Kynaston ignored that. “You’ve been in touch with her?” He seemed dumbfounded.
“She is my mother.”
“She abandoned you in your cradle,” he protested, “and was forbidden to ever make contact with you.”
“Ifoundher,” Phyllis said. “Note what I said about her six children.”
“My mother died trying to give birth the second time,” Kynaston retorted.
Phyllis seemed completely undisturbed. “I’m more likely to take after my mother, don’t you think? She was only eighteen when she bore me. Titus, I understand your distress. Seraphina was a lovely person and very kind to me, but I won’t let her death make a nun of me.”
Norris was looking at Phyllis with mute adoration, but Kynaston probably wanted to throttle her. All the same, her quiet reason was irrefutable.
“A year, then,” he said, as if every word hurt. “If you’re still of the same mind by this date next year, you may marry.”
Phyllis rose, smiling. Her smile wasn’t triumphant or gleeful, but gently loving. “Thank you. In the church at Delacorte, in all good order. May I hope you will already be married, brother?”
“No.”
Her expression promised that she intended to change his mind.
“Do you want to stay here?” Norris asked Phyllis.
“I’d rather return to Town, but perhaps I can stay in your house? Your mother is there, after all. I truly can’t endure much more of Cessy and her parents.”
“Of course,” Norris said. He’d have given her the moon and stars if she’d asked for them.
All was as it should be, but Ariana asked, “So, what’s happened to Ethel?”
“Oh.” For once, Phyllis seemed wordless, and Norris grimaced.
“Never say you abandoned her,” Ariana protested. “I know she can be annoying at times, but...”
“Of course not!” Norris protested. “When we haltedand decided to turn back, she declared that she’d carry on north.”
“Why? She knows no one in the north.”
Phyllis answered, “To marry a Lord Inching.”
“Inching!”Ariana’s exclamation matched Kynaston’s.
“Apparently he proposed to her, but she said she couldn’t leave you. But when I asked her to accompany us north, she decided to seize the moment.”
“‘God helps those who help themselves,’” Norris said, clearly quoting. “‘Adversity makes strange bedfellows.’ You know what she’s like.”
“But that sounds as if she doesn’t want to do it,” Ariana said.
“The ‘strange bedfellows’ was us and the elopement, I think,” her brother said, “though ‘Better to light a candle than curse the darkness’ had me foxed.”
“She wants to be married,” Ariana said. “She’s said as much recently, but we’ve made her a creature of two worlds. She couldn’t marry in a Burgis way, but what gentleman would take her, with her background and her height and build?”
“Except Inching,” Kynaston said, even with a bit of a laugh. “They might do well enough. She’s a strong, resolute woman, and he’ll adore her. He’ll probably be happy to stay in Cumberland now he has an Amazon of his own.”
“I don’t get to thrash him?” Norris asked. “For what he did to Ariana?”
“Let sleeping dogs lie, love,” Phyllis said, which made him groan, in a totally besotted way. When she added, “We should leave,” he agreed.
He looked at Ariana. “Do you want to travel back with us, Sis?”
