Chalice of Darkness by Sarah Rayne

Author:Sarah Rayne [Rayne, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2022-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

It was shortly after Hilda Grout was ensconced at the Hall, with the courtesy title of housekeeper-companion, that she sought out Saul to ask, ‘Do you know that Maude is going to have a child?’

‘I do.’

‘It’s some months ahead, I think, but we would need a physician – or a nurse. How exactly will that be contrived?’

‘I am afraid,’ said Saul, ‘that the child’s birth must be part of the secret. For its own sake it can never know the truth.’ He made a rueful gesture, expressive of sorrow. ‘For a boy or girl to know its mother committed murder … That is not a burden that should be placed on any child’s shoulders.’

‘Yes, I see that,’ said Hilda Grout, slowly. ‘But—’

‘I have a plan in my mind, Miss Grout – can I say Cousin Hilda, perhaps? So much friendlier. Well then, Cousin Hilda, when the time comes you may leave it all to me.’

She looked at him, and for a moment Saul thought she was going to ask to know more – even that she was suspicious of him. But she only nodded and no more was said. Like Lily and Mrs Cheesely she was grateful for her place here, and she would be loyal. Saul had arranged everything with great skill, and it was all working out as he had planned.

He had burned the Bastle House Title Deed, of course, taking it from where that sly, deceitful Maude had hidden it. He did not risk using the fireplace in the music room – it was rare for a fire to be lit there, anyway – and he had taken the document down to the sculleries. The range was never allowed to go out, and Saul dropped the Deed straight on to the glowing redness, standing for a moment to watch the parchment curl at the edges. It turned brown, and then shrivelled and finally became black cinders. A curious thing, though, had been that he had dropped the document in face down, so that it was the final page with the signature that stared up at him. Aiden Fitzglen. The name scratched itself into his mind, because although he had erased the document’s existence, somewhere in the world was a man called Aiden Fitzglen, who had witnessed it. Who knew about it. It was the one thing Saul had not been able to plan for, but although it worried him, he could not see how to deal with it. He could not see how he would find Aiden.

And then in the first week of the new year – 1892 – came the announcement that Prince Albert Victor was seriously ill. He had fallen victim to the influenza epidemic and he was being cared for at Sandringham House.

When it was announced that he had developed pneumonia the news eclipsed almost everything else – or at least consigned the majority of other items to lesser pages and smaller newsprint. Even the story about the valuable artefact apparently stolen from the

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