds,” Thalia read on, disbelief darkening her expression, “suggesting that his themes are not artistic explorations, but deliberate affronts to traditional values.”
Particularly venomous was the attack on Miss Violet Ashworth. The article dredged up her theatrical past in alarming detail—details that should have remained private, but had clearly been unearthed and weaponised. Her residence at the retreat was cast as a pitiable decline, the inevitable fate of women who had strayed from the prescribed path and been ‘ruined’ by exposure to the stage.
“It implies,” Thalia continued, voice faltering with pain, “that Miss Ashworth’s influence on younger residents constitutes a moral contagion—one that threatens to spread unless checked by official intervention.”
Footsteps in the corridor heralded the arrival of the very residents whose reputations had been so publicly defamed. Yet as they entered the morning room, their poise and dignity were undiminished, a quiet testament to the resilience that had carried them through hardship before—and might again.
Miss Ivy Fairweather moved directly to Thalia’s side, her expressive eyes reflecting pain far deeper than anger. Her hands moved in graceful, urgent gestures, her signed language by now familiar to all in the room. Yet today, the intensity of her emotion lent her silent questions a force that made their translation all the more wrenching.
“Miss Fairweather asks if the accusations will force her to leave Brighton,” Mr Christopher Whiston translated quietly. “And she expresses particular worry about whether potential patrons who had shown interest in her work will withdraw their support based upon implications that her artistic pursuits serve immoral purposes rather than legitimate creative expression.”
The practical implications of such reputational damage struck everyone present with devastating clarity. Their hard-won legitimacy, their cultural standing—so recently attained—now stood in jeopardy. To be branded pariahs was to lose not only social approval, but the support upon which their survival depended.
“And furthermore,” Kit added, voice rising with controlled agitation, “the article names several of our recent guests—implying that their presence here casts suspicion upon their own virtue. That their support for us is evidence of poor judgment or, worse, shared moral corruption.”
