Duarte's Child

‘Don’t play games with me unless you want to get hurt…’ Duarte ground out. ‘Victorine came to me in great distress to tell me how you had taunted her with her daughter’s death…’

Emily’s knees were locked together and her legs gave an involuntary wobble, the high-heeled mules she still wore providing a far from stable support. ‘I didn’t taunt her. All I said was that her daughter was no longer here—’

‘I don’t believe you. It’s a very long time since I’ve seen Izabel’s mother in such a state and you cannot even look me in the face.’

Emily could feel herself beginning to feel guilty even though she knew that she had said nothing that could have upset the older woman. Nor could she help but recall how enraged Victorine had looked when she’d realised that Emily was no longer a soft target on which to vent her spleen. She lifted her chin, raising strained aquamarine eyes to meet a gaze as stormy as the threatening glow inside a volcano about to erupt. ‘She can only have misunderstood what I said—’

‘Don’t push me on this. Shock is written all over you. Shock that Victorine told tales and your unpleasantness has been exposed for me to deal with—’

‘I did not taunt her with Izabel’s death. Why would I do that, for goodness’ sake?’ Emily prompted on a rising note of protest.

‘Because, as the mother of my son and my wife, you might well feel that you have a great deal of power in this house.’

A nervous giggle bubbled up out of Emily’s constricted throat. ‘Power? Me? I was less important than the most junior housemaid the last time I lived here! Victorine was always picking out my mistakes in front of the staff, embarrassing them, humiliating me…’ As Emily’s voice ebbed in recollection, it then gathered renewed steam. ‘Nothing I ever did pleased her or you. I spent hours trying to make up menus, only to have them rejected. I got to the stage where I didn’t care if you never ate again! I let her march me out to the endless coffee mornings, the polite social visits, the charity functions, the dinner parties for which you never turned up and I changed my clothes at least four times a flippin’ day—’

‘Emily,’ Duarte gritted.

‘Do you know something?’ Emily proclaimed with the fierce bitterness that assailed her when she recalled how desperately hard she had worked to fill her role as a high society wife. ‘I’d have had an easier ride down a nineteenth-century coal mine than I had being your wife!’

That last phrase dropped into a silence so deep that a feather could have fallen and sounded out a resounding crash. Duarte surveyed her with hard dark eyes. ‘You condemn yourself with every word you say. It’s obvious that you’ve always resented Victorine’s presence here and would very much prefer to see her move out.’

Emily’s lips opened and then very slowly closed again, her eyes widening in dismay as she realised what Duarte had extracted from her unfortunate outburst. Suddenly she could have bitten out her own impulsive tongue but innate honesty prevented her from lying. It was true—no way could she put her hand on her heart and say that she had not resented his mother-in-law in the past. Regimented by Victorine into a lifestyle she loathed and then continually criticised and shown up in front of others as she failed to fill the hallowed shoes of her superhuman predecessor, Emily had often wished that Victorine would magically vanish from her horizon.

‘But it wasn’t like that tonight, Duarte,’ she argued vehemently. ‘I know you’re fond of her and I reminded her of that and asked her to think again—’

‘I have more trust in her ability to tell the truth than I have in yours. If you ever do anything like this again, you will pay a high price. Don’t turn away from me like that!’ Duarte raked at her, making her flinch.

So now as well as being the most hated person in the house and a trollop and that other word which she could bear to recall even less, she was also a nasty shrew and an outright liar. Emily kept on turning away, for she had too much pride to let him see how savaged she was by his refusal to place even the smallest trust in her word.

Long powerful fingers settled on her slight shoulder and flipped her back again with a masculine strength that was far from reassuring. ‘When I say jump, now you say, “How high?” Haven’t you got that message yet?’

‘No…and I won’t,’ Emily told him, her gaze glimmering with angry tears. ‘You are not going to make me feel any worse about myself than I already feel!’

‘So you feel bad?’ Duarte loosed a derisive laugh that broke the surging tension with the disturbing effect of shattering glass. ‘But I bet not one tenth as bad as I felt about bringing you back into my home this evening…’