As if it had ever been anything else! But Delia refrained from saying it. She was too disappointed by the failure of her mission to pursue the subject. And Lord knew what scheme the fiend had cooked up to confound Giff at Waldiche Keep. Thank heaven he’d been persuaded to take Captain Rhoades.
“Come, let us leave this place, my dear. We will find a decent inn and —”
“Reverend Gaunt!”
The whispered interruption caught them as Delia was about to set her foot on the stair. Turning, she beheld Miss Saunderton tiptoeing towards them, a finger at her mouth.
“What is it, Dowsabel?”
“Hush! Come away, if you please! And step softly.”
The rector cast Delia a mystified look, but followed as the lady glided on tiptoe back the way she had come. Delia trod as silently as she could, a faint thread of hope creeping through her dejection.
Miss Saunderton led them along a gallery, down a narrow corridor and opened the door to what proved to be a small parlour at the back of the house. It was altogether lighter and more cosy than her father’s domain, with a pretty chintz pattern to the cushioned seats of two gilded armchairs, a sideboard loaded with books and knick-knacks and a little sewing table.
“This is my retreat. He does not even know I have appropriated it.”
Sympathy for the creature overlaid Delia’s anxiety about Giff. “How have you managed to keep it secret from your papa?”
“For years now, he has been unable to walk without the assistance of his valet, thank goodness.” She threw a hand to her mouth as if she would stuff the words back in. “Oh, dear, I should not —! You see, his gout pains him so and it makes him peevish. But sit, sit!”
Delia stood her ground, exchanging a glance with the rector, who shrugged and indicated she should take it up.
“We do not mean to stay, Miss Saunderton. Had you something you wished to say?”
“To show you, rather. Forgive me, but I was listening to your interview with Papa, and —”
“What, did you have your ear to the door, Dowsabel?”
Amusement sounded in the rector’s voice, but Delia was at once intrigued. “What is it, Miss Saunderton? May it help Giff?”
She waved agitated hands, gliding towards a neat little bureau placed under the window. “I do not know, but perhaps it may. I was not outside the hall door, Reverend. There is a servant’s door in the panelling. I always hide there if I wish to spy upon my father’s sanctum.”
For such a timid creature she sounded quite unabashed. As she spoke, she was sliding out two stands either side of the desk and pulling down a panel that rested on them to form a table for writing.
“Then you heard everything?”
“Yes, Miss Burloyne, and it was just as I feared. I knew he would fly into a pelter. Only I had forgot those letters, you see.”
“You knew of them, Dowsabel?”
“Oh, yes, though I was not able to save them all.”
A pulse began to thrum in Delia’s veins as Dowsabel Saunderton slipped a hand into her bosom and lifted out a small key on a ribbon. She cast an apologetic glance at the rector.
“I keep this always on my person, Reverend, for there is no saying with Papa, even though I am persuaded he cannot know I use this room.”
So saying, she fitted the key into a long narrow drawer in the interior of the desk and turned it. Delia watched with burgeoning excitement as she lifted out a batch of papers tied with a ribbon.
“I keep all my private letters here, you see.”
“Do you tell us you have the letters your father said he burnt, Dowsabel?”
She was carefully untying the ribbon, handling the package with care bordering on reverence. But she looked up at this. “I have what I managed to salvage. I knew they were important, for I heard Papa roaring and cursing when he took them into his sanctum to read. I slipped in the instant he left and snatched them from the flames.”
“Good heavens!”
“How brave of you, Miss Saunderton!”