by Penny Jordan
The silence that fell was so heavy she felt it like a crushing weight against her chest. She could hardly breathe for the pressure, her lungs feeling as if they were full of lead instead of oxygen.
‘S-so…’ she moistened her parched lips ‘.so what you’re saying is you…you had a birthmark and…and h-had it removed?’
He nodded again. ‘I wouldn’t have bothered except a mate of mine set up a cosmetic surgery practice with a sclerotherapy clinic attached. Strawberry birthmarks are harder to remove if they’re not attended to while the person is young. The birthmark develops nodules over time which have to be surgically removed, hence the tiny scars.’
The silence was thrumming in Amelia’s ears. Her head seemed to be full of it, making it difficult for her to think, let alone speak.
‘Alex…I don’t know how to tell you this but the prince who was kidnapped thirty-four years ago had a birthmark. A very distinctive birthmark.’
He looked at her without speaking, but she could see the way his throat tightened, the muscles contracting as if he were trying to swallow something too big to go down.
‘Y-you know what this means…don’t you?’ she finally managed to ask as a sinking feeling settled in the middle of her stomach.
‘I’m not sure it means anything,’ he said in an offhand manner. ‘Lots of people have birthmarks.’
‘But don’t you see how it all makes sense?’ she asked. ‘You were adopted—a late adoption at two years of age, the exact age of the prince when he was supposedly murdered. You even had the same Christian name. People have remarked on your resemblance to Antonio and Marco Fierezza from the moment you stepped on the island. Don’t you see it all adds up?’
‘My birth certificate documents—’
‘Birth certificates can be forged!’ she interrupted him, her eyes wide with anguish. ‘Especially when lots of money changes hands.’
‘You seem to know an awful lot about all this,’ he observed with a slight narrowing of his eyes. ‘You said someone told you the prince wasn’t murdered. Was that person by any chance your father?’
Amelia felt the trickle of ice-cold dread make its way down her spine. She had desperately wanted to protect her family from the fallout from all of this, but how could she now? Alex had a right to know the truth. He had been denied all of his other rights since the age of two when he had been snatched from his parents. How could she stand by now and not tell him everything she knew?
‘Yes,’ she said on the back end of a wobbly sigh. ‘He knows he’s dying. My brother told him of the rumours down at the port. My father wants to see you.’
Alex blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair as he began to pace the room. ‘This is totally surreal. I can’t believe any of this.’
‘I know it must be hard for you to grasp…but it’s real, Alex. It has to be. It all adds up.’ Tears burned in her eyes as she realised that what she was about to say would permanently sever any chance of a relationship between them. Their two worlds were now even farther apart and could never be bridged.
‘You aren’t simply Dr Alex Hunter, the visiting surgeon from Australia.’ She took a scalding breath and continued, ‘You are His Royal Highness Prince Alessandro Fierezza of Niroli, the next in line to the throne.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘NO,’ ALEX said, stopping his pacing for a moment to face Amelia. ‘No way. That’s not going to happen. No way.’
‘You can’t escape it, Alex. That’s why the king asked to see you. He must have suspected who you were but without proof couldn’t tell you.’
‘It will totally devastate my parents,’ he said, beginning to pace once again, even more agitatedly this time. ‘They will think they are in some way responsible for this.’
‘How can they be held responsible?’ she asked.
He turned around to face her again. ‘My adoption was legal. I can’t imagine for a moment that my parents would have settled for anything less than that. Sure, they wanted a child, but not someone else’s, or at least not without that other person’s permission.’
‘The adoption probably was legal, or at least on the surface,’ she said. ‘My father said he’d had to pay dearly for it. It totally ruined him. That’s why we’ve lived with so little for so long.’
‘Nice to know there’s been some sort of rough justice in all of this,’ Alex said before he could restrain himself.
He saw the sudden slump of her slim shoulders and gave himself a mental kick. It was totally wrong that she’d had to suffer for her father’s actions so long ago. She had nothing to do with this.
Or had she?
The suspicion crept towards him like a lurking shadow, stealthily consuming the sunlight of his belief in her innocence. What if she had known all along? Was that why she had agreed to go out with him, her little act of initial reluctance a ploy to keep him interested?
He looked down and saw tears sparkling in her eyes. ‘You have every right to say that,’ she said. ‘My father took you away from everything that was rightfully yours.’
‘Yeah, well, at least he didn’t kill me,’ he said, still trying to make up his mind about her. ‘I guess I should be grateful for that.’
‘He couldn’t do it,’ she said. ‘He was given the order to do so but he just couldn’t do it.’
‘So he shipped me away, one imagines to Sicily, and got some papers doctored in order to send me to Australia.’
‘I haven’t asked him how he did it but I’m sure he will tell you. I don’t expect you to forgive him…it would be hard for anyone to forgive such an action, but it’s a thousand times worse for you have lost so much.’
Alex felt the see-saw of doubt tipping back the other way, making it hard for him to believe her capable of such complicity.
‘I don’t see it quite like that,’ he said after a little pause. ‘Or at least I haven’t as yet. I have a wonderful family. I have wanted for nothing my whole childhood and adult life.’
She gave him an agonised look. ‘Your biological parents were killed two years ago in a yachting accident. They went to their graves not knowing the truth about your existence. You can never meet them or talk to them now, even if you wanted to.’
He frowned as he took it all in. ‘I hadn’t thought about that.’
‘There’s more,’ she went on. ‘You have siblings. Your twin brother for one thing and two sisters. Can you imagine how thrilled they will be to know you are alive?’
He shook his head as if he still couldn’t quite make sense of all she’d told him. ‘This is going to take some getting used to. What’s my kid sister going to say when she finds out her brother is a prince?’
‘She will love you just the same. So will your adoptive parents. It doesn’t change anything in that regard.’
He gave her an incredulous look. ‘It changes everything, can’t you see that? Damn it, Amelia, what the hell am I going to do? I have a life and a career back in Sydney. I don’t belong here. I don’t even speak Italian!’
‘Language is not an issue—almost everyone speaks English now anyway. This is your rightful heritage, Alex. You can’t ignore your right to the throne.
‘The king is your grandfather,’ she continued. ‘It will bring him much joy to finally meet you, having believed for so long that his reluctance to pay the ransom for your return led to your death.’
Alex came back to her and took her hands in his, hoping his gut feeling was right in all this. ‘How like you to think of the other innocents in all of this,’ he said, watching her closely. ‘Is that something the nuns taught you?’
‘They taught me that forgiveness is not always clear-cut but it’s essential to let go of the things you cannot change,’ she said softly. ‘It’s sometimes the only thing you can do.’
‘I can’t change who I am.’
‘No one wants you to.’
‘You don’t know that,’ he said. ‘I bet as soon as the palace officials hear about this there will be members of the pres
s running about shoving cameras under my nose, people following me no doubt trying to kiss my feet or whatever it is that people do with royalty. I’ll go crazy within days and then they will have to find a dungeon for me with a strait-jacket as well as ankle chains.’
‘It might not be anything like that. I would assume for the sake of everyone’s privacy that they will keep this quiet for a while. They’ll want to make absolutely sure of everything before it is announced publicly. They will probably organise a DNA test to establish your identity once and for all.’
‘You already said the island was rife with rumours,’ he pointed out. ‘How much worse will it be trying to do what I came here to do with everyone gawking at me as if I’m some sort of freak?’
Amelia let out a ragged sigh. ‘I know this is hard. You’ll get used to it in time.’
‘And what about us?’ he asked, his eyes coming back to pin hers.
She gave him a look of immeasurable sadness. ‘There can be no “us” now. Surely you can see that?’
Alex let a little silence count the seconds as doubt and belief each jostled for position in his head.
‘I can see no reason why I shouldn’t live my life the way I want to,’ he said. ‘If I want to be involved with you or anybody then surely that’s up to me, not someone else to decide.’
‘My father is responsible for what happened,’ she said. ‘It would be unthinkable for you to be involved with me now. The palace will outlaw it as soon as they find out.’
‘No one’s going to tell me what I can and cannot do. Come on, Amelia, surely you’re not going to fall for that rubbish? This is about you and me. We’ve got something going, a good thing. Don’t let this other stuff get in the way.’
‘It will always get in the way, Alex. This is not something you can brush to one side as if it’s nothing. This is your birthright, your heritage. You were born to this.’
‘But I didn’t grow up with any of this! How can I change my life now? I want to be a normal person. Damn it! I am a normal person. I make my own meals, I drive my own car, and I even do my own tax income forms. I would have a hard time accepting a knighthood let alone a royal throne.’
‘You have to accept it!’ she cried. ‘You have to.’
‘I’m not accepting anything until I know what exactly happened to me when I was two. This could all be a mistake. There’s no guarantee that any of this is true,’ he said. ‘We’re going to visit your father and I’m not taking no for an answer.’
He reached for his keys and held open the door. ‘Come on, let’s get this over with.’
He didn’t speak again until they were driving along the foothills to Amelia’s cottage. ‘I know you think I should come forward, Amelia, but don’t forget I have to perform heart surgery on the king in a matter of days. I think it’s better all round to continue to view him as a patient like any other, despite the fact that he may be my grandfather.’
Amelia could appreciate his point of view. It would make the surgery a lot more stressful if Alex was in some way emotionally involved with the patient. Surgeons were usually discouraged from operating on close relatives in case their clinical judgement was affected.
‘Besides,’ Alex continued, ‘I want to investigate this myself before anyone else jumps to conclusions that may not be accurate. If it turns out to be true, then I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.’
‘But how will you investigate it?’
‘Firstly I want to talk to your father and get his angle on what happened, and then I’ll get someone to run a check on my birth certificate and adoption details, which will no doubt take a week or two.’
‘Will you tell your parents and sister?’
‘Not at this stage,’ he said, shifting the gears. ‘For now this is between us and your father—no one else.’
Amelia sank back in her seat, her thoughts flying off in all directions.
‘I mean it, Amelia,’ he said, flicking a quick glance her way. ‘I’m only here for a short time. I want this time we have together to be about us, not some myth about me being a long-lost prince.’
‘But you are the prince,’ she said softly. ‘I just know you are.’
‘Maybe, but princes can still be attracted to beautiful women, can’t they?’ he said.
She felt her heart give a painful contraction. ‘Yes, they can, but it would be unwise to do so with a woman from a background such as mine.’
‘I have no problem with your background,’ he said. ‘In fact I think it’s one of the most enchanting things about you.’
She frowned at him. ‘But my father is solely responsible for what happened to you! How can you even think of a relationship with me?’
One of his hands left the steering wheel to capture one of hers. She held her breath as he brought her hand up to his mouth, her stomach turning inside out when he placed his lips to her fingers in a soft-as-air kiss. ‘That’s why,’ he said, and, keeping her hand in his, brought it to rest on the top of his thigh.
Amelia thought her father’s cottage looked even tawdrier in the fading light of the evening as Alex parked his car under the trees a little while later. There was an unmistakable irony in its stark contrast from the castle they had visited a few hours earlier. It seemed to drive home all the more forcefully the inherent differences between their backgrounds. Even without the spectre of his royal status, Alex’s childhood had still been leagues away from hers. She had never known the comfort of a well-tended home and reliable income to provide the standard of living he more or less had taken for granted. She felt sure he had never come home from school or university to a sink full of unwashed dishes, and dust like carpet on the floor.
She felt the shame rush through her as soon as Alex came up behind her when she opened the front door, imagining how he too would be making his own comparisons.
Her father looked up from his slumped position at the table,his bleary-eyed gaze widening when it encountered the tall figure carrying a doctor’s bag who had followed Amelia inside.
‘Papà, this is Dr Alex Hunter,’ she said in a subdued tone.
Alex saw the older man’s struggle to get to his feet and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘No, please don’t get up.’ He offered his hand. ‘How do you do, Signor Vialli?’
Amelia could see the mortal fear on her father’s already too-pale face. He choked back a hacking cough and gave Alex’s outstretched hand a feeble shake, mumbling something inaudible in return.
‘Your daughter tells me you’ve not been well,’ Alex said, pulling out a chair and sitting beside him.
‘I’m dying,’ Aldo Vialli said. ‘It’s what I deserve.’
‘There’s no need to suffer unnecessarily,’ Alex said. ‘There are things we can do to help you through the difficult stages.’
‘Papà, I’ve talked to Alex about what happened,’ Amelia said.
Her father’s eyes glazed with pain as another bout of coughing took over his emaciated form. She saw the sympathetic wince Alex tried to disguise, and she felt as if her heart had swelled to twice its size.
‘Do you feel up to answering some questions for him?’ she asked.
Her father looked at her. ‘The birthmark?’ he croaked.
Amelia nodded gravely. ‘He had one but had it removed. It was as you described.’
Tears began to shine in Aldo Vialli’s eyes as he faced Alex. ‘I was supposed to kill you…. I could not do it….’
‘Thank you,’ Alex said with gracious sincerity.
Her father blinked back the tears. ‘I never intended to get so involved, not in that way. I had to think of an alternative…. It was never my intention to bring such suffering on you or your family. But what is done is done, and cannot be undone.’
‘I understand,’ Alex said, wondering if he really did. He was feeling more than a little shell-shocked as he faced the man supposedly responsible for the bizarre circumstances that had led to his adoption. None of it seemed real. It was the stuff of Holly
wood thrillers, not normal life. How could it be true? Sure, he’d been adopted at the age of two, but that didn’t mean he was the king’s grandson. There could be thousands of men his age who could just as easily fit the bill.
‘You are so like your father,’ Aldo choked out. ‘It is my fault that you have not had the chance to meet him in person.’
‘Nothing’s been established as yet,’ Alex said. ‘There are legal channels that need to be investigated first. I know it all seems to fit, but what if I’m not who you think I am?’
‘There is no doubt in my mind,’ Aldo said. ‘You had the birthmark that, if nothing else, brands you as Alessandro Fierezza.’
‘Look, to make things a little clearer in my head I’d like to know a few more details, if you feel up to telling me?’ Alex said.
‘Of…course,’ Aldo said in between another hacking cough. ‘I will tell you…’
Amelia sat in silence as her father relayed the events of thirty-four years ago, the picture he painted so painful to hear, she had trouble keeping her emotions at bay.
It was clear to Amelia after his confession that her father was exhausted. His skin had taken on a clammy sheen and his eyes had flickered once too often with increasing pain. His breathing was laboured and when he turned to spit some mucus into his old rag her stomach clenched at the sight of how bright the blood was.
‘Papà, would you like Alex to look at you now?’ she asked. ‘He might be able to do something to ease your suffering.’
After another bout of gut-wrenching coughs, Alex exchanged a glance with Amelia before he bent to his bag on the floor and retrieved his stethoscope.
‘Amelia, help take off your father’s shirt so I can examine his chest,’ he directed.
Once the shirt was removed Alex looked at the degree of chest expansion as Aldo took in a few breaths and then percussed the chest and listened with his stethoscope.
‘You have a very large pleural effusion on the right side of your chest, Signor Vialli. That is making it hard for you to breathe, and may be precipitating a lot of the coughing. I may be able to at least temporarily relieve some of your symptoms by draining off the fluid with a needle,’ he said.