He coughed so hard and for so long, she became seriously frightened. ‘Papà?’ She stepped towards him. ‘Are you all right?’
He waved his hand as he used the other to bring an old rag to his mouth to spit out the bloody mucus. His gaze returned to hers. ‘I started out on the fringe and was never too heavily involved—always kept in the dark. But gradually, over time, I was given more and more responsibility, especially as the movement to kidnap the prince gathered momentum.’
‘Y-you…you mean you…killed him?’
He shook his head and sighed. ‘No, I did not kill him. Do you really believe me capable of such a thing, your own father?’
Amelia swallowed and reached for his age-ridden hand. ‘No, Papà, but, w-what did you do with him?’
His eyes glistened with moisture, something she had never seen in them before, not even after her mother had died.
‘I organised for him to be shipped away,’ he said. ‘I had some connections, a couple who were prepared to take the child.’
‘Take him where?’
‘To somewhere he could not be easily traced.’
‘But what about the other child?’ she asked after a throbbing silence that seemed to be keeping erratic time with her heart. ‘The child who is now buried at the palace?’
‘King Giorgio had activated an undercover operation to get his grandson back but it backfired. The parents of the child were part of the resistance group and when the explosions happened during the rescue operation they were all killed. Because they had no other relatives it was easy for me to pass the boy off as the prince. No one questioned it. I saw the chance to get out of the contract that had been handed to me.’
‘The contract?’
‘To kill the prince if the ransom bid failed.’
Amelia stiffened at her father’s harsh words. ‘But you couldn’t go through with it?’
‘No.’ He gave a ragged sigh. ‘He was a little boy of two, barely speaking, crying for his mamma and brother all the time. It nearly broke my heart. I just couldn’t do it.’
Tears burned at the back of Amelia’s eyes. ‘Oh, Papà.’
‘I had to rely on the silence of other people to ship the boy out of danger. It cost me everything. That is why we have lived in poverty ever since. But it was the only thing I could do, Amelia. I suddenly found myself in over my head with the rebellion. Your mother had just found out she was pregnant. I could not extricate myself without losing my life or hers if it became known I had not carried out the plan to kill the prince.’
‘Have you heard anything of what happened to him?’ she asked.
‘There are rumours…’ he paused, his throat moving up and down again ‘…rumours that he is alive and currently on the island.’
Amelia stared at him in growing alarm.
‘Of course, no one has verified it but it should not be hard to do so,’ he said. ‘One look will be enough for me to know if he is the prince.’
‘One look?’ She frowned at him in bafflement. ‘But, Papà, a tiny child of two will be hard to recognise thirty-four years later, surely?’
His pain-filled eyes came back to hers. ‘Prince Alessandro has a birthmark, a strawberry one. I saw it when I was looking after him. It is very distinctive. It is shaped like the island of Niroli.’
‘A birthmark…’ she breathed. ‘Where?’
‘It is on his right forearm, on the underside near the elbow. You would not see it unless he turned his arm right over.’
Amelia let out her breath in a jagged stream, her thoughts clanging together in her head like discordant cathedral bells. She mentally backtracked, going over each time she had been with Alex Hunter, trying to recall whether he had been wearing shirt sleeves or whether they had been rolled up….
‘The new doctor,’ her father said into the heavy silence. ‘I want to see him. But it must be in private. Up here. Can you arrange it?’
‘Why him, Papà?’
‘I want to make sure.’
She swallowed again. ‘Y-you think Dr Hunter is the prince?’
‘I do not know but I must make certain before I die.’
The stark reality of the situation was fast dawning on Amelia and it terrified her. If news got out of her father’s role in the kidnap of the prince he would be hauled before the courts and charged. His last few weeks of life would be spent in prison, not with his family. Their name would again be vilified in every way imaginable; her brothers would never find work again on the island and her life would be even more difficult than it currently was.
And if it was true that Alex Hunter was indeed Prince Alessandro, what would that information do to him? How would he cope with the news that he was not a simple commoner but a member of the richest royal family in Europe? And not only a member, with his twin brother’s recent decision—now the rightful heir to the throne.
Her father jolted her out of her tortured reverie. ‘I want you to know that I am prepared to be punished for what I did, Amelia. I have always been prepared, but I did not come forward at the time for your mother’s sake. I kept everything from her. I had to. She was expecting a child, your brother Rico. I did not want her to see me as a man capable of such a crime. It was even worse after your brothers and you were born. Having my own children made me realise the enormity of what I had done. I could tell no one and the fight to keep those who knew silent became all the more desperate. It has cost me dearly.’
‘It has cost the prince his birthright!’ she said, unable to contain her despair and shame at what he had done. ‘No matter if the Australian doctor is the prince or not, whoever the prince is now has been robbed of everything that is rightly his. He has never known his real parents, never lived on the island, and never spoken the language and a thousand other things that can never be replaced or put right by a last-minute deathbed confession!’
‘I know, but I must put right what I can,’ he said. ‘I must see this man who has the whole island talking of his likeness to Antonio Fierezza.’
‘And Prince Marco,’ she put in heavily.
‘Is that true?’ he asked, his throat moving up and down again. ‘You have seen Prince Marco up at the palace, have you not? Does he look anything like the doctor?’
She frowned as she thought about it. There was a similarity; they were both dark of hair and eyes, although she seemed to recall Marco’s were not as coal-black as Alex’s, and he seemed a bit taller, not much, maybe only an inch if that.
‘I don’t know…maybe a little bit,’ she said.
‘So you will do this for me? Bring the doctor to me as soon as you can arrange it?’
‘He was here last night,’ she informed him.
He coughed out the word. ‘Here?’
She nodded. ‘He came across me on the road. and gave me a lift and somehow talked me into having dinner with him. I decided to go because you and Silvio were out. Where is Silvio, by the way?’
‘He has been working on a boat that goes between here and Sicily. He heard the rumours and took me down to the port to talk to some people who had seen the doctor and become suspicious.’
‘Papà…you do realise if Alex Hunter is the child you spirited away that there will be consequences, not just for you, but for Rico and Silvio and me?’
‘Yes…’ His thin chest deflated on a ragged