Ford wasn't sure if she'd meant her remark to be chiding, but he'd heard it as such. Jemima was too kind to be openly critical, even now when she had every reason in the world not to spare his feelings, but he seemed to have fallen short of her expectations here in not having given the matter more thought.
"My father never seemed especially involved, in naming my sisters," he explained. They were getting a little off topic but he felt the need to defend himself given that he had not, until this moment, been aware that he was missing the mark here, and certainly hadn't intended to. He had been old enough to be cognizant of the conversations of adults when all three of his sisters had been born (though not, he thought with chagrin, taken into their confidences — never that, even up to the day his father had died). But now he was doubting his own recollections, or at least his interpretation of them. "But maybe they talked more about my name? By the time Verity was born there was a theme." He had always assumed his father hadn't had input in his either, because it seemed so improbable that two adults would have both landed on a name like Fortitude.
But as to the theme, since she'd asked... Ford shook his head firmly. "It's my mother's theme." If this were a tradition that stretched back generations perhaps he might feel more beholden to it, but he really couldn't say. "I like your family's style better," he continued, somewhat shyly.
"My father never seemed especially involved, in naming my sisters," he explained. They were getting a little off topic but he felt the need to defend himself given that he had not, until this moment, been aware that he was missing the mark here, and certainly hadn't intended to. He had been old enough to be cognizant of the conversations of adults when all three of his sisters had been born (though not, he thought with chagrin, taken into their confidences — never that, even up to the day his father had died). But now he was doubting his own recollections, or at least his interpretation of them. "But maybe they talked more about my name? By the time Verity was born there was a theme." He had always assumed his father hadn't had input in his either, because it seemed so improbable that two adults would have both landed on a name like Fortitude.
But as to the theme, since she'd asked... Ford shook his head firmly. "It's my mother's theme." If this were a tradition that stretched back generations perhaps he might feel more beholden to it, but he really couldn't say. "I like your family's style better," he continued, somewhat shyly.
Set by Lady!