Henry stood leaning against the old Oak, arms crossed, narrow eyes staring intensely at Delilah's small form seated on the rock besides Jet. He deliberated.
She could feel his scrutiny and it made her feel uncomfortable. She knew she had been a little reckless in her fervent desire to be of help to the Pizza Baron, but she didn't need a lecture from a stable hand.
"What were you thinking, Delilah?" he demanded to know.
Her eyes blazing, she turned to face him once more. "You're not my father, Henry! We're the same age for heaven's sakes!"
Henry sighed. Delilah was headstrong. It was one of the things he loved about her. She knew her own mind. But she was stubborn, as stubborn as that cat of hers, and once her mind was made up...He shook his head. She was passionate no doubt, but if only she would think things through. He kicked at the dirt in front of him, and then as if in a change of heart and tack, his eyes softened, and with it, his voice.
"It's not safe to be out here at night, 'Lilah-bee."
He hadn't called her that in years, and hearing those words now, brought her an odd sense of comfort and relief. Delilah looked up to meet his gaze. He was her best friend, had been since the day he had helped her rescue the little kitten from the dam behind the stables, and later taken the blame for both of them getting soaked in the process after falling in. That kitten was her gorgeous Mirabel. From her last count, Mirabel had 7 lives left!
The story goes that Henry had wandered into their family estate as a toddler. Nobody knew where he had come from or how he had got there, but after months of fruitless searching, her father had asked one of the nannies to raise him as their own. As a result, they had grown up together behind the four walls of the Fruit Baron's Estate. She knew him so well and frustratingly she knew the converse to be true.
They were tutored together during the mornings and had spent most afternoons in each other's company, exploring the local countryside, swimming in the rivers, climbing up waterfalls, riding horses, and so it had terrified her the first time she had looked at him on a late afternoon visit to the nearby natural springwater pools and, instead of seeing Henry, her playmate, jostling with her in the water, in his place had seen a young man, with broadening shoulders, a mop of dark hair, suntanned bare-chested skin and a cheeky grin that lit up the approaching evening. And now, in much of his spare time, he worked for her father in the stables, learning a trade.
"Delilah, are you ok?"
"Uh, yeah, I guess. It's just, you scared me, Henry. I wasn't expecting to see you here. I thought you were...I thought you were..."
"One of ... them?" Henry finished the sentence for her, whilst gesturing up towards the gatehouse towers.
"Yes." She knew he wasn't going to like what she had to say next.
Henry looked at her. She wasn't a little girl anymore. She was becoming a young woman; a beautiful one at that. He gulped and looked away quickly, feeling the warming glow rising in his cheeks and hoping she hadn't noticed. He wasn't quite sure what to do next as regards their predicament. Delilah had cut back on her path so many times, and traversed so many river crossings that he felt lucky just to have kept up and retained her in his sights through it all. He had been so intent on making sure he didn't lose her, that he had lost track of where they were some miles back.
"Henry..." Delilah broke the awkward silence between them, "I need to go back up there and find out what is going on."
"I don't think that's a very good idea, Lilah. We don't know who those men are, and if the cars are anything to go by, then there are quite a few of them. It's unlikely that they are meeting for something as innocent as a game of cards. Those guards look like they mean business."
But Delilah wouldn't listen and before Henry had a chance to do anything about it, she was in the saddle and pushing uphill through the copse headed up to the wall to the right of the gate towers. He had no option but to mount up himself and give chase. God, she was one stubborn woman, he thought. But a beautifully stubborn one, he smiled, somewhat annoyed at his ambivalent feelings.
He caught up with her just as she was dismounting alongside the length of the enclosure wall. They walked in silence alongside each other for a couple of minutes as they rounded the estate's perimeter.
They heard it at the same time. The voices were coming from just ahead of them, filtering through an open window from which also glowed a pale light. They let the horses loose whilst they crept up to the open window and crouched below the ledge.
The voices were audible but slightly muffled. Delilah and Henry could make out bits and pieces of the conversation. One person seemed to be leading the discussion ... A coup was being talked about... and the man clearly had a cohort of supporters in the room. His words were met with cheers and loud clapping and banging of glasses. The Pizza Baron's time had come... The people would see the light ...eventually. But there was no time...They had to take action now... This was the general message that they gleaned.
Delilah couldn't resist. She turned and slowly but surely rose to peer over the window ledge into the room. Barons! Lots of them! And at the head of the table.... her father.
Wordcount: 986
This is my entry for A Tale of Two Pizzas by @dibblers.dabs