Duarte's Child

Concentrating on avoiding Duarte, Emily circulated. Every time he came within twenty feet of her, she moved on and plunged into animated conversation with someone else. At last their guests began to take their leave but it was a slow process. Then an elderly woman announced that her handbag had gone missing and immediately became very upset. Emily could have done with her husband’s calming presence—her own level of Portuguese was unequal to the challenge of soothing the poor woman. Unfortunately, Duarte was nowhere within view and Emily had to martial the anxious and weary staff into an ordered search. The bag was finally found intact in the cloakroom. Telling the servants just to go to bed and clean up the party debris in the morning, Emily ushered their volubly apologetic guest out to her limousine with great relief.

As Emily walked back indoors, the big house felt eerily silent and empty. Had Duarte just gone up to bed? From the amount of light reflecting on the landing window, Emily realised that the lights had been left on outside in the courtyard garden. With a groan, she went back downstairs to switch them off. She frowned when she saw that the garden doors were still open and then she stopped dead in her tracks: Duarte and Bliss were outside.

Even as Emily looked, Bliss made a sudden almost compulsive movement and tipped forward into Duarte’s swiftly extended arms. They were locked together like two magnets in the split second it took Emily to surge forward and gasp strickenly, ‘You rotten, lying bastard!’

CHAPTER NINE

DUARTE thrust Bliss hurriedly back from him and wheeled round, his lean strong face startled, his whole demeanour one of almost exaggerated incredulity.

‘Did you think I’d gone to bed?’ Emily’s voice broke on that rather meaningless demand but her brain was locked on that intimate image of them together and the sheer horror of the discovery that her very worst fears should have been proven right before her eyes.

Bliss strolled forward, her scarlet dress shimmering in the lights, her exquisite face offensively cool and collected. ‘This is rather embarrassing but I do assure you that you misunderstood what you just saw. I simply stumbled and Duarte saved me from a nasty fall—’

‘Do you honestly think I’m s-stupid enough to swallow that old chestnut?’ Emily stammered, half an octave higher, utterly thrown by the blonde’s reaction until she worked out that Bliss was assuming yet another role and this time for Duarte’s benefit. That of supportive lover engaged in a tactful cover-up!

Duarte studied Emily’s drawn and accusing face and he squared his broad shoulders. ‘Don’t be silly, Emily,’ he urged in the most galling tone of authority. ‘It’s a warm night and Bliss was feeling faint. She almost fell and I steadied her. End of story.’

Duarte rested expectant dark deepset eyes on his wife.

Instantly, Emily looked away, away from both of them. She was trembling and sick with shock at their behaviour. Why were they doing this to her? Couldn’t Duarte, at least, have come clean? Instead, they stood united against her, both of them making the same stupid excuse and both of them treating her as if she was an hysteric making wild childish allegations!

‘I think I ought to go home, Duarte. I’m so sorry about this,’ Bliss sighed with regret.

Enraged by the other woman’s composure, Emily spun back. ‘Tell me, what role are you playing now, Bliss? You’re a very good liar but I have to admit that my head’s spinning tonight!’

‘Get a grip on yourself, Emily,’ Duarte grated.

Emily couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She kept on staring at Bliss. ‘Have you told my husband about what a great friend you were to me before I left Portugal?’

‘I really don’t know what you’re referring to,’ Bliss responded drily.

‘Oh, really?’ Emily marvelled that she herself did not simply spontaneously combust with rage and sheer violent frustration. ‘You mean you don’t remember all those cosy lunches we shared at the Faz Figura restaurant in the Alfama? You don’t recall the dozen shopping trips either? Not even my visits to your apartment?’

Bliss directed a marvellous look of sublime discomfiture at Duarte as if she was listening to the ravings of a very confused and drunken woman.

‘Well then, if I never visited your apartment, tell me how I know that you have your dining room chairs covered in fake zebra skin?’ Emily asked fiercely, determined to corner and entrap Bliss in her own lies. ‘How come I know that you have a grandfather clock that belonged to your parents in your sitting room? Leather seats, glass tables—?’

As Emily’s desperation to expose the blonde’s lies rose to a charged peak, Bliss expelled a weary sigh. ‘Well, I do have a leather suite but then so do many people and I would adore a grandfather clock but I’ve never owned one. As for the fake animal fur seats?’ Bliss grimaced. ‘I have rather better taste.’