CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A pulse leapt in Giff’s chest. “You know me?”
Mrs Joyce’s startled eyes appeared to devour his face. “I think I must say I do, sir, for the resemblance is uncanny.”
“I had not thought I looked so like my mother.”
“Oh, her features were more delicate, as I remember, Master Giffard, but so were yours when last I saw you. Gracious heaven, it is you!”
Giff seized the woman’s plump hands and held them fast. “Can you swear to it, Mrs Joyce? Dare you say for certain I am the same you knew as a child?”
The woman’s hands returned the pressure of his. “I am as certain as I stand here, sir.” She freed one hand and reached up in a tentative fashion. “May I, sir?”
Giff, his breast a tumult, nodded. “Go ahead.”
He felt her fingers on his face, trembling as they touched the fading wounds.
“How did you come by these, Master Giffard?”
He grimaced. “It’s a long story, Mrs Joyce. But, come, tell me how it is you know me for my mother’s son?”
She stood back a little, her gaze still riveted. “Now that I look at you more closely, sir, I cannot quite tell. It is not so much your individual features, except for the eyes. Indeed, I think you have more of his late lordship in the nose and jaw. It is perhaps the way your hair grows and the shape of your face, I think.” Her expression changed, became shadowed. “I beg your pardon, sir, if I am speaking too free.”
“The devil you are! Your words are gold to me, Mrs Joyce. Say on!”
She looked hesitant. “Might I instead show you, Master Giffard?”
“Show me what?”
The housekeeper threw an apprehensive glance towards the upper regions where Piers had gone with Rhoades. She dropped into a near whisper. “If you don’t object to coming to my room, sir…”
Giff turned to Tarporley, who had witnessed all with evident astonishment, and noted the butler still present at a slight distance and looking bemused. He addressed himself to Tarporley.
“Tell Piers I will meet him in the old ruins of the ancient keep, will you?”
“Certainly.” The young man came close enough to murmur. “But need you still fight?”
“I don’t yet know.” Giff turned to the butler. “You’d best come with us. I don’t want you alerting your master.”
“He won’t do that, sir,” said the housekeeper, but she beckoned the man as she led the way towards a door leading to the back premises.
Aware of an unruly pulse, Giff followed her through the door and found himself in the area devoted to domestic offices. The clatter of pots and pans penetrated the corridor they were traversing, but Mrs Joyce stopped before they reached the kitchen, entering a neat little apartment which was clearly her housekeeper’s room. She closed and locked the door behind the three of them, casting an admonishing glance towards the butler.
“You must never speak of this to Master Piers, Adam.” And to Giff, “Dunford and I are to be married, sir, when we both retire. He will not betray you.”
Giff nodded towards the man, but his attention was concentrated on the housekeeper. “What did you want to show me?”
She selected a key from the bunch hanging from the chatelaine at her waist and, moving to the smaller of two cupboards, bent to insert it into the lock of the lower section. Giff waited in some degree of anxious impatience as her arm and head disappeared inside the aperture, with a degree of huffing and puffing as she set up a search. Her voice came muffled.
“Here it is!”
She emerged and, with a trifle of difficulty, extracted a small framed picture and held it up. Giff took it from her as Dunford sprang forward to help the woman to her feet.
Turning the frame, Giff regarded the portrait it contained in stunned silence. The image depicted was of a young woman holding an infant, rather in the manner of the virgin and child. The two faces were practically identical, both wearing lush locks of golden brown, the babe’s a shade or two lighter than those of the mother. His mother. There was no mistaking Flora Gaunt’s familiar features, though they were a good deal more plumply youthful than he remembered. His hair had darkened with the years and he knew his eyes were a trifle more deep-set, his brows more prominent.
“You’ve kept this all these years?”
Mrs Joyce’s eyes were rimmed with wet. “His lordship ordered all her portraits to be burnt, but I could not bear to obliterate all trace of her. I was very fond of her ladyship. As sweet and gentle a mistress as you could wish for.”