handed them over to a dark-suited consultant, accompanied by what Giselle guessed must be a senior-ranking nurse.
‘My cousin?’ Saul asked again.
‘Conscious and eager to see you. But I should warn you that his injuries are extremely severe.’
Giselle looked anxiously at Saul, and said, ‘If you want me to come with you…’
Saul shook his head. ‘No. You stay here.’
‘I’ll have a hot drink sent in for you,’ the consultant told Giselle, before turning to Saul. ‘Staff Nurse Peters here will show you to your cousin’s room. I’m afraid I can’t allow you to have more than a few minutes with him. We’ve patched him up temporarily, but we need to sedate and stabilise him before we can operate and tidy up the mess made by the bomb.’
The mess made by the bomb. What exactly did that mean? Giselle worried once she was on her own. She hadn’t liked Natasha, but her violent death had reawakened her own memories of the violent deaths of her mother and her baby brother, whom she had witnessed being hit by a lorry. For years she had carried the guilt of being alive when they had died, after sharp words from her mother had resulted in her holding back when she had started to cross the road with the pram. That holding back had saved her life—and filled it with guilt. Only Saul’s love had enabled her to come to terms with the trauma of the accident.
Poor Natasha. No matter how selfish and unpleasant she had been, she had not deserved such a cruel fate.
In the hospital room Saul looked down at his cousin, wired up to machines that clicked and whirred, his head bandaged and his body still beneath the sheets.
‘He’s lost both legs,’ the nurse had told Saul before she opened the door to the room, ‘and there’s some damage to his internal organs.’
‘Is he…? Will he survive?’ Saul had asked her.
‘We shall do our best to ensure that he does,’ she had answered crisply, but Saul had seen the truth and its reality in her eyes.
His vision blurred as he looked at Aldo. His cousin had always been so accommodating, so gentle and good.
‘You’re here. Knew you’d come. Been waiting.’
The words, though perfectly audible, were dragged out and slow. Aldo lifted his hand, and Saul took it between his own as he sat down next to the bed. Aldo’s flesh felt cold and dry. The word lifeless sprang into Saul’s mind but he pushed it away.
‘Want you to promise me something.’
Saul gritted his teeth. If Aldo was going to ask him to look after Natasha in the event of his death then he was going to nod his head and agree, and not tell him that she was dead. Aldo adored his wife, even though in Saul’s mind she was not worthy of that love.
‘Anything,’ he told Aldo, and meant it.
‘Want you to promise that you will look after our country and its people for me, Saul. Want you to take my place as its ruler. Want you to promise that you will secure its future with an heir. Can’t break the family chain. Duty must come first…’
Saul closed his eyes. Ruling the country was the last thing he wanted, and he had always felt confident that he would never have to do so. Aldo was younger than him, after all, and married. He had assumed that Aldo and Natasha would produce children to succeed to the title.
And as for Saul himself producing an heir…That was the last thing he wanted to do. He did not want children and neither did Giselle. For both of them what they had experienced during their own childhoods had left them determined not to have children of their own. That shared decision had forged a very strong bond between them—a bond that was all the stronger because they knew that other people would find it hard to understand. Only with one another had they been able to talk about the pain of their childhoods and the vulnerabilities that pain still caused them.
How could he discuss all of that now, though, when his cousin was dying and with his final breath asking him for his help—and his promise?
What was he to do? Refuse Aldo’s dying plea?
Aldo had touched a nerve with his use of the word duty. Their family had ruled Arezzio in an unbroken line that went back over countless generations, but more important than that he owed a duty of care to this man lying here—his cousin, his flesh, his blood, who but for him would never have met Natasha. It was his fault that Aldo was lying here, dying in front of his eyes—because that was what was happening.
‘Promise me. Promise me, Saul.’ Aldo’s voice strengthened, his hand tightening on Saul’s as he tried to raise himself up.
‘Waited for you to come. Can’t go until you give me your promise. Must do my duty. Even though…’ A grimace gripped his mouth. ‘Hurts like hell.’ Tears welled up in his eyes. ‘Promise me, Saul.’
Saul hesitated. He could and would accept that it was his duty to provide their country with a strong leader, committed to doing his best for his people. He could give Aldo his promise that he would be that leader. When it came to the matter of providing an heir, though, Saul was a committed democrat who believed in elected rule. If he were to step into Aldo’s shoes that would be the direction in which he took the country—leading it by example away from the rule of protective paternalism provided by centuries of his ancestors into the maturity of democracy. And with that democracy there would be no need for him to provide an heir.
Aldo knew his feelings on the subject of ancient privilege. But he was still asking him for a deathbed promise.
Saul looked at his cousin. He loved him dearly. What mattered most here? Being true to his beliefs and stating them? Or easing the passing of his cousin in the knowledge that in reality, no matter what Aldo was asking now, he knew what Saul’s principles and beliefs were? Saul closed his eyes. He had never longed more to have Giselle at his side, with wise counsel and comfort to offer him. But she wasn’t here, and he must make his decision alone.
‘I promise,’ he told Aldo. ‘I promise that I will do my very best for our country and its people, Aldo.’
‘Knew I could rely on you.’ The grimace softened, to be replaced by something that was almost a smile.
‘Natasha?’ Aldo asked, speaking the word so slowly and painfully that it tore at Saul’s heart. ‘Already gone?’
Saul bowed his head.
‘Thought so. Nothing to keep me here now.’ Aldo closed his eyes, his breathing so calm and steady that initially Saul thought with a surge of hope that he might survive. But then he drew in a ragged breath and opened his eyes, fixing his gaze on Saul as he exhaled and then said quite clearly, in a wondering voice of delight and welcome, ‘Natasha.’
Saul didn’t need the flat line of the machine to tell him that Aldo had gone. He could feel it in the flaccid touch of his hand, feel it as clearly as though he had actually seen his spirit leave his body.
In the waiting room Giselle stood up when the door opened and Saul came in, knowing instantly what had happened, and going to Saul to take him in her arms and hold him tightly.
Neither of them spoke very much on the journey back to London City Airport and from there to their townhouse in London’s luxurious
