Delia found her voice. “Also he looks like you, Giff.”
“But Giffard looks like Flora,” objected the rector. “You said as much yourself.”
Giff took this up before she could answer, rolling his glass between restless fingers. “Only in a general way, according to Mrs Joyce. She spoke of seeing my father’s individual features in me. She said the resemblance to my mother is in the shape of my face and something to do with hair and eyes, as I remember.”
“I can’t be as specific as that,” said Delia, “and I have no notion what your father looked like, but the first time I met Piers, it struck me that he looked like a more rounded version of Giff.”
Giff looked both dismayed and eager as he turned to her. “Then you believe it?”
“I do, yes. Moreover, it explains his obsession with taking your place.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Delia set a hand on his arm. “Does it make it less hurtful to you, Giff?”
He grimaced, but did not react to her touch. Conscious, Delia withdrew her hand.
“It complicates things. I can’t serve my brother as I might serve a mere cousin.”
The Reverend Gaunt had taken a sip of his port, but his frown did not abate. “I no longer wonder at your expression of difficulty, my dear boy. What will you do?”
“That’s just what I’m asking you both. What should I do? Instinct urges me to be rid of him, for he has said in so many words he will never cease to plague me.”
A feeling of panic crept into Delia’s breast. “You must be rid of him, Giff. You’ll have no peace otherwise.”
“Yes, but in what manner?” Giff’s voice became intense. “I won’t give him up to the law. I can’t let him languish in gaol.”
The rector gave a mirthless laugh. “Not to mention the scandal that must ensue. And if it is true that Henry played his own brother false and subsequently did his best to instil into the boy a sense of deserving what he could not have, then there is some excuse for Piers.”
A silence fell. Delia, aware of Giff’s tension, found she was gripping her fingers together. Her thoughts were in turmoil. On the one hand, she ached for his distress, but on the other, she was cruelly exercised by the notion of Piers continuing to be a threat to him.
A wild idea entered her head and she said it before she could think of its implications. “You could send him to India, could you not?”
“What, and inflict him on Matt? Have you run mad, Delia?”
“But, Giff, he can’t remain in England, a constant danger to you.” Anxiety riding her, she gripped his arm again. “He has not your honour, Giff. He knows he is your half-brother, you say, yet he could still plot your death.”
His hand covered hers and his eyes burned. “Do you suggest I descend to his level? I will not. Nor would I dream of despatching him where he might do harm.”
Delia let go, wrenching her fingers out from under his. “But you’d let him remain where he may at any moment make a treacherous and fatal attempt upon your life? Oh, you are reckless indeed!”
Giff was on his feet. “Why in Hades do you think I’m asking you and my uncle to help me? Do you think I’m stupid enough to trust him?”
“I don’t think you stupid. I think you pig-headed and obstinate and altogether too forgiving. It’s not as if you knew he was your half-brother before today. What would you have done if you had not found that out?”
Giff paced across the room and then back to the fireplace. He set his glass down on the mantel, the liquid in it barely touched, and looked at his uncle, who had so far refrained from cutting into the argument. “What would you do, Uncle George?”
The Reverend Gaunt was regarding him with a look Delia found enigmatic. What in the world was in his mind? Intrigued, she was about to ask when he spoke at last.
“Is it only Piers that troubles you, Giffard? It hardly seems as difficult a problem as you make out. If you don’t wish to send him to India, my dear boy, for which I admit I have some sympathy, you may choose to despatch him instead to America.”
Delia’s mind jumped. “The very thing! It’s what he planned for you, Giff. That would be sweet revenge indeed!”
“Yes, my dear Delia, but if I read Giffard aright, what to do with Piers is only part of the problem. Is it not, dear boy?”
He did not answer, but the discontent in his face deepened. A riffle of alarm went through Delia. The rector was right. He had seen beyond the surface.
She broke into speech. “What is the matter, Giff? Why aren’t you happy? Events are moving so fast, much more rapidly than we expected, and your goal is within sight. It’s what you wanted, to oust Piers. You will be master of Waldiche Keep and recover your title.”