Duarte's Child

‘I think she was hoping to marry Duarte,’ Toby told Emily gently. ‘But to achieve that, she had to get you out of the picture. She went mad with rage when Duarte remarried—’

Duarte looked shaken by that information.

‘I’m sorry I was such a jerk last year, Emily.’ Toby shrugged awkwardly and hovered in front of her where she could no longer avoid looking at him. ‘But to know you is to love you and I’m a hopeless romantic. There you were, the neglected wife—’

‘She’s not neglected any more,’ Duarte slotted in faster than the speed of light. ‘And you told me that you fall in love very easily—’

‘I suppose that’s true. Blame the artistic temperament.’ Toby grinned at both of them, quite untouched by the smallest shade of embarrassment.

‘I just wish you’d come clean with me about what Bliss was up to,’ Emily censured helplessly.

‘He wanted you for himself. Why would he have told you the truth about his cousin?’ Duarte remarked flatly.

‘I was ready to talk about Bliss after you and Duarte separated because that did make me feel bad, as it was pretty obvious that you weren’t remotely interested in me. But you wouldn’t talk to me when I trekked out to the Douro to try and sort things out,’ Toby reminded Emily.

‘And then I beat you up to make you stay away from her,’ Duarte conceded in the thwarted undertone of someone trying to regret an action but not succeeding that well. ‘You did try to get me to listen to you but I wasn’t prepared to give you a hearing.’

‘And after that,’ Toby said with a feeling shudder, ‘I was totally out of charity with you and too scared to try and talk to Emily again.’

Duarte thanked Toby for lending him his support and in doing so, ushered the younger man to the door where he urged him to enjoy his flight back to Peru.

‘You’re darned right I will—in your jet!’ Laughing, Toby strolled out looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

Emily watched Toby depart and felt very much like taking him by the collar and shaking him. He had caused so much trouble but it had really washed right back off him again. Easy come, easy go, that was Toby. Yet, in spite of that, Toby had made the effort to try and set her straight about Bliss. It was just unfortunate that she had refused to speak to him.

‘I’m grateful that Jarrett was willing to provide the backup for exposing Bliss.’ Duarte shot her stilled figure a veiled glance. ‘I was afraid that, without his support, you would remain suspicious.’

Emily coloured and spun away, afraid that what she was thinking would show in her face and rub salt in the wound. Duarte was so proud. Yet he had tracked down Toby and asked him for his help. She cringed inwardly at what that approach must have cost Duarte in terms of pride.

‘When did you realise that Bliss was lying?’ she asked uncomfortably, in one way feeling guilty that she had forced him to such lengths but in another feeling hopelessly upstaged. She had demanded proof and, no matter what the cost to himself, Duarte had supplied her with proof of Bliss’s true nature. It might have taken him three weeks to track down Toby but Duarte had not called off the search. Nor had he hesitated to confess that he had been equally taken in by the other woman. Emily was extremely disconcerted by his behaviour.

‘The grandfather clock…I did tell you that I had a vague recollection of Bliss once telling me about the clock—’

‘No, you didn’t,’ she argued.

Duarte awarded her a wry smile and reminded her of how tired she had been at the end of that party three weeks earlier. ‘You didn’t take in what I had told you. As soon as I recalled the clock reference, I appreciated that if Bliss could lie about that, she was most probably lying about everything—’

‘So why didn’t you tell me that, the next morning?’ Emily demanded.

‘I still had no proof to offer that I hadn’t had an affair with her,’ Duarte pointed out. ‘And, to be frank, I had shot myself in the foot, trying to make you jealous of her—’

‘Say that again…’ Emily was frowning at him, struggling to understand that sudden confession.

Duarte moved expressive and fluid hands. ‘I—’

‘Tell me that bit again about trying to make me jealous,’ Emily cut in a second time. ‘I just want to be sure that you actually said that—’

Duarte was very taut. ‘That conversation we had in the car after you had come to the city apartment. You had been talking about divorce again. I was angry with you. It was the impulse of a moment to exaggerate the less formal terms of my relationship with Bliss—’