February 17, 2024 – 5:24 PM
14 February 1894 — Love at First Sight Ball
Tonight was miserable. Obviously he had to go back to the party after parting ways with Miss Farley, because the whole point of attending the party at all tonight was to be seen and observed as having an alibi for the time of the robbery. He'd been hoping that he could come back to a relatively normal night, at least for the most part. It was possible Mrs. Dempsey would have only told someone specific — the Minister, or Miss Farley's parents, or his mother — someone who could quietly dispense some consequences. None of those potential interactions were things he was looking forward to, but any of them were better than her having told everyone.
It was immediately clear from the way people were looking at him that she had told everyone. Ford tried to insulate himself in a pocket of men he knew and make small talk, but even there he felt conspicuous, as though everyone who passed within a dozen feet of him was staring. It would be worse for her, of course. Ford hoped she was already gone, but didn't dare to look.
Eventually he decided he couldn't take any more of people staring or whispering. He found mother and said he was going home early, charged her with ensuring the girls got home safe, and fled towards the front door. In the entryway as he struggled to get his coat on, he was joined by a familiar face.
"What?" he asked, not bothering to mask how little he wanted to stop and have this conversation in the front room. His tone was weary and irritable all at once.
Verity Swann
Set by Lady!
February 17, 2024 – 11:15 PM
Verity Swann — Played by Emma
Verity had had three realizations upon hearing what had supposedly transpired between Ford and Miss Farley in the closet. The first (and the most obvious) was how any chance her two sisters had of marrying thiss
Year were effectively ruined. A scandal of this caliber would take years to part from, and even then none would ever look at him the same. The family would be invited to fewer (if any) events, Miss Farley would be scrutinized for the next year for any hint of a pregnancy.
Which then led to her second (and most disappointing) realization: her brother was an absolute idiot. Verity wasn't naive enough to believe either of her brothers were saints when it came to women. And, in her opinion, so long as they kept their affairs discreet, it mattered naught. That Ford found a ball to be the appropriate setting for such intimacy meant he was something far worse than an idiot — he was a lunatic.
Her third realization came wrapped in a shroud of both guilt and relief: she was far enough removed from their household now that her reputation would hopefully not suffer too terribly. Then again, Everett and she had married quickly and that was still recent enough that some might remember it. But, if she played her cards right, she would escape this nightmare with minimal damage.
But Grace and Clementine —
It was the thought of her sisters' ruined futures that saw Verity follow her brother from the ballroom and towards the front of the house. She was seething with rage and full of disappointment as she stood with her arms crossed, blocking his path to escape. This was hardly the appropriate setting for this conversation, and this behavior fell far from playing her cards right. But, the burning question prevailed as she harshly spat in as quiet a voice as she could manage, "what were you thinking?!"
set by mj
February 17, 2024 – 11:45 PM
What were you thinking was kind of a bullshit question, because it wasn't as though there was any answer she would be happy with. The truth was he had been thinking, when he'd lied to Mrs. Dempsey and before that when he'd left the party and before that when he'd picked the house to rob. He had been thinking hard for a long time about what was best for the family, about what it would take to keep the girls afloat long enough to marry — but Verity didn't know any of that, and it wasn't as though he was going to tell her now. Even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't have said anything about it here.
He pulled his arm through his coat sleeve a little more aggressively than was necessary. Maybe he should have gotten his coat himself rather than waiting for it to be fetched — he knew where all the coats were being kept, obviously, and everyone here knew he did. And that would have given him a chance to have been home by now, not waylaid by his sister.
"Yeah, you're right," he said, sarcastic. "Should've planned it better." The subtext: I didn't plan for this, obviously.
Set by Lady!
February 18, 2024 – 11:23 PM
Last modified: February 18, 2024 – 11:33 PM by Verity Swann.
Verity Swann — Played by Emma
His sarcasm fueled her ire further. Obviously, he should have planned this better. Obviously, he should've been smarter than to head into a closet with Miss Farley of all people. (What did he even find attractive about her? She was as desperate as Verity had been before marrying!) Were they not in public, Verity might've smacked his arm for the impertinence. Instead, her scowl deepened as she glared at him. Ford, the supposed leader of their family, had foolishly ruined them all.
"You should have," she fumed at him. Everything Verity wanted to shout at him were words she could never voice here. She looked from him to the door somewhere behind her and back. "I'm going home with you." There was no room for argument in her tone as she then stared pointedly towards the floo.
set by mj
February 18, 2024 – 11:40 PM
Ford thrust his other arm through his coat. "Suit yourself," he replied, still irritated. "But I'm not staying up just for you to lecture me longer."
It was sort of ridiculous to claim he'd been on his way home with the intention of going to bed, given that it was still early in the night and he and Noble often made a habit of sitting up in the parlor far later than this to ensure all of the girls went to bed without trouble. On the other hand, he had no problem at all barricading himself in his room and pretending to be asleep if it meant avoiding having Verity berate him for sleeping with someone he hadn't even slept with.
He brushed past her to the front door. He held it open with the heel of his foot, but didn't bother to offer her his arm the way he normally would have. He hadn't asked her to come, so he didn't think he was obliged to go to any great lengths to ensure she was comfortable on the walk.
There was a layer of slush on the ground, snow that had melted away from the centers of the roads and then refrozen at the corners in a dense, dry sheet. For a few feet the only noise was the crunch of it under their boots, and then his anxiety got the better of him and he couldn't help but ask: "How bad is it? What they're saying."
Set by Lady!
February 19, 2024 – 12:28 AM
Verity Swann — Played by Emma
Ford had never respected her, Verity realized with a stunningly disappointing clarity. Even when she sacrificed justice in favor of her family being ruined. (He had to have known, even then, that she hadn't been left whole after her kidnapping. He had to have realized what had happened to her.) Even when she didn't once question the fact that there had been no dowry paid for her. (None? Verity still remembered asking in a stunned whisper to Everett in the early days of their marriage.) Ford saw her only as his nuisance of a sister, the one he detested the most and was glad to be rid of.
He further proved his disrespect in each of his actions. His refusal to extend his arm, the way the door barely stayed open long enough for her to slip through. She fumed silently, her hands trembling with rage at the audacity of her brother. It wasn't enough for him to treat her with such malice, he'd gone and done it to Clementine and Grace as well. (Grace! As though the poor thing had any chance of marrying without a scandal attached to her name!)
Verity considered ignoring his question altgoether. He had to know what was being spoken was bad if she was raging at him like this. The pair had barely spoken in years, and nothing meaningful since her breakdown in the dining room. It would have served him right to stew over what tomorrow would bring. She ought to have too, except Verity still remembered the fear of whispers that consumed her in the days following her kidnapping. And, idiotic lunatic that he was, she wouldn't do that to her brother.
"It's bad, Ford." Verity said without looking at him. The slush made the bottom of her dress heavy, and her pace visibly slowed to accomodate the extra weight. "It's as bad as you can imagine." He was going to have to marry Miss Farley, otherwise she would be utterly ruined. Either that, or Ford was a careless rake and their family would suffer as a result.
set by mj
February 19, 2024 – 11:44 PM
No, it wasn't as bad as he could imagine, Ford thought distantly. He had not been arrested. He was not going to be arrested. That was the worst he could imagine, and he had avoided that. He had avoided it at the expense of Miss Farley's reputation, but there was nothing to be done about that now. And it wasn't as though he held all of the blame on that point, either — Mrs. Dempsey hadn't had to tell everyone what she had seen, and he'd had nothing to do with actually getting Miss Farley undressed in the coat room in the first place. But neither of those were defenses he could use when speaking to Verity. He dug his hands a little deeper in his pockets.
"Did she leave already?" Ford asked. He hoped so. He could not imagine any reason she would have wanted to stay, when the glances and the whispers would have been far worse for her than they were for him, and they had been bad enough to chase him out of the ballroom already. He'd been purposefully avoiding looking for her, though — looking anywhere that might see him accidentally making eye contact with anyone, in fact — so he couldn't say for sure.
Set by Lady!
February 22, 2024 – 11:34 PM
Verity Swann — Played by Emma
Miss Farley would have been a fool to remain at the party for any length of time after being discovered in the closet. The two of them had to have known how fast the rumors would spread, how instantly their reputations would plummet. That Ford had stayed at the party while the wildfire spread about the room was both impressive and incredibly disappointing. Verity stayed silent for a minute, pondering when she had last seen Miss Farley. It had to have been before the chaos begun, right? Surely she couldn't have been so foolish.
"For her sake, I hope so." She eventually answered. "Yours too."
set by mj
February 23, 2024 – 12:29 AM
That wasn't very definite, but if Verity didn't know he supposed there was no way for him to get any more information about it. If he'd been more conniving about this whole thing he might have talked to Miss Farley in the coatroom before they went back to the ballroom, established a mutual plan of attack, gotten their story straight... but she had seemed so obviously miserable, and it had all been his fault, and he hadn't been keen to open up conversation that was as likely to lead to her hurling abuses at him as anything productive.
He probably shouldn't have been surprised that Verity had followed him out of the ballroom. She had always been the most attuned to reputation out of all of them, and never just her own. They hadn't been out of mourning even one month before Verity had found a suggestion of impropriety to berate him over, and then he had been really innocent, not just mostly innocent as he was now. (Or — was he even mostly innocent here? He was very guilty, just not of the things anyone suspected him of).
"I suppose," he said ruefully, "We've reached the part of the conversation where you forbid me to write to her?" This was about as close to a joke as he was capable of making under the circumstances; she'd once told him, when Witch Weekly had speculated about him and Miss Belby based on the strength of nothing but two conversations in a crowded room, that writing was an admission of guilt. Something that clearly wasn't going to matter one way or another now.
Set by Lady!
February 23, 2024 – 12:59 AM
Verity Swann — Played by Emma
The suggestion was so shocking that Verity stopped short in her tracks. There had been rumors floating around for weeks that Miss Farley was engaged, and, while Verity was confident she wasn't engaged to Ford, a marriage was now the only way the idiotic girl's reputation would be saved. Ford's too, for that matter. This scandal would haunt them for years otherwise, and that was only if Miss Farley could find someone else to marry her.
Verity stared at Ford with a mixture of rage and disbelief. He'd done this to Miss Farley, and for what? A few minutes of pleasure that couldn't have been pleasurable enough to make this worth it. He'd done this to Grace and Clementine, ruined their chances of a successful marriage, and thought he'd get out of this without a single sacrifice.
"Of course you're going to have to write to her, Ford. There's- this - this isn't a ridiculous Witch Weekly article!" It was difficult to keep her tone level, to refrain from shouting at him on the street. She took a breath and pulled her cloak tighter about her shoulders so that her hands had something to do other than tremble. Then, only a bit more calmly Verity added, "you're either going to be a heartless rake or her husband — there's no compromise here."
set by mj
February 23, 2024 – 1:10 AM
Now she wanted him to write her, because now she thought he'd actually done something. She may have teased him about Miss Belby back in the day, but she'd gotten more serious as time went on; he couldn't imagine her teasing him about anything like that now. His almost-joke had been poorly placed. And she seemed to have strong feelings about him doing the honorable thing, given that she thought he had done the dishonorable thing first. That was a bit of a surprise, coming from her. Next to Noble, Verity had always seemed the most mercenary of his siblings. He would have expected that she would have argued for the outcome she thought was best for the family, even at the expense of Miss Farley's reputation. If she were in his shoes tonight, deciding whether to be honest about having come in through the floo or pretending to have been with Miss Farley, he felt she would likely have made the same choice as he had. It made him wonder if she had a particular reason for feeling so strongly about it — the circumstances of her own marriage had always been suspect, and it was only the fact that none of them could afford to look too closely at it that had prevented them from trying to figure out what exactly had happened. Maybe she felt for Miss Farley's position because it wasn't too far removed from what her own had once been.
If that was true, it was going to make the rest of this conversation all the more difficult. Because Ford would have agreed with her, in principle... but in practice, he knew he was willing to let Miss Farley sink on her own ship if it meant keeping his siblings afloat. In principle he wasn't a thief or a liar, but in practice — in practice, it turned out, his morals didn't mean so much to him as he would have liked to have pretended.
"A heartless rake, then," he said, with a shrug of put-on indifference.
Set by Lady!
February 23, 2024 – 1:34 AM
Verity Swann — Played by Emma
The gulf between she and her brother had never felt so wide. Not even on the eve of her wedding when she was all but begging him to stop her, to pretend to care, to pull at a single thread and unravel all that had been done to her, had she felt so far from him. But now, watching him willingly cast aside all sense of righteousness and chivalry in favor of ruining a woman, Verity felt as though she had never known him at all.
Perhaps, if her experience had been different, if she had found a husband without the trauma involved, she wouldn't have thought twice of ruining Miss Farley. There were worse things to happen to a family's reputation than having a philandering brother. Clementine and Grace might have suffered for a few months, but by autumn this whole thing would be largely forgotten. (So long as Ford kept his scandals to a minimum anyway.) However, Verity hadn't at all considered as she stormed up to Ford that he wouldn't do right by Miss Farley. She'd just assumed their being caught meant the deal was sealed, that he would soon have a wife their family likely couldn't afford.
"You repulse me." Verity spat at him. "There are brothels for that sort of behavior, opera singers or ballerinas even. You could have gotten your fill without - without ruining that girl." She stalked closer to him, her eyes blazing with a fury she hadn't felt in years. Verity was certain she would have slapped him by now if they were home with how her body shook with violent energy. "I truly believed you better than this — better than - " she broke off, shaking her head as if to shake the very thought from her mind. "You're the same as them. I can only hope you'll choose your affairs better next time."
She didn't wait for his response before turning on her heels to head towards her own home.
set by mj
February 23, 2024 – 1:43 AM
Ford had expected her to be angered by his response, but he hadn't expected the force of it. He braced himself as she approached, fully expecting based on her tone and her posture that she would hit him, but she held back. Her choice of language made it clear what she thought of him, full of vulgar phrasing like gotten your fill, but he couldn't fault her for that. He'd done it to himself, by committing to this rumor. This was the light that he'd elected to paint himself in, rather than being known as a criminal. And at the end of the day, was it really too far removed from the truth? Verity thought that he had slept with her, and he never would have done that to a lady, but everything else... He had intentionally chosen to ruin her, knowing that the consequences would be far less for him. He had intentionally chosen to put what he wanted far above hers — and it was some slight justification that what he wanted wasn't just for him, but only slight.
She was stalking away. Her words had left him jittery and she was already two steps removed when he found his voice.
"Yeah," he said weakly. "Won't happen again."
Set by Lady!
