Thorn by Sarah Rayne Read Free Book Online

trouble.
    The scattering of spouses would be no trouble either; they would do what they were told, just as all Ingram spouses did. This was not a family where females married strong-minded men.
    There remained Flora Foy, and Flora might be difficult. She was unpredictable and unconventional, and she had always had that ridiculous preference for Imogen. But even Flora, with her scandalous past and riotous youth, could not deny what had happened today; she would hardly want Imogen to become known as the young woman who had stolen a corpse’s head and served it up at its own wake. She would certainly not want the child charged with the murder of her own parents. But she might be a bit of a stumbling block.
    The only other stumbling block was that unknown young man who had so unexpectedly taken command and summoned John Shilling to attend to Imogen. Whoever he was – a colleague of Royston’s perhaps, or representing some decrepit and distant cousin for the day – he had apparently left the house. This might indicate extreme diplomacy or it might indicate something quite different. He might very well need to be traced and somehow silenced.
    She said, ‘We can’t have any squeamishness about this. We know what’s happened, and we know who’s responsible for it. And as far as we can, I think we should protect her.’ She paused, and then said, ‘Royston wanted her to go into a nursing home. After –what happened at lunch. He thought it would be the best thing.’
    â€˜How do you know?’ That was Flora, of course, her voice sharp.
    Thalia met her stare levelly. ‘He told me,’ she said. ‘When I went up to his room with the mineral water for Eloise. In fact,’ said Thalia, ‘he dictated a letter to me there and then, and signed it. It’s here if anyone wants to see it.’
    There was a brief silence while everyone absorbed this. Thalia registered with inner irony that every person present was probably dying to see the letter but no one quite liked to ask to do so.
    The letter, scrappily written, signed almost blindly, was perfectly in order, and it was a clear and unequivocal indication of Royston’s wish. No one had seen Thalia go into Royston’s room, and Thalia was not going to tell anyone how she had stood over him and watched his face go greyer and greyer with the heart pain, and listened to him crying with despair and defeat because after all his care Imogen had the taint. She was Lucienne over again, he had said. She was Sybilla reborn. It was unbearable.
    He had signed the letter that Thalia had written and put before him, even though he had scarcely known what he was doing. Eloise had certainly not known: she had already been sunk in her sedated stupor, and she was not going to argue against Thalia. Nobody was going to argue against Thalia – she was making very sure of that. It was a good thing that Royston had signed before the pain swamped him and smothered his breathing, and it was even better that he had died so swiftly afterwards. Thalia had been prepared to substitute an ordinary paracetamol tablet for any further drugs that John Shilling might send up, but it had not been necessary.
    The letter would reinforce the family’s decision. It would endorse it. It was not possible to say that Imogen must be put where she belonged, and the door locked and the key as good as thrown away, but that was what must happen. The bitch who had ousted Edmund, who had stood in his way and might, if Thalia was not careful, even now inherit Ingram’s, had to be punished.
    â€˜She
must
be put away,’ she said aloud. ‘Nothing else is thinkable.’
    Dilys, who had been crying on and off ever since the appalling thing had been discovered, said, ‘But surely . . .’ and stopped.
    Flora said, ‘Are we sure that it was Imogen?’
    Thalia was aware of a murmur of agreement. She said at once, ‘Who else could it have