Duarte's Child

Every scrap of colour drained from her complexion at that wounding statement which reminded her of her every past failure. Then redemption and release came from a new discovery deep within her pain. ‘I’m sorry…I really don’t want to be your wife any more,’ she whispered and her voice might have shook but somehow that admission made her feel stronger than she had felt in a very long time.

‘Meu Deus!’ Duarte bent down and scooped her out of the passenger seat with powerful and angry hands. ‘That I should lower myself to the dishonour of taking back an adulterous wife and that you should dare to display such ingratitude in response!’ he growled down at her with enraged golden eyes.

Emily gasped in disbelief when Duarte lifted her bodily from the car with the ease of a male sweeping up a small recalcitrant child. She could not credit that her controlled and reserved husband, who was no fan of public displays, should behave in such a way while Victorine was watching them. But then, never had she seen Duarte’s anger before, for he’d not allowed her to see it, and what he’d just said to her was burned like letters of fire into her memory banks. ‘Put me down,’ she gasped in stricken recoil but her request was ignored.

When they were still several feet from the tall front doors which were spread wide on the huge hall behind her, Victorine spoke. ‘I am sorry to say it but if that trollop enters the quinta, I will leave, Duarte.’

‘That would be a great pity,’ Duarte murmured without expression as he lowered Emily down on to the step in front of him. ‘But this is my home and within my home no one will tell me what I may or may not do, nor will anyone abuse my wife.’

Emily was as shattered by that tough comeback from Duarte as the older woman appeared to be. Victorine’s thin features betrayed incredulous resentment.

‘Duarte…’ Emily began in an agony of discomfiture.

‘If my daughter Izabel could see you now with her…’ Victorine condemned with a bitterness she could not hide.

Every muscle in Duarte’s big powerful body went rigid and his dark deep voice carried an edge of reproach. ‘Let your daughter rest in peace.’

As Victorine stalked back indoors in high dudgeon, it was Emily who broke the strained silence that she had left in her wake. ‘Jamie’s still in the car—’

‘He’s asleep. The staff will see to him for the moment.’ Signalling the housekeeper hovering at the back of the hall, Duarte gave an instruction to that effect. Then, resting a hand to Emily’s taut spine, he pressed her into the superb salon with its tall gothic windows and thrust the door shut behind them again.

The wall at the foot of the room was dominated by a huge full-length portrait of Izabel, an exotic brunette in a fabulous blue ball gown. Emily tore her gaze from that familiar but oh, so daunting image. Izabel, Victorine’s beloved only child and Duarte’s first wife. Five years earlier, Izabel had died in a ghastly car wreck that had also claimed the life of Duarte’s twin sister. Rest in peace? Emily’s sensitive tummy clenched. One way or another, she had been haunted every day of their marriage by Izabel, the ultimate of impossible acts to follow. Even now, Duarte could not bear to mention her name and the Quinta de Monteiro remained stamped by the spectral presence of its former mistress.

‘Please go and speak to Victorine before she does anything foolish,’ Emily urged wearily. ‘I don’t want to stay here anyway, so there’s not much point giving her the impression that she has to move out to avoid me.’

‘This is my home. Here you will stay.’

That abrasive intonation made her lift her head again and she clashed with smouldering dark golden eyes that could have splintered a lesser being at a hundred paces. She gulped. ‘I can’t… If that’s how Victorine feels, what about the rest of the family and your friends?’

Duarte flung back his arrogant head and vented a harsh laugh of derision that ripped through the tense atmosphere like a knife blade. ‘Inferno! Do you think I took out a full page ad in the newspapers to spread the word that the village layabout had been screwing my wife?’

White as milk, Emily stared back at him and cringed. He’d never used such language around her before but in its use she finally recognised the savage anger he was containing and she quailed from it. ‘But I never slept with him,’ she argued in desperation. ‘All that ever happened between us, you saw for yourself—’

‘Saw and will never forget.’ Duarte swore with a raw force that chilled her. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence. While you were in the Douro, I was foolish enough to reconsider your explanations—but then I received confirmation of your guilt from a third party. It was not only I who saw you acting like a slut.’