“Perhaps. I might let you live.”
“Oh, don’t be a fool, man! This is nonsense and you know it.”
“I don’t know it. I’ve been itching to fight you for days. I prefer an open contest. If you manage to pink me, I’ll fall in with your proposition. If you lose, we go forward on my terms. Agreed?”
There was fear in his cousin’s face now. “You’ve not stated your terms. How do I know you won’t take it to the death?”
It was Giff’s turn for mockery. “If you were dead at my hands, I’d have to leave the country, wouldn’t I? How would that serve me?”
Piers appeared to breathe more easily. “Very well, if you insist on this course.”
“It’s quick and decisive. Let’s go!”
Reaching the door, Giff tugged it open and found both Tarporley and Rhoades on the other side. He grinned. “Did you hear?”
Rhoades nodded, speaking low. “You really want me to act for him?”
“One of you must, and he won’t trust Tarporley.”
“That’s true enough,” the young man conceded, “considering the quarrel between us. I certainly would not trust him.”
By this time, Piers was at the door. He seemed a little more himself, though his voice was a trifle shaky. “I’ll need to fetch my sword.”
“Go with him, Rhoades!”
Piers cast Giff a glance of dislike. “Do you suppose I’ll make my escape?”
“I don’t know what you’ll do. One thing I do know. You can’t be trusted.”
Captain Rhoades stepped up. “I’ll accompany you, sir. Which way?”
Piers shrugged and headed down the corridor towards the hall, the captain on his heels. Tarporley gazed after them.
“Do you really mean to fight him?”
“Yes.”
“But what will you gain by it?”
“The upper hand, my friend. He’s badly frightened. I think he suspects I may kill him after all. I threatened to.”
“You won’t, though?”
Giff let out a short laugh as he started off along the corridor. “Hardly.”
“You won’t lose your temper?”
“I never lose my temper in a fight.”
“What if he’s a good swordsman?”
“I don’t fear his skill. I doubt he’s had as much practice, for a start.”
Arriving in the hall, Giff found a rather stout, elderly dame hovering near the stairs, the butler in attendance. Her dress proclaimed the housekeeper, and he did not need the man’s introduction to tell him this was the female who had been here in his mother’s day.
“This is Mrs Joyce, sir.”
The woman bobbed a curtsey, peering up at him as Giff neared. Her eyes widened. “Mercy me! You do have a look of her, sir, that’s certain. Are you Master Giffard indeed?”