Giff made a negative gesture. “He moved in while Sattar was with me, I surmise. Canny devil! I suspect he realised he was being watched. I can hardly go knocking on the door of every lodging house in the town.”
“No, and if Barney and Sam have made themselves scarce, we have no one to lead us to him.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Us? You’re not proposing to come with me to Waldiche Keep, are you?”
Delia gave him a scornful look. “I’d be of little use if it came to a fight.”
He grinned. “I take issue with that after yesterday.”
She laughed at that. “Yes, but I can’t wield a sword or fire a pistol, and I imagine you’d have both on hand. I was thinking you could ask Captain Rhoades to go with you, though.”
His mood instantly darkened. “I’ll not ask him for any favours if he’s going to try and steal yours!”
An explosion of some kind emanated from his flower girl and she glared at him. “Will you stop? Captain Rhoades has no interest in me. And if he did, I wouldn’t care. In fact, he said you’re a lucky man to have me, if you really wish to know.”
His heart lightened. “He did?”
“Yes, but I could have told him how mistaken he is in his ideas, you wretch! I really don’t know why I’m bothering with you, Giff.”
He gave her a mischievous look. “Yes, you do. And I am a lucky man to have you. I’ve known it from the first.”
To his delight, her freckles vanished as she flushed bright red, and she looked quickly away. Why she was shy of him all of a sudden he could not imagine. Was it this notion she’d taken into her head that he only wanted her because of convention?
He reached to lay his hand over hers where it rested on the rock beneath her. “Delia.”
She looked round. “Yes?”
“I’ll say it all when I’m in the saddle and can do so with honour. But you’ve no need to doubt me.”
Her lips quivered a trifle and his gaze became riveted. He wanted desperately to kiss them and cursed the confines of their situation.
“Doubt you how?” Her voice was a whisper on her breath, and it shot him through with longing.
“You know what I mean. Don’t you?”
“Perhaps. I think. Only…”
“Only?”
She fidgeted, her glance shooting to where his hand still rested on hers. She withdrew it, catching it inside the other as if to cradle it. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
The forlorn note caught at him. “Yes, it does. It matters to me.”
Her gaze met his, a world of question in her eyes. She didn’t believe him. For two pins, he’d let the world go hang and show her just how much it mattered. How much she mattered.
“Giffard, there you are!”
Delia turned her head and her face took on a public mask. The moment was at once lost.
Damnation! Must his uncle interrupt them now? Giff rose automatically as the Revered Gaunt came up.
“How are the bruises today, my dear boy? I hardly expected your man Sattar to allow you out of your bed.”
Aware of Giff responding to his uncle, Delia scarcely took in what he said. Had he been about to declare himself? Or was it that look again, as if he meant to kiss her?
Her veins thrummed with anticipation and she had all to do to speak with any degree of calm when the rector turned his attention to her.
“Good day to you, my dear Delia. I trust you are none the worse for yesterday’s contretemps?”