by Lynne Graham
"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.'
Emily had backed away several steps. Rigid with stress, she could not stop trembling. 'What third party? How could there be a third party who witnessed something that never happened?' she exclaimed in appalled protest. 'Was it your mother-in-law? I don't think Victorine would lose much sleep over lying about me.'
'You wrong her.' Duarte's contempt at that suggestion was unconcealed. 'She may not like you but she was not involved. Nor is your sordid affair common knowledge. Fortunately, that third party I mentioned is not a gossip.'
Emily lifted unsteady hands to her drawn face. It was a warm evening but her skin felt like ice and she dimly registered that she was suffering from the effects of shock. She was devastated to learn that, during their separation eight months earlier, Duarte had been fair enough to think over afresh whether or not she might have been telling the truth about Toby. Then, sadly, he had had his mind made up for him by some hateful person, who had either lied or seriously misinterpreted something they had seen. But who?
But just as suddenly the identity of that mysterious third party no longer seemed of immediate importance to Emily. She had let Toby kiss her and it was little wonder that, having seen that display, Duarte should have no faith whatsoever in her pleas of innocence. 'Obviously you're going to think what you want to think...'
Duarte strode forward and reached for her arms to hold her still when she would have spun away. 'Men Deus! What I want to think? Do you honestly believe that any man wants to think of his wife in another man's bed?' he raked down at her with charged incredulity, his lean, powerful hands biting into her elbows before he thrust her back from him.
Rage and aggression. That's what she was seeing. Two traits that Emily had once believed that her immensely wealthy, cool and sophisticated husband did not possess. Was he not one of the legendary baroes, a baron of Portuguese industry? Not just a banker alone. Duarte had interests in biotechnology, textiles, timber and cork, not to mention ownership of a world famous vineyard that produced wine to die for. One of the old money elite, it was true, but also innovative, tenacious and ruthless as all hell let out. Not a male with a problem in the realm of self-control.
Duarte thrust splayed brown fingers through his luxuriant black hair and breathed in slow and deep. His stunning eyes were veiled by spiky black lashes almost long enough to hit his superb cheekbones which were now scored with faint colour. 'If I frightened you, I'm sorry. It is difficult for me even to look at you in this room.'
Her face flamed and she studied the exquisite handmade pastel rug that adorned the polished floor. The night of that dreadfully boring dinner party she had walked out through the French windows on to the terrace with Toby to enjoy the breeze. How could she have forgotten that location? It did not suggest that she was the world's most sensitive person. He remembered—of course he did. But then she had greater cause to want to forget. Her strained eyes burned with tears and she mumbled, 'What can I say?'
'Nothing. The more you say the angrier I become. It is like a chain reaction.'
She couldn't look at him but there was no escape from her own despairing regret. One brief moment in time, one failure to react as her husband had naturally expected her to react with instantaneous rejection, a fatal hesitation that had cost her everything she had, everything she valued. And what a terrible truth it was that people never really appreciated what they had until it was taken away without any hope of return, Emily acknowledged painfully.
'I must speak to Victorine. She deserves greater consideration than I granted her on our arrival,' Duarte drawled with a grim lack of intonation. 'I lashed out at her then because I could not defend you against the charge of being what she calls a trollop.'
'You called me a whore...' Emily squeezed out the word from between compressed lips and swallowed hard.
'If I apologised, I'm afraid it would not be with sincerity,' Duarte admitted and the door thudded shut on his departure.
Emily snatched in an uneven breath. Sharing the same house with Duarte promised to be a nightmare, no matter how big the quinta was and no matter how infrequent their meetings. He despised her. He was never ever likely to believe that she had not been intimate with Toby. Indeed, Duarte could hardly stand to be in the same room with her. Yet he had kissed her on the flight—well, not at all the way he used to kiss her, she conceded wretchedly. There had been a dark, almost derisive lack of tenderness in that brief encounter and a cold calculated passion she'd never felt in him before. He'd sought out her weakness and exploited it without pity. Duarte had a streak of cruelty she'd never dreamt he possessed.
The housekeeper came to invite Emily to inspect Jamie's nursery. She went upstairs to find a whole bunch of admiring female staff gathered round a beautifully carved wooden cot in the centre of an airy room. Wearing an unfamiliar white sleepsuit, Jamie lay in his crisp blue and yellow bedding and continued to sleep like a log. Emily remained in the doorway, taking in surroundings in which she herself had had no input. Colourful ducks marched round the wallpaper border and bright curtains hung at the windows. The surface of every piece of nursery furniture was packed with waiting toys, many still in their packaging.
Her throat thickened as she appreciated that the room had been prepared long before Duarte had even found his son. Had he bought those toys himself? Gone into a shop, selected them in an act of positive thinking, determined to believe that he would eventually find them and get to bring his child home? Guilt ate her alive and she turned away shame-faced from the sight.
'It's a lovely nursery,' she said in careful Portuguese and she managed an appreciative smile.
The housekeeper led her further down the corridor and spread open the door of a large and beautifully furnished bedroom. Recognising the clothing being carefully put away by a maid as her own, Emily realised that she was now being shown her new quarters. On the other side of the quinta from the vast interconnecting bedroom suite she had once shared with Duarte. Just about as far as he could exile her and still keep her within the same walls—but at least she would be close to Jamie, she reminded herself, striving to keep up spirits sagging low enough now to hit the level of the wine cellars.
No sooner had the maid departed than a knock sounded on the door. Hurriedly composing herself, Emily opened the door to find herself facing a uniformed nanny, eager to proclaim her many childcare qualifications, her ability to speak English as fluently as she spoke Portuguese and her family's history of devoted service to the Monteiro family. Emily smiled and nodded repeatedly for not much else seemed to be required from her but she was taken aback and dismayed that Duarte should already have engaged a nanny for their son.
Jamie already had the entire household staff hanging over him like he was the seventh wonder of the world. But then, Duarte himself had been the last infant in the quinta nurseries and the Portuguese adored children�
��her son's arrival was a major event. But Emily felt that the immediate hire of a nanny when she herself had now nothing to do other than look after their son was a clear demonstration that Duarte did not consider her responsible enough for the task. Using the internal phone by the bed, she requested her evening meal in her room. She might as well get used to staying out of Duarte's way. He didn't want to see her, speak to her, have anything to do with her—and, in the mood she was in, she did not feel she could even blame him.
It was not as if she had ever had any actual proof that Duarte had slept with other women when he was away on business. But he had not come to her bed again after her pregnancy had been confirmed. After a while, pride had demanded that she lock that connecting door between their bedrooms and let him think that she wasn't one bit bothered by his lack of interest
He was the man who had once murmured to her in the dark of the night and in the oddest tone of self-discovery, 'I have to confess that sex is very important to me.'
The man who had stood straight and tall and said, the day after his marriage proposal had been joyously accepted, 'I'm not in love with you and it is only fair that I should be frank on that score.'
Even after almost two years, the pain of hearing that admission spoken out loud still hurt her. She hadn't wanted him to pretend but she hadn't wanted him to speak those words either. Knowing in her heart of hearts had been one thing, a stark confession almost too much for her to bear. She had adored him and still adored him but she'd been so miserable in their marriage that now she could no longer see any point in their continuing such a charade. Just for Jamie's sake? Jamie, the precious child whose father had broken her heart.
When her evening meal arrived on a tray, she ate with no great appetite. Then she freshened up in the en suite bathroom and unravelled her hair from its constraining plait to brush out the tangles. She searched her reflection in the mirror. Emily Monteiro, unwanted, unloved wife. Major failure in the wife stakes, she added fairly. And on his terms he had given so much. The wedding ring, the name, the wealth, the security. So what if he had never ever returned her phone calls? So what if he had muttered Izabel's name on several occasions while he slept by her side? So what if he had got bored with her skinny, flat-chested body and engaged in a little discreet infidelity with more exciting and beautiful women?
Well, actually, she registered in the midst of her growing turmoil, Duarte Avila de Monteiro might still be the love of her life but she had pretty much hated him as much as she loved him once it became clear that her pregnancy concluded his interest in her. Once he had impregnated her, that had been that. Duty done, mission accomplished. She closed her aching eyes. The low-maintenance wife project had gone belly-up when he least expected it.
Sick and tired of her own emotionalism, Emily headed for the nursery. Jamie was sure to be close to waking and hungry by now. The door stood ajar and, hearing Duarte laugh, Emily hesitated in surprise. Then she heard the nanny issuing serious advice on how best to hold a baby and just had to sneak a look. She saw Duarte sprawled in a chair, long powerful legs extended as he held Jamie cradled in his arms and struggled to coordinate a feeding bottle held at an awkward angle.
'I need another hand,' he groaned in Portuguese.
Yet his lean, boldly masculine profile was relaxed. There was even the hint of a rueful smile at the corner of his expressive mouth as he dealt with the unusual experience of not being an immediate brilliant success at something. Evidently, he did not mind the young nanny as an audience to his efforts to get acquainted with his baby son. But he would not have turned to Emily for similar advice and support. Cut to the bone by that humiliating awareness, Emily crept back to her room, feeling like the most hated woman in the world. Even Jamie wasn't crying for her, she reflected painfully.
An hour later when she dared to emerge from her room again, Jamie was sound asleep in his cot. Emily was dying to lift her son and hold him close but there was a baby listener beside the night light. If Jamie cried, the staff would come running and she would look like an irresponsible mother. That warning image sent her into retreat.
She was leaving the nursery when Victorine intercepted her.
'You have Duarte's son. You must be feeling very pleased with yourself,' the older woman condemned bitterly.
'Please don't feel you have to leave. This is your home,' Emily pointed out, ignoring that opening sally.
The older woman pursed her lips. 'It hasn't been my home since you first came into it. When Duarte put someone like you in my daughter's place, he...'
At the sound of that all-too-familiar refrain, Emily suppressed a groan. Once the centre of her mother's world, the late Izabel had been a renowned beauty as famed for her style as her effervescent charm. Unable to come to terms with Izabel's premature death, Victorine had deeply resented Duarte's remarriage.
As the older woman paused for breath in what had grown into a rant freely interspersed with spiteful comparisons, Emily simply sighed, 'Your daughter is no longer here but you're still part of Duarte's family and he's fond of you.'
Frustrated by Emily's lack of reaction to her gibes, Victorine dealt her a look of boiling resentment and hurried back the way she had come. Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me, Emily rhymed to herself. But, feeling in dire need of some fresh air, she went out to the charming courtyard at the back of the quinta. There she sat on a stone bench in rueful appreciation of the superb box-hedged herbal gardens designed by her talented predecessor. The light was fading fast and using the same service staircase she had employed earlier, she returned to her room to have a shower before bed.
She'd already shed her top and skirt when someone turned the handle on her bedroom door and partially opened it Freezing in dismay, she heard Duarte's deep drawl as he addressed one of the staff in the corridor and she dived into the bathroom in a panic to snatch up a towel.
'Emily?' Duarte breathed, a raw edge to his dark, rich voice that sent a current of foreboding through her.
She emerged with pronounced reluctance from the bathroom. 'Yes?'
Shimmering golden eyes raked over her shrinking figure and the death grip she had on a towel that was just a little too small for its purpose. She had one unpremeditated clash with his smouldering gaze and she hastily looked away again, her heart jumping as if she had jammed a finger in a live electric socket. The anger she had seen in him earlier was no longer contained. It leapt out at her like a physical entity and radiated around him like a dangerous aura. From the fierce set of his lean dark devastating face, the rigidity of his broad muscular shoulders and the clenching of his long brown fingers into fists, she read a level of unholy rage she'd truly never ever expected to see in a male as self-disciplined as he was. '
'How could you?' he demanded wrathfully.
'How could I...wh-what?' she stammered, tummy churning at the terrible tension in the atmosphere.
"'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.