“You are limping still and you’ve not yet tried to ride.” The rector waved away the coffee pot Aggy was holding poised over his cup, his mild gaze still on Giff. “No more, I thank you, Aggy. Save it for my nephew.”
Giff pushed his cup towards the woman, watching the black liquid splash into it. He was fast acquiring a taste for the bitter brew, though truth to tell he preferred the milder flavour of the China tea he’d grown up with in India.
“At least wait for that fellow of yours to return from his mission,” pursued the rector. “And I wish you will give some thought to this notion put forward by Delia.”
The thought of his flower girl drew a smile from him. He’d relished her messages. Especially the notion of his having brought excitement into her dull life. Excitement! When he’d put her in danger of death? How like Delia to make light of all they’d gone through. He’d laughed over the ridiculous notion she could ever be dull. What, a female of her courage and capabilities?
As for never forgetting, did she suppose he could forget? As if she thought they must never meet again too. What sort of a creature did she think he was? Accept her saving his life and not find means to see her for the purpose of thanking her? And then there was the suggestion to which his uncle was referring.
“There is much to be said for it, Giffard. I am persuaded you would be safer within society rather than out of it.”
Giff grunted. “Hide in plain sight?”
“Exactly so, my dear boy. If it is indeed Piers who seeks your death —”
“There can be no doubt of it, sir. Sattar saw him large as life conferring with those incompetent tools of his.”
“Yes, so you told me. But we do not know that he plots your death.”
Aggy, busy at the range, turned her head at this, tutting furiously. Giff had been chary of speaking freely before her at first, but the rector’s confidence in her discretion soon dissipated his doubts. Besides, the woman had been his nurse, along with his great-uncle’s man Wilfred, who was both groom and footman. And indeed everything else where a man’s hand was needed, as far as Giff could judge.
There were only the two servants, and Aggy swore she had kept the village wench who cleaned for her ignorant of his presence in the back room.
“Well, I don’t see how else Piers thinks to be rid of me,” he said, returning to the point at issue. “In his place, I would take no chances.”
“If that is what you believe, all the more reason to make your appearance in public.”
“How? As Giffard Gaunt, pretender to the Earldom of Baunton? That would be to invite speculation and scandal, sir. I’ve no wish to become an object of interest. Or infamy, as some would no doubt have it.”
“Others may accuse Piers instead. The point, my dear boy, is to be visible. Any disappearance would then occasion remark.”
“Yes, if everyone knows my state and my purpose here. But you surely cannot wish for our affairs to be made the subject of gossip, sir?”
“They will be in any event, if you succeed.”
“If?” Giff eyed him, a forkful of beef poised in the air. “You doubt I can do it?”
The rector sighed. “I’m torn, Giffard, if I am honest. While I am ready to espouse your cause, I cannot but feel for Piers. I could wish Matthew Favell had sent to me as well as to your father. I might have averted this sorry battle between you.”
A growling resentment overtook Giff. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
A gentle smile came his way. “Oh, yes, I believe you. You have a great look of your poor mother, Giffard.”
The pang was immediate and acute. “You knew her well?”
“I baptised her, my dear boy. And watched her grow. I was very fond of Flora. Her conduct was reprehensible, but I could not wholly blame her for running away from Henry.” His tone hardened. “Your father was a pompous prig with decided views on women’s place, and I have no doubt he made her life a misery. She was a deal better off with Favell, whom she should have married in the first place.”
“She told me her father forbade her to think of him.”
“Was it so? I admit I was surprised when she married my nephew. I had thought it a case between Matthew and Flora.” His gentle smile came. “One sees a great deal more from the pulpit than one’s flock supposes.”
Giff was tempted to pursue the theme, but his mother’s demise, though several years past now, was still too raw for him to hear of her early life with equanimity. Besides, it put him no further forward.
“Well, I’m grateful for your support, sir, but —”
“My support will not help you prove your claim. If you would go and see Hammersley —”
“There’s no point, sir. As you said, I have no proof. I must suppose Piers has destroyed the letters from my stepfather. Else he would not have taken my place in all but name.”