🔒 The heavy oak door slams shut, bolts falling like a tomb sealing, and the widow Alianor finds herself imprisoned in Hawksmere’s ancient tower. Dust and silence press in, her only companions as despair gnaws at the edges of her courage. But the Regent, Sir Roland de Mowbray, has not finished with her. 👑⚔️

Within the shadows of her cell, he arrives—not with steel, but with poison wrapped in silk. He demands her recantation, her humiliation, her submission before the entire square. He offers her survival, but at a cost more terrible than death: to betray Eamon Thorne, to destroy his memory, and to accept the Regent’s hand in marriage. 🕯️🔥

Alianor must decide whether to bow beneath the weight of power or to let truth consume her, even if it means ruin. Outside, whispers stir. Inside, tears fall. And as the night deepens, the Price of Truth is revealed—one that will haunt Hawksmere forever.

🎧 Step into Chapter 7 of The Scandalous Hours: a gothic tale of betrayal, forbidden choices, and the suffocating weight of truth in the face of tyranny.

⚔️ Scandal and betrayal take center stage in this haunting chapter of The Scandalous Hours. Lady Alianor stands before Hawksmere, forced into a false confession, her words tasting like grave dirt 🕯️ as she recants her truth and condemns the memory of Eamon Thorne. Before a crowd hungry for spectacle 👀, Roland de Mowbray seizes his moment of triumph, presenting himself as savior and demanding Alianor’s hand in marriage 💍 — a union that is less a vow of love than a sentence of captivity.

🏰 What follows is a chilling descent into a world gilded in false promise. Hawksmere Keep is transformed into a fortress under Roland’s ruthless control, its halls filled with guards, wealth, and suffocating watchfulness. Bess, pale and broken from her own terror 😔, drifts like a ghost at Alianor’s side, a living reminder of all that is at stake. Sister Margery’s sanctimonious whispers tighten the noose further, reminding Alianor that submission is her only path to “safety.”

💔 Yet beneath the heavy samite of her wedding gown 👗 and the hollow cheer of villagers, a darker truth lurks. The gilded cage is no sanctuary — it is a prison of iron masked in velvet, a place where vows echo like curses 🔔 and love is twisted into possession. In this chapter of gothic romance 🌑 and medieval intrigue, loyalty is betrayed, power masquerades as piety, and scandal festers in silence.

✨ Listen now to The Scandalous Hours: The Gilded Cage — a tale of forced recantation, dark weddings, and vows that bind tighter than chains.

❄️ Hawksmere Square stands frozen in silence as the widow Alianor faces her most perilous trial yet. Before the Justiciary Hall, Sir Roland de Mowbray demands her surrender: denounce Eamon Thorne, recant her truth, and bow to the Regent’s authority. ⚖️👑

The crowd waits, breathless, for her humiliation. But when the moment comes, Alianor does the unthinkable. One word—No—breaks the silence, igniting scandal that can never again be contained. 🕯️🔥

Whispers ripple through the square, guards falter, and Captain Varrus hesitates as the Regent’s mask of control begins to crack. In the clash of fear, courage, and deception, Alianor’s defiance becomes the spark that may change Hawksmere forever.

🎧 This gothic tale of betrayal, accusation, and forbidden truth will leave you breathless. The Accusation has been made—but who truly stands guilty in Hawksmere?

⛪✨ In the shadow of Hawksmere, the bells toll for The Saint’s Hour… but not all prayers rise clean. Beneath velvet cloaks and candlelit vows, betrayal coils like incense, twisting faith into weapon and truth into scandal.

Alianor finds herself caught between the weight of devotion and the sting of treachery, where whispers of saints become daggers in the hands of the powerful. 🕯️💔 The square waits, the crowd listens, and every breath feels like judgment.

In this gothic tale of secrets and survival, one woman’s courage will be tested against the Regent’s iron grip, the church’s watchful gaze, and the chilling cost of speaking truth aloud. ⚖️🔥

🎧 Immerse yourself in a world of scandal, betrayal, and forbidden revelations. The Saint’s Hour has come—will it bring redemption, or ruin?

In Chapter 4: Kindling, Hawksmere’s walls groan beneath frost and fear as Lady Alianor clutches a carved face in her pocket — a secret gift, a silent danger. Drawn into the Hollow under a killing moon, she dares to return silver and soul to the man branded outlaw. But when a starving wolf emerges from the shadows, fire meets fang, and a Thorn must stand between her and death. 🔥🐺

Scandal brews, love sparks, and danger prowls ever closer. Which fire will consume her first — passion, peril, or the velvet cage waiting at Hawksmere?

🎧 Enter the shadows with Lady Aurelia Ravenshade and uncover the whispers behind Hawksmere’s walls.

Scandal creeps through Hawksmere in Chapter Three: The Carving & The Cross 🕯️. Poor Bess lies between life and death 💀 as Lady Alianor grinds forbidden herbs 🌿, each breath heavy with desperation. But when Sir Roland de Mowbray arrives unannounced 🚪, his honeyed words 🍯 conceal chains of marriage and control ⛓️, pressing Alianor toward a gilded cage she cannot bear 🕊️. Yet, in the dark Hollow 🌲, a different story is carved — symbols scratched into oak, a crude bird 🐦, and a gift more intimate than a kiss 💌: her face, captured by the Thorn’s skilled hand. Two men, two prisons, one trembling heart ❤️ caught in the shadows. Will Alianor choose silken shackles 🎭 or perilous freedom? ⚔️

The Scandalous Hours ⏳ invites you deeper into the intrigue. Lean close 🤫, for scandal is not shouted in the open — it is whispered in the Hollow 🌙, carved into bark ✒️, and left upon a windowsill 🌹. Listen now 🎧, and let Lady Aurelia Ravenshade guide you through the secrets Hawksmere dares not speak aloud…

In this third episode, Lady Alianor slips beyond Hawksmere’s ivy-choked walls into the sodden wilderness. Driven by desperation for her maid Bess, she braves mud, mist, and the judgment of every shadow. The path west grows wild and cruel, leading her into Thorne’s Hollow — a place whispered of in kitchens and cloisters alike, where silence presses like a hand against the heart. With every step the forest tightens its grip, until at last a sound breaks through the dripping gloom: the steady thump of a mallet. In the clearing, smoke coils from a charcoal mound… and there, she beholds the figure who haunts every whisper of scandal. The Hollow has revealed its keeper. But is he man, monster, or something in between?

In Part Two of Chapter One, Lady Alianor’s world darkens. Though Sir Roland’s claim still lingers like a brand upon her skin, it is not his shadow that most threatens Hawksmere’s halls. Within her chamber, her loyal maid Bess lies fevered and fading, and Alianor’s remedies prove powerless against the creeping sickness. Desperation drives her to the one place she has sworn never to tread — the forbidden woods, where whispers speak of an outlaw healer, Eamon Thorne. Ash-stained, hunted, and feared, his name alone could condemn her. Yet with every faltering breath from Bess, Alianor’s choice grows cruelly clear. Step once more into the scandalous hours, where protection bears a price, loyalty becomes peril, and a widow dares the darkness in search of salvation.

Episode 1: The Widow of Hawksmere – Part I

The year is 1365. Rain lashes against the crumbling stones of Hawksmere Keep, where grief and danger walk hand in hand. Sir Godfrey de Clervaux is dead, and the bells toll their final mournful notes across the countryside. Yet for his widow, Lady Alianor, the true peril begins only now.

Amid the flickering torches and whispered prayers of the funeral, eyes follow her every move — none more venomous than Sir Roland de Mowbray, a man whose charm conceals claws of iron. With Hawksmere weakened and her household divided, he offers protection at a price: her hand, her freedom, her very destiny.

But Alianor’s heart beats with defiance. As shadows gather in the keep’s drafty halls and her loyal maid Bess falls gravely ill, whispers lead her to an outlaw — a healer feared and shunned, known only as The Thorn. To seek him out is to risk ruin. To ignore him is to risk everything.

This is where the scandal begins. In The Scandalous Hours, sorrow becomes a weapon, desire becomes defiance, and the fire of one woman’s choices will ignite a tale of betrayal and forbidden love. Lean closer, darling — Lady Aurelia Ravenshade has opened her archives, and the first page drips with intrigue.

Step closer, darling… for scandal never sleeps.

By the glow of the fire and the whisper of silk, Lady Aurelia Ravenshade invites you into her private archive of forbidden tales. Here, broken vows, dangerous liaisons, and whispered betrayals are not merely remembered — they are immortalized.

The Scandalous Hours, Season One, begins within the shadowed halls of Hawksmere Keep, where a widow grieves, predators circle, and one secret could ruin them all. Told in Aurelia’s velvet voice, these stories are not history — they are scandal, etched in ash and ink.

This welcome is your key. Beyond it lies a world where every smile hides a dagger, every vow conceals a lie, and every listener becomes a confidante.

Forever scandalously yours,