Page 64 of How to Start a Scandal

Most especially, she preferred to write about women who had gone through a rough time of it to come out gleaming on the other side. Like her cousin, Eleanor. A lady cast off so late in the Season for another. It was shameful what Lord Ledsey had done to her, though he’d certainly got his just deserts. After being stripped of his title for attempting to murder the Duke and Duchess, his hand had become infected and he’d perished from his wounds.

Writing about the Duchess’s success in attracting the attention of the Duke of Somersville the prior year had brought a note of vindication for Violet.

It was that idea she now focused on for herself. Except she could not mention Lord Fordson, of course. Or that she was indeed the author of the Lady Observer.

She drew in a satisfying inhale then let it slowly exhale out between her lips as she closed her eyes and envisioned herself as she would one of the subjects of her gossip column. It took only that brief moment to capture herself in her mind’s eye. She held it there, dipped her quill in a pot of ink and began to write.

Happily-ever-afters can come to the most mundane of wallflowers. A certain lady once deemed too plump for marriage and all but set firmly upon the shelf has finally found a man to draw her from the background she’d spent a lifetime fading into.

Since the certain gentleman’s return from his brave efforts on the Continent, he has been seen with the perhaps-not spinster. And, while their meetings have always had an air of the clandestine, they have now been seen for the first time truly together in public.

Led by an odd-looking creature in a bonnet...

She smiled as she wrote that bit.

...the perhaps-not spinster strode through Hyde Park at the peak of the fashionable hour on the proud arm of the newly minted Earl...

She paused and read what she wrote, noting she had unintentionally written perhaps-not spinster rather than soon-to-be spinster. This time, however, even the part about Hedgehog did not keep the smile on her face.

Oh, heavens. That didn’t sound at all flattering.

She scratched a large X over the piece and tried again.

Love is not only for the conventional beauty, but also for the perhaps-not spinsters who have blended into the background of society—

Violet set her quill down with a puff of frustration.

No matter how she put it, describing her circumstances was far from complimentary. How had she put it for others?

She slid open a drawer, removed several stacks of texts on etiquette and revealed a bundle of the Society Journal beneath. She flipped to her column one by and one and skimmed over the articles. Her heart slowly stopped.

What she had intended as capturing a lady’s victory, especially one where a man was at fault for having led to her unhappiness in the first place, she had instead succeeded in revealing their greatest weaknesses. Her fingers came to her lips to stifle a gasp.

There had been the debutante who had fallen at her own ball, only to wed Lord Bastionbury, the Marquess every woman had fawned over. Except in describing the lady, Violet had used the words ‘calamitous’ and—she winced—‘lacking grace’.

Heart pounding, Violet flicked through the previous instalments of the Lady Observer to the on-dits she’d written about her own cousin, the Duchess of Somersville. Violet had been proud of that piece and felt as though Lord Ledsey had truly been proclaimed the cad he was.

And truly he did appear perfidious. But then, Violet got to the part she’d written about her cousin.

Regardless of where the blame lies, the tale has not ended happily for a lady who masks it so well she’s earned the unfortunate moniker of Ice Queen.

She has watched the entire heartbreaking scene unfold before her dry eyes with a composure tightly reined, as if she were bored.

While this only perpetuates rumours of her cold nature, one cannot help but wonder at her ability to maintain such stoicism after everything she’s been through in recent years.

If her heart is truly ice, as some claim, it stands to reason that it will shatter more easily when broken...

Tears stung Violet’s eyes. In her attempt to put Lord Ledsey to shame, she had trumped up Eleanor’s deficiencies to elicit more sympathy for her. And while perhaps it had done that, it had also made her appear, well, pathetic.

Violet gave a soft cry and the paper crumpled under her hands. All this time, how had she never realised what she was doing?

And she now intended to do the same to Lottie? The woman who had helped her, who had championed Violet’s success and encouraged her to be kind to herself when most others fed words of deprecation.

Violet tried to drag in air through the burning pain in her chest. She had never meant to write hurtful things about all those ladies. She’d only meant to help them. Oh, how miserably she’d failed.

She realised now she couldn’t do the same to Lottie. Which meant her lessons and the exposé—all of it—would have to come to an end. And that meant Violet had only two options remaining: the first was to become an unpaid governess to Sophie’s children. If the other three were like Felicity, it might not be so bad.

She shook her head at herself, unable to believe she was actually considering being responsible for all those children as a viable option.