The Dutiful Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

weight of his responsibility to his cousin and to their royal blood weighed as heavily on him as the mourning that clothed the palace and its inhabitants.
    Now, just by walking into his own apartment with Giselle, he could feel that burden lifting, the pressure of the decision he knew he had to make easing. Giselle’s calm and wise words about his inborn sense of duty had helped to guide him in the right direction.
    ‘The changes that will have to be made will benefitthe people—even if right now they might not be able to see that,’ said Giselle. “We all loved Aldo, but the reality is that the country needs a strong and motivated leadership. Perhaps his death was fate’s way of saying that it is time for things to change.’
    Saul was even more convinced that she had realised the impact Aldo’s death must have on their own lives. The knowledge comforted and strengthened him.
    ‘Have I told you how much I love you?’ he asked.
    Giselle smiled at him in relief. He had seemed so preoccupied and distant, but now she could see that he was her beloved Saul again.
    ‘It was here that we first made love.’ He smiled at her and slid his hand beneath the soft weight of her hair to draw her closer to him. Giselle smiled back at him, but their movement towards one another was halted by a firm knock on the door.
    Releasing her, Saul went to answer it. Giselle could see the black-garbed major-domo standing outside in the corridor, and Saul was inclining his head towards him to hear what he was saying, before nodding and then closing the door to come back to her. The warm intimacy had been stripped from his expression, and in its place was a shuttered grimness.
    ‘Aldo’s body will be lying in state in the cathedral from tomorrow morning. The major-domo says that I may pay my last respects privately now if I wish.’
    ‘I’ll come with you—’ Giselle began, but Saul shook his head.
    ‘No. I…It’s best if I go alone. You and I will beexpected to open the official lying in state tomorrow. We can go together then.’
    He had gone before Giselle could make any further objections. The door closed behind him with a sharp click, like an axe falling between them and separating them, Giselle thought uneasily.
    There was a private underground passage that led from the palace to the cathedral, hewn out of the rock on which the city was built. The tunnel might now be illuminated by electric lights, but as he followed the major-domo Saul admitted that it wasn’t hard to imagine it lit only by torches as those using it moved down it with a potentially more dangerous and even sinister purpose at a time when the country had been besieged by its enemies and those who coveted it.
    The country had broken away from the Catholic church at the same time as Britain’s Reformation, and now its religion could best be described as Protestant high church.
    The Archbishop was waiting to receive him, his formal robes a touch of bright shimmering colour after the darkness of the tunnel and the mourning-shrouded castle.
    The cathedral reminded Saul of a smaller version of Westminster Abbey. Above the high altar was a stained glass window, depicting the brave deeds of his ancestors before they ascended to heaven escorted by winged archangels.
    Aldo’s white-silk lined coffin was in the centre of the cathedral. Aldo himself was dressed in the ceremonialrobes of rulership. The smell of incense hung on the air like the words of prayer the Archbishop murmured before he and the major-domo retreated to leave Saul alone with his cousin.
    In death, Aldo’s features had gained a stark dignity that made him look more severe than he had been. Such a gentle man, who had not deserved the cruelty of his fate. A man to whom Saul had given his word, his promise, that he would take up the yoke of rulership that Aldo had been forced to cast down.
    Silently Saul knelt beside Aldo’s coffin. It was too late for him to change his mind. He had given his word. With