Duarte's Child

‘I could strangle you for your carelessness, Emily…’ Duarte breathed in a curiously ragged undertone.

‘What you need is a good cup of tea. You’ve had a nasty shock too,’ the middle-aged nurse informed Duarte in a brisk and cheerful interruption. Unaccustomed to being addressed as if he was a large child, he looked sincerely startled.

A porter began to wheel out the trolley on which Emily lay. As the nurse had spoken, Emily had finally recognised the ashen quality of Duarte’s usually vibrant skin tone and the sheen of perspiration on his sculpted dark features. She closed her eyes, acknowledging the truth of the older woman’s assurance. She had almost died on him. Evidently, he was relieved that she had survived. Maybe he did not hate her quite as much as she had assumed he did.

But then hatred meant a strong emotion where the target was concerned, didn’t it? And Duarte had never felt any particularly strong emotion in her direction. A pain that felt almost physical enclosed her and she shut her eyes in self-defence. She knew that she had never had the power to hide her feelings from him and she had not the courage to meet his eyes levelly.

‘Your husband has had the fright of his life,’ the kindly nurse soothed her in a small empty side ward. ‘When your child runs out in front of a car, you shout at him afterwards because you’re angry and afraid that you almost lost him.’

‘Yes…’ Emily was rolled gently into a bed. She did not like to say that Duarte’s most likely feeling now was one of complete exasperation and contempt. In her position, he would never have made the mistake of being without that life-saving adrenaline kit.

‘Why am I being put to bed?’ Emily asked, finding herself being deftly undressed.

‘The doctor wants us to keep you under observation for a few hours just to be sure that you have no adverse reactions.’

Helped into a hospital nightdress in a faded print and left alone, Emily lay back against the pillows, anxiously wondering who exactly had charge of Jamie and how her baby was coping with her sudden disappearance. Almost at the same moment as she was thinking that the nurse reappeared, cradling Jamie, who was howling at the top of his lungs. ‘I believe this little soul is yours and he wants his mum!’

Emily opened her arms and Jamie grabbed on to her the instant he was brought within her reach. ‘Who was looking after him?’

‘The older man, who arrived just after your husband brought you in. He doesn’t speak any English. He was out at Reception trying to calm your little boy down.’

Mateus Santos, she assumed, a committed bachelor who was probably pretty useless with young children. Jamie snuffled into weary silence against her shoulder just as Duarte appeared in the open doorway. He stilled when he saw the child in her arms and the nurse slipped out, leaving them alone.

Her tummy twisting, her eyes veiled, Emily muttered awkwardly, ‘Have you seen Jamie yet?’

‘No…Mateus brought him here in your car. My time was taken up tending to you,’ Duarte admitted curtly.

Jamie had a death grip on her. He was going through that stage of disliking strangers that many babies went through around his age. He resisted being turned round and pushed his dark head under her chin. He’d had quite enough of excitement and strangers for one morning. It was anything but the best moment for Duarte to meet his son for the first time.

‘Duarte…I’m so sorry!’ Emily heard herself admit with her usual impulsiveness, a sob catching in her aching throat. ‘I am so very sorry for everything…’

‘That cuts no ice with me,’ Duarte responded with eyes that were as hard and bright as burnished steel, cold derision etched in every line of his starkly handsome features as he studied her shaken face. ‘How dare you drag my son round the countryside in a caravan like a gipsy? How dare you put me in the position where I have to answer to the police merely because I attempted to see my own child? And how dare you look at me now and insult my intelligence with that pathetic excuse of a word, “sorry”?’

CHAPTER TWO

‘THE…police?’ Emily stammered even more aghast.

‘Since I married you, you have brought me only shame and dishonour.’ Duarte breathed starkly, his controlled lack of volume far more dramatic than any shout.

‘The police?’ Emily whispered again shakily, her sensitive tummy tying itself into sick knots.

‘Your employer, Mrs Barker, reported your great escape from her property and my natural pursuit. She expressed concern for your safety. Two police officers are now waiting outside for my explanation.’ Duarte drew himself up to his full imposing six-foot-four-inch height and squared his broad shoulders with all the fierce pride of his ancestors in his bearing, but sheer outrage glittered in his condemning gaze.