need to see a cardiac specialist. There is a very good one here in this hospital, who collaborates with our specialist neo-natal unit. My recommendation would be that we arrange for you to visit him as soon as it can be arranged.’
‘Is…is my baby going to die?’ Emily’s voice shook with fear.
‘No,’ the obstetrician assured her. ‘But depending on how severe the abnormality is, there could be a series of operations throughout his childhood and teenage years and, maybe, if things are extreme, there will be the necessity for a heart transplant at some stage. Severe heart malfunctions do limit the kind of life the sufferer can live. If this is the case, your son will need dedicated care; boys like to run and play vigorous games, but it might be a possibility that he’ll not be able to do that.’
Her child could be a boy who might not be able to run and play like other children, a boy who could be subjected to operation after operation to keep him alive! But he would have a life, and she would give every hour, every second, of her life to him and his needs, Emily vowed fiercely.
Marco looked across at Emily; he could see the devastation in her eyes. He wanted, he realised, to take her in his arms and hold her there. He wanted to tell her that there was nothing to fear and that he would keep both of them safe, her and their child. He wanted to tell her that he was there for them whatever happened and he always would be, and that they were the most, the only, important things in his life. The news they had just received had at a stroke filled him with an emotion so complex and yet so simple that it could not be denied.
Love.
What he was feeling for Emily right now was love: a man’s love for his woman, the mother of his child, for his companion and soul mate, without whom his life would never be complete.
Earlier, while watching the scan take place, he had experienced the most extraordinary sense of enlightenment, of knowing that he had to be part of his son’s life. Now had come the knowledge that nothing could ever be more important to him than guarding this precious, growing life and the woman who was carrying it.
Not power, not wealth, nothing; not even the throne of Niroli.
Marco knew that others would not understand; he barely understood what he was experiencing himself. But, somehow, it wasn’t necessary for him to understand, or to be able to analyse; it was simply enough for him to know. Maybe he had been travelling towards this place, this crossroads in his life, for longer than he realised; maybe there had been many signposts along the journey that he had not seen. However, now, not only had the crossroads been reached, they had been traversed simply and easily, without any kind of hesitation or doubt. He could not be Niroli’s king and his child’s father—certainly not this child’s father, whose young life might always hang precariously on a thread, and who should never be subjected to the rigours of kingship. This boy would need his father’s loving presence. And he would have it. Singularly, neither he nor Emily was strong enough for their child, but together they would be.
‘I have to return to Niroli.’
They were back home in Emily’s kitchen. The necessary appointment had been made with the cardiac specialist, and now Emily inclined her head slightly as she listened to Marco.
‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed. She had been expecting him to say this, and she knew, too, that there would be no demands from him now that she should return with him so that his son could grow up on the island. The royal family of Niroli were arrogant and proud, too arrogant and proud to want to accept that one of their bloodline could be anything less than perfect. No, Marco would not want a sickly, ailing child around to remind him of that. She could feel the pain of the rejection on behalf of her baby, but she stifled it. It was Marco who was not worthy of their child, not the other way around. Not worthy of her child and not worthy of her love.
Marco desperately wanted to tell Emily how he felt—but this was not the right time. Unfortunately, he had a duty to inform his grandfather first of his intentions. Once he had done that, then he could tell Emily how much he loved her. Did she love him? His heart felt as though there were a knife twisting inside it. But even if she didn’t love him, he still intended to be a full-time father to his son.
‘I’ll be back in time for the appointment with the cardiac specialist.’
Emily bowed her head. She mustn’t let her own feelings swamp her. She had to be strong—for her son. Was it something she had done, or not done, that had caused his heart defect? she had asked the obstetrician.
No, Mr Bryant-Jones had told her, sometimes the condition ran in families, but sometimes it ‘just happened', without there being any reason.
‘What do you mean you no longer wish to succeed to the throne?’
‘I mean, Grandfather, that I am abdicating my claim to the Crown. I intend to make a formal speech to that effect, but I wanted you to be the first to know,’ Marco told his grandfather calmly.
‘You are giving up the throne of Niroli for the sake of a woman and her child.’
Marco could hear the disbelief in his grandfather’s voice.
‘My woman and my child. And, yes, I am giving up the throne for them. For them, and for our people.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘It would never have worked, Grandfather. I could never step into your shoes.’ Marco saw that the old man was looking slightly gratified.
‘For me, they would be constraining, too limiting,’ he finished firmly. ‘We have done nothing but argue since I first arrived. You block every attempt I make to make reforms—’
‘Because they are not right for our people.’
‘No, because they are not right for you.’
‘What you want to do would cause a schism that would split the island.’
‘If you continued to oppose me, then, yes, there is that possibility. Niroli needs a king who will bring it into the twenty-first century—I firmly believe that. But I also believe now that Niroli’s king can never be me. That does not mean that I don’t care about my homeland and my people, I do—passionately—but I now know that I can do more for it and for them by working from outside its hierarchy.’
‘By spreading anarchy, you mean?’
‘By setting up a charitable trust to help those who most need it,’ Marco corrected him evenly.
There was a certain irony in the fact that, whilst he had refused to wear the heavily decorated formal uniform his grandfather had had made for him on his arrival in Niroli, he was wearing it now to take his formal leave, Marco admitted as he waited for the king’s equally elderly valet to finish fastening him into the jacket with its heavy gold braid. But somehow it seemed fitting that, on this one occasion, he should defer to tradition.
The world’s media had been alerted to the fact that he intended to make a public speech; TV and radio crews had already arrived and the square below the palace balcony, from which he had chosen to address the people, was already full.
How different he felt now, compared with the way he had felt when he had first returned. Then, he had been filled with a fierce determination to fulfil his destiny; it had ridden him and possessed him.
This morning he had woken up with a sense of release, a sense of
