Duarte's Child

At that point what felt like the last piece of a bewildering puzzle seemed to fall into dismaying place and Emily stared at Duarte in sudden horror. ‘Bliss is that third party you mentioned, isn’t she? That discreet person who confirmed that I was carrying on with Toby when I wasn’t—’

‘I won’t dignify that accusation with an answer,’ Duarte countered drily.

It was as if he was slamming a door in her face without conscience. She wanted to ask him how intimate his relationship with Bliss had become but was not entirely sure she could stand to hear an honest answer at that moment. He would not feel that he had to defend himself. After all, didn’t he believe that she had betrayed him with Toby first? She could feel his anger, contained but always there between them, awakened by the reminder of her supposed affair, his attitude hardened by the manner in which she had questioned him about Bliss.

‘Tell me,’ she muttered dry-mouthed, feeling that no matter where she turned she was in a no-win situation and always in the wrong, ‘would you even have considered bringing me back to Portugal had I not had Jamie?’

‘The jury’s still very much out on that one,’ Duarte drawled with freezing cool. ‘Right now, I’m changing direction like a metronome.’

Neither of them said another word for the remainder of the drive back to the quinta.

After they arrived Duarte strode off with the terse explanation that he had an important call to make, Emily went upstairs to fetch Jamie and scooped him out of his cot with eager hands. After stopping for a chat with the nanny and discussing at some length the reality that her son needed more clothes, she cuddled Jamie all the way down to the ground floor again. There she set him on a rug in the salon to talk to him.

‘Your father doesn’t like me very much right now but that’s OK,’ Emily informed her six-month-old son with a rather wooden bright smile, destined to reassure him that she really wasn’t sad. ‘I’m just warning you that whenever you do anything stupid, it will come back and haunt you for a good hundred years. It will smack you in the face at every turn and leave you feeling awful—’

‘I think you’re taxing his concentration span…’ Duarte murmured from somewhere behind her at the same time as she noticed that Jamie was kicking his feet and demonstrating definite signs of excited welcome at the approach of someone he liked.

‘I didn’t know you were there!’ Emily was seriously rattled by his appearance.

‘Put on the fake smile again. Jamie’s not very discerning.’ Duarte hunkered down by her side to grasp their son’s extended chubby fingers. ‘He wouldn’t know a pity-fest from a celebration.’

‘If that’s supposed to make me feel better—’

‘No…but this is…’ Anchoring one powerful hand into her tumbling hair, Duarte tugged her head around and captured her startled lips under his. Instinctively, she began to tip towards him. That slow-burning kiss awakened a bone-deep yearning inside her for the pure reassurance of physical contact and acceptance.

And then something funny happened. Her memory threw up a perfect recollection of his last words before they vacated the car. Just as quickly, she found herself pulling back from him for the first time in her life and she caught the flash of surprise in his stunning gaze before he veiled it.

‘If I’m only here for Jamie’s benefit, we’d better not stretch me too thin,’ she said tightly.

Duarte reached forward and lifted their son with the same carefulness he might have utilised in handling a bomb. And her heart twisted because she knew it was her fault that he was still afraid of being rejected by Jamie. Emily being Emily, she then felt immediately horrible for not allowing Duarte to kiss her as much as he wanted to.

‘Victorine tells me that you invited her to stay on,’ Duarte murmured while he struggled to get Jamie into a comfortable position on one raised, lean, powerful thigh. ‘In the circumstances that was extremely generous of you. However, she’s asked me if she can move into a house on the outskirts of the estate which is currently unoccupied. I’ve agreed.’

‘With me in charge, prepare yourself for a sudden slump in staff efficiency,’ Emily told him apprehensively.

‘If there’s a problem, you come to me and I will deal with it.’

Meanwhile Jamie chortled and dug delighted hands into Duarte’s luxuriant black hair and pulled hard.

‘He’s not scared of me any more,’ Duarte breathed with a sudden grin.

Duarte took Jamie upstairs to the picture gallery which was lined with distinctly gloomy canvases of Monteiro ancestors and gave their infant son a potted history of the family with a perfectly straight face.