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He greeted her with a kiss on her cheek. “Not more than me.”

If someone had told him before that he would be willing to be so openly affectionate, he would have never believed them.

But Phillipa brought out parts of him that he didn’t even know he had.

“What’s on your mind, darling?”

Her smile grew bigger. He knew she just loved whenever he called her that, which made him overuse the word.

“I visited the orphanage this morning you know,” she said. “The children were so excited. So, so, happy at how everything went. They could hardly wait for the next ball.”

“You better start planning for it.”

“And then as I was leaving, Joan came to hug me so tight. Oh, she’s so precious, Gregory. Sometimes I just want to steal her away and bring her home with me.”

He paused for a moment, an idea taking root in his mind.

“Why don’t you do exactly that?”

Phillipa laughed at first, and then when she noticed that her husband looked serious, her eyes widened.

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. I think that it would be a good idea if we.. bring her in. You know, as our own daughter.”

Phillipa looked back in shock, and then in delight.

“Do you mean you wish to adopt her?”

“Together, yes. I know that you have formed a close bond with her. You’ll have peace of mind knowing that she is loved and cared for.”

Phillipa was smiling ear to ear now. “But what gave you the idea? What brought this on?”

Gregory thought over it for a moment. In earnest, he wasn’t sure when the idea first took root. But he knew that his conversation with Duncan had definitely given him the impetus.

“I want us to have a big family,” he admitted. “I think…. I am ready to do that with you.”

“Oh, Gregory,” she wrapped her arms around him. “You know, you make me the happiest. I’ve thought about this before myself but I didn’t know how you would react. But I’ll speak to Mrs. Fairley. We will make this happen.

That evening, Gregory made true to his promise and took her to see where his sister was resting.

“Is this the spot?”

Phillipa asked it softly, standing beside Gregory at the edge of the small churchyard behind St. Margaret’s.

The old vicar had agreed to consecrate a plain stone for a young woman who had died far from home with no family present to claim her.

“It is.” Gregory’s arm was now healed, the scar along his forearm faded to a thin pale line he would carry the rest of his life. “I had the stonemason cut it a fortnight ago. I only could not bring myself to come and see it finished until today.”

The stone was simple.

Theodosia Welby. Beloved sister. She was loved, always.

“It is exactly right,” Phillipa said.

“I did not know what else to put. There is so much I wished to say to her, and none of it fits on a stone.” He crouched, and laid, at the base of it, a small bundle of white flowers Phillipa recognized from their own garden, the same bed Theodosia herself had apparently once insisted on planting as a girl. “I used to think, when we were young, that I had all the time in the world to be a better brother to her. I thought there would always be another year. I am sorry, Theodosia. I am sorry it took me so long, and I am sorry I was not braver, the night you went. I should have run after you myself, and nothing in the whole of society’s good opinion of me would have mattered half so much as having kept you safe.”

Phillipa said nothing, only laid her hand against his back, and let him have the silence he needed.