Duarte's Child

Poised by one of the tall nineteenth-century windows, black hair gleaming in the sunlight, his elegant light-grey pinstripe suit cut to fit his broad shoulders and long powerful thighs, Duarte looked absolutely spectacular. Studying those lean, darkly handsome features of his and hurriedly evading those all-seeing, all-knowing, stunning golden eyes, she ran out of breath. Suddenly, all she could think about was the passion of the night hours and all she could feel was the intimate ache that still lingered at the core of her own body as a result.

‘Thank you for coming,’ Duarte said with grave quietness.

‘I’d never have the nerve to stand you up,’ Emily confided, her fingers biting so hard into the clutch purse she was holding that her hands were hurting. ‘Where are we going for lunch?’

‘I thought we could eat here.’

Instantly, she felt trapped. True, a public place was hardly suitable for the delivery of any revelation likely to upset. But couldn’t he just have waited until he came home for dinner? Instead, she’d been summoned like a schoolgirl to hear her fate and that felt distinctly humiliating.

‘Do I have to eat?’ she enquired brittlely. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘As you wish. Would you like a drink?’

‘A brandy…’ She glanced at him while he dealt with her request, seeing the tension etched in the hard cast of his bronzed profile. The atmosphere was so strained, she felt an unwary word might snap it in two.

Sitting down on the edge of an opulent antique sofa, she sipped nervously at the brandy.

‘This morning, Victorine admitted that she’d deliberately mislead me about what you said to her—’

‘I know. She also spoke to me and apologised,’ Emily responded.

Duarte paced forward from the window and moved his hands in a very expressive gesture of regret. ‘I misjudged you and I owe you a very big apology for I have never known you to be cruel.’

Emily shrugged jerkily, unable to reap the smallest satisfaction from that acknowledgement. ‘It was just another metaphoric stick to beat me with, wasn’t it?’

Dulled colour rose to accentuate the strong slant of his high cheekbones. ‘You may be right. However, when my former mother-in-law then went on to confess that she’d resented you from the very hour that I married you, I was very much shocked.’

Surprised though Emily was that Victorine had gone that far in her need to ease her conscience, Emily simply sighed. She was more concerned about what he might have to say next.

‘I was foolish to believe that Victorine would easily accept another woman as my wife,’ Duarte stated with a harshened edge to his dark, deep drawl. ‘Had I not had a board meeting early this morning, I would’ve come to speak to you immediately.’

‘Well, business first and last,’ Emily breathed helplessly. ‘There’s nothing new in that.’

‘No…but I think today business came first because it was easier to handle,’ Duarte conceded, startling her with that frank admission. ‘Naturally I feel guilty. Our home should have been the one place where you could feel relaxed and content but Victorine’s spite must’ve made you very unhappy.’

Emily felt like a stone. Old resentments and bitterness had hardened her usually soft heart. ‘I always blamed you more than I blamed her…’

Duarte’s golden eyes zeroed in on her and narrowed. The taut set of his jawline revealed his surprise at that condemnation. ‘But you never once complained about Victorine—’

‘And why would I have?’ Emily got up in a sudden movement, powered by angry defensiveness at that suggestion that she ought to have spoken up sooner. ‘Why would I have thought that complaining would have got me anywhere with you? After all, you are not the world’s most sensitive person either, are you?’

A sardonic black brow quirked. ‘Meaning?’

‘Those portraits of Izabel in the salon, the dining room and the main hall…’ Emily illuminated tightly. ‘I could’ve understood that if you’d had children with her but you didn’t. How was I supposed to feel that the Quinta de Monteiro was my home?’

Duarte was studying her with frowning intensity but a faint perceptible pallor was spreading round his taut mouth. ‘I never thought…I was so used to them being there—’

‘Well, you know…your first wife may have been a great beauty and the paintings may be wonderful art, but you should’ve had them moved to less prominent places. I felt intimidated by them. And although I’m not terribly interested or indeed gifted in any way at fancy interior design and stuff like that,’ Emily admitted flatly, ‘I would’ve appreciated the freedom to redecorate just one room and feel that it, at least, was mine.’