Amelia helped her father into a sitting position on the bed at Alex’s direction and supported his leaning-forward position by holding his shoulders.
Alex pulled on a pair of sterile gloves after washing and drying his hands, and, using the swabs from the disposable dressing tray, cleaned an area on the right side of Aldo’s chest, his ribs clearly obvious because of marked weight loss.
‘I’m going to put in some local anaesthetic so it doesn’t hurt too much,’ Alex explained.
He injected ten milligrams of one per cent xylocaine with adrenaline into the area for the pleural tap. Then, taking a fourteen gauge IV canula, to the end of which he attached a three-way tap and a twenty-mil syringe, Alex punctured the right pleural space just lateral to the tip of the right scapula, and aspirated 20ml of blood-stained pleural fluid. He then withdrew the IV needle, leaving the plastic canula in the pleural cavity, and aspirated the pleural effusion 20ml at a time, discarding each aspirate by using the three-way tap, into the stainless steel container the nurse had provided.
‘You may feel like coughing as the fluid comes out, Signor Vialli. Try to suppress coughing as much as possible, just do little coughs if you have to, and try to keep as still as possible while I remove the fluid,’ Alex said.
For Amelia, it seemed as though the fluid would never end; so far Alex had removed two litres of blood-stained effusion. But at about three litres, the pleural cavity was drained, and Alex removed the needle, taping a dressing over the puncture site.
‘How does that feel? Can you breathe any easier?’ Alex asked.
Aldo took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. This time there was no hacking cough.
‘This is much better, Dr Hunter. I can breathe freely again. How long will this last?’ Aldo asked.
‘I can’t really say,’ Alex said. ‘The fluid may come back very quickly, and you’ll be thirsty and have to drink. Or it may accumulate very slowly, maybe over a few weeks. When much of the fluid comes back, I can drain it off again.’
‘Do you think there will be any problems from the tap, Alex, infection or a pneumothorax?’ Amelia asked, moving just out of her father’s hearing.
Alex moved back to listen to Aldo’s chest again with his stethoscope. ‘The air entry is much better, and there isn’t clinical evidence of a pneumothorax. I’ll give him some sample packs of amoxicillin. He should start those now, and we’ll get some more from the pharmacy tomorrow.’
‘Thank you, Dr Hunter,’ Aldo said as Amelia helped him to his feet once more.
‘No problem.’ Alex smiled. ‘Let’s get you home and into bed.’
Once her father was settled back at the cottage Amelia walked out with Alex to his car to see him off.
‘Your father should really be in hospital,’ he said as he drew her closer. ‘He’s in a bad way and it’s only going to get worse.’
‘I know.’ She let out a tiny sigh and looked up at him. ‘Thank you for what you did for him tonight.’
‘I didn’t do much.’
‘You did more than you realise,’ she said. ‘Apart from relieving the pressure in his chest, you listened to his reasons for doing what he did without judgement and yet you of all people should be angry. He took your childhood away and exchanged it for another.’
‘Maybe, but who’s to say the one I got in exchange wasn’t as good? I don’t have a single bad memory of my childhood, that’s more than what most people can say these days. It might have been a completely different story living a royal life. Who knows? I might have become horrendously overindulged and totally obnoxious.’
She smiled at his self-effacing humour. ‘I can’t imagine you ever being any such thing.’
He lifted her hand to his face and pressed a soft kiss to her palm, his eyes still locked to hers. ‘You didn’t like me the first time you met me, though, did you?’
‘I didn’t know you the first time I met you.’
‘And you do now?’ he asked after a protracted silence.
‘I know you’re a very special person….’
He narrowed his eyes at her playfully. ‘If you mention the P word again I won’t be answerable to the consequences. As far as I’m concerned I’m still Alex Hunter. Even if someone hands me a pedigree several centuries long I will still always feel like Alex Hunter, no one else.’
‘But you’ll have to face it soon,’ she said with a troubled frown.
‘Not yet.’ He pulled her closer, his hands settling on her hips. ‘Let’s just be two ordinary people for a little while longer.’
‘But the king should be told.’
‘He will be told, but not right now. He’s not well, for a start, and the shock of it could trigger a heart attack. I’d like to see him come through the procedure first. And anyway, I still have work to do at the Free Hospital. Can you imagine what would happen to that if I suddenly put my hand up for the throne? I came here to be a cardiac surgeon, not a prince. Once my work is completed I will have to face the issues surrounding my parentage, but until that time I’d rather just be me.’
She gave him a shadowed smile. ‘I have spent most of my life wishing I was someone else. When I was a little girl I used to dream of being rescued out of poverty. I would imagine someone coming up here and informing me I had been mistakenly swapped at birth and that I no longer had to play with dolls made out of paper and sticks but real ones, ones that looked like the princess I felt I was really meant to be.’
His eyes were very dark as they held hers. ‘I know what’s happened might seem like a fairy tale to others, but let me tell you it’s not. I guess I’m trying to keep my head by looking at this from a clinical distance. Although I met the king and some of my supposed siblings earlier this evening they felt like strangers to me. They still feel like strangers.’
‘You have the same blood running in your veins.’
‘Genetics is only a fraction of the equation,’ he said. ‘The nurture of a child is far more of an indicator than DNA profiles. I can’t explain it any other way but I feel like the son of Clara and Giles Hunter. I always have, even though I’ve always been aware of being adopted.’
‘I’m sure your adoptive parents will want you to do what’s right for you. They will not be thinking of themselves but of what is best for you.’
He gave her a crooked smile. ‘Like you, huh?’
She held his gaze, even though her heart felt as if it were being squeezed. ‘What I want doesn’t come into it at all.’
He frowned at her tone. ‘What is it you want, Amelia?’
She looked up into his face, her eyes shining with moisture. ‘I want you to be who you are called to be. It’s your life and only you can make that choice.’
‘For now this is my choice.’ His voice was gravel rough and deep as his mouth came down towards hers. ‘To be with you.’
But for how long? Amelia thought sadly as she lost herself in his kiss. It was too easy to forget about tomorrow when the heat and fire of the moment blazed so blindingly today.
Alex lifted his mouth from hers a few breathless minutes later. ‘Have dinner with me tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘Bring some casual clothes and bathers with you to work so you can change at my house. We’ll go on a sunset picnic to one of the beaches away from all the crowds. I don’t want people staring at us.’
‘I’m not sure…’ She hesitated. ‘My