“You do not attend to me, sahib!”
Giff drew a hard breath and let it out, striving for calm. “Go on.”
“Believing you tied here by your wound, sahib, I took opportunity to remain and to watch. Enough taverns are there, and I found one out of the way near where these men took lodging.”
“Well?”
“I think they seek only to keep watch on the woman. They know where she lodges with the old one. One watches there and follows. Then he gives way to the other, turn and turnabout.”
“They spy on her all the time?”
“It is so. They cannot enter where she goes, for she moves with those of station, like the white sahibs and their womenfolk at home. But they wait and follow.”
“Waiting for me to show up.”
The rector exclaimed, but Giff hardly heard him. He burned with rage and remorse both. Was this his cousin’s doing? On the thought, he turned back to Sattar, interrupting his great-uncle’s flow.
“Have they met with my cousin? Is he in Weymouth too?”
The old man’s eyes raked him. “Not so. I saw him not. Nor did these meet with him in my sight.”
“Could you have missed it?”
“It is possible, sahib. But also is it possible the first man met with this cousin before he met with the fellow Sam.”
“Yes, for Piers may have instructed them to use Delia for a decoy.”
The rector leaned across the table between them. “What do you intend, Giffard?”
A snort came from Sattar. “He will go chasing the tiger, reverend sir, as he always does. No matter that you and I may warn of danger. Even Master Favell could not curb his reckless ways, foolish boy.”
Giff ignored him, but he reckoned without his great-uncle.
“Giffard, I beg you to think well before you run your head into a noose.”
“Do you expect me to let it go? They are menacing Delia!”
“No, they are awaiting your coming. You said so yourself. Will you oblige them? And Piers, if indeed this is his doing?”
Giff smiled and his uncle recoiled.
“Good God, boy, you look a very devil!”
“That he is, reverend sir. Sahib, this is no time to have the devil in you!”
Determination hardened in Giff’s heart. “It’s the very time. Don’t fret, Uncle. I have a trick or two up my sleeve yet.”
The expression in Captain Rhoades’s face was sceptical, and Delia could not blame him.
“You’ve seen those fellows here, ma’am?”
“No, as I told you, I cannot say I recognised either. But the suspicion crossed my mind with this incident of the rowboat. And since you were called in, I felt I should mention it.”
“But do you have any grounds to suppose these same fellows were in the boat?”
Delia began to wish she had not requested a moment of his time. She would sound decidedly foolish speaking of intuitions and the horrid feeling of being watched she’d experienced several times now.
It had been not she, but Miss Watkinson who chose to report the incident to the militia captain. A redoubtable creature of mature years, she’d been prominent among the bathers the other morning, notwithstanding her well-padded and bosomy figure which she shrouded in a billowy garment. Delia rather admired her for stoutly continuing to do as she chose despite the unkind ridicule she attracted. She was voluble in her complaints and led a coterie of ladies in the initial protest to Mr Rodber, the Master of Ceremonies.