Page 52 of The Widow's Scandalous Gentleman
“I understand what you’ve risked, Lady Greaves,” he said. “And what those under your care continue to risk by standing beside you. The Vexleys may lend their support, but it is you who will speak for the Retreat today—and the world will be listening more closely than you think.”
Thalia drew a slow breath. Her posture was still, but her eyes were clear.
“Then I suppose I must speak well.”
The late afternoon light spilled through the tall windows of Vexwood Hall, casting long shadows across polished floors and illuminated faces gathered in anxious expectation. Among the assembled, expressions ranged from cautious hope to quiet apprehension. The gathering—ostensibly a house party—had grown into something far weightier: not merely an attempt to resolve a disputed estate,but a reckoning with the responsibilities that came with privilege, influence, and legacy.
Drawing rooms now flowed one into another, with furniture rearranged to allow for circulation, display, and conversation. Fireplaces had been lit early, casting a steady warmth that pushed back the early dusk and winter’s creeping chill. The scent of pine boughs and beeswax polish mingled with faint traces of ink and varnish from the works newly hung along the walls.
Guests moved through the space with attentive curiosity—parliamentarians, publishers, patrons of the arts—all invited under the guise of an informal reception, though nothing about the day had been left to chance. The house’s staff had been marshalled with military precision, and the guest list curated with purpose: those whose opinion held weight, and whose voices could alter the tide of rumour and reputation.
When everyone had been ushered into the largest of the salons—now cleared for remarks and flanked by modest displays of resident work—Sebastian stepped forward. He stood without notes, his presence alone quieting the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, his voice calm, assured, “we have not gathered today to stage a spectacle, but to correct a misapprehension. Perhaps several.”
He waited a breath.
“It is a humbling thing to admit when one’s judgment has been flawed. But I believe it is a greater failing not to admit it when evidence is clear. Seacliff Retreat, which our family once approached with scepticism and reserve, has revealed itself to be a place of conviction. Of work. Of contribution.”
A flicker of surprise moved across a few faces. He continued.
“We speak often in this country of duty—duty to the crown, to class, to tradition. But there is a quieter duty as well: to recognise what is worthy, even when it arrives in unfamiliar shape. What has taken place at Seacliff is not indulgence. It is creation. Discipline. Innovation. And, I daresay, courage.”
With that, he stepped aside.
Miss Ivy Fairweather crossed the carpet, folio in hand. She moved with a composure that belied the tension in her hands. As she opened her portfolio, she glanced once toward Kit.
He stepped forward, just behind her shoulder, and began to speak as her hands moved.
“Miss Fairweather would like to thank you for your time—and for the chance to speak through her work, if not her voice. She says her deafness has long been regarded as disqualifying. But at Seacliff, it became part of how she sees. And what she sees, she has painted.”
He paused as Ivy turned a page, revealing one of her landscapes. The room leaned in.
“She asks only that her merit be measured not by her silence, but by what she has made.”
There was a moment of stillness—neither polite nor pitying. It was the attention granted to something that mattered.
Miss Violet Ashworth stepped forward with the kind of unshakable composure that had once held London’s most critical theatre audiences spellbound. Even now, years from her last professional appearance, she radiated a presence sharpened by wisdom, her voice still possessed of the rich, sonorous clarity that needed no elevation to command a room.
“Your Grace. Ladies. Gentlemen,” she began, with the ease of one who had delivered more difficult lines under harsher scrutiny, “permit me a few brief words from one who has spent a lifetime on stages, and now finds herself in an entirely different—but no less important—kind of production.”
A small ripple of amusement moved through the assembled company, but her expression remained measured, earnest.
“I have witnessed, and lived within, the transformation that has taken place at Seacliff Retreat. It is not a theatre. And yet—like the theatre—it demands courage, demands honesty, and rewards only those who come willing to risk themselves in the pursuit of something greater than comfort. What has been built there is not mere shelter, not indulgence. It is structure, discipline, and above all: belief. In work. In merit. In the capacity to still begin again.”
She nodded once and stepped back. The silence that followed was one of genuine absorption, not mere politeness.
Then Kit stepped forward. No longer a performer imitating conviction, but a man bearing his own.
“Your Grace. Esteemed guests,” he said, his voice steady though his fingers clutched the edge of his folio, “I came to Seacliff half-unwritten. What I found there was not rescue, but rigour. Lady Greaves has never dealt in sentimentality. She offered me expectations, and space to meet them. The work I carry today was forged in that expectation.”
He paused, lifting his folio faintly.
“These are not apologies. They are pages. If I am to be judged, let it be for something I meant.”
That, too, was met with a pause—then the quiet shift of interest that suggested minds, once guarded, were beginning to open.
Thalia, standing near the far end of the room, felt the moment pivot. The argument had been made. What remained—what might tip sympathy into action—was not further testimony.
