Lynne Graham - Duarte's Child

‘Go home to your husband. You’re not staying here with us,’ her father had told her in outrage.

‘Have you gone out of your tiny mind?’ Her eldest sister, Hermione, had demanded. ‘What do you think your walking out on your marriage is likely to do to the family business? If Duarte blames us, we’ll all be ruined!’

‘You really are an absolute idiot to come here,’ her other sister, Corinne, had said with stinging scorn. ‘None of us are going to help you. Did you really expect us to react any other way?’

The answer to that frank question would have been yes but Emily had been too devastated by that mass rejection to respond. Yes, time and time again through childhood and adolescence and indeed right up to the age of twenty when she married, Emily had fondly hoped to receive some small sign that her family loved her. That blind faith had sunk without trace for the last time. She’d finally accepted that she was the cuckoo in the family nest, an outsider who was both resented and unwelcome and that nothing was ever likely to change that reality.

Why it should be that way she’d never understood. Yet she was painfully aware that had she got the chance to sit down and tell the honest truth about why her marriage had fallen apart, she would undoubtedly have been shown the door by her family even more quickly.

She’d had to face the fact that, whatever she chose to do, she was on her own. So she’d sold her engagement ring. With the proceeds, she’d bought an old car and a caravan and she had hit the road to make a living the only way she could. Travelling around the countryside from one stables to another, she offered her services for a few weeks as a riding instructor and then moved on to pastures new. The longer she stayed in one place, the greater the chance that she would be tracked down.

Of course, Duarte was looking for both her and his child. Duarte Avila de Monteiro, the terrifyingly powerful and even more terrifyingly wealthy banker she had foolishly married. His brilliance in the world of finance was a living legend.

When Duarte had asked Emily to marry him, she had been stunned for she hadn’t been beautiful, sophisticated or even rich. Furthermore, her relatives might like to give themselves airs and graces in polite company but, though her family could not bear to have it mentioned, Emily’s grandfather had been a milkman. So, understandably, Emily had been overwhelmed that Duarte Avila de Monteiro should decide to marry her humble and ordinary self. That he didn’t love her…well, so nothing was perfect, she had told herself. At the outset, she’d been full of cheerful and trusting hopes for the future. Adoring him like a silly schoolgirl, she’d simply marvelled at her own good luck.

Although she had been in awe of her husband, she had never feared him, not the way others did. People were afraid to cross his reserve and offend him. People were afraid of his unapologetic ruthlessness. She’d been stupid not to fear him, Emily conceded heavily with the knowledge of hindsight. A wretched light in her troubled eyes, she reached into her son Jamie’s cot and lifted his warm, solid little body up into her arms. Eight months ago, Duarte had threatened to take her baby from her as soon as he was born and raise him without her. Within days of being told of that appalling threat, Emily had fled Portugal in a panic.

But unhappily there was no escape from the reality that she had destroyed her own marriage. She had been the guilty partner. It was her fault that Duarte had demanded a separation, her fault that Duarte had ultimately decided that she ought to be deprived of their child as well. Indeed, in recent months, Emily had started feeling even worse over the fact that Duarte was being deprived of the right to even see his own son. Only her terror of losing custody of Jamie and her fearful awareness that she had neither Duarte’s money nor influence had triumphed over her guilty conscience.

Now, however, Emily was finally facing the immaturity of her own behaviour. It was time that she went to see a lawyer and found out exactly where she stood. It was time she stopped running…

Yet how did she deal with Duarte? And how would Duarte now deal with her? In spite of herself, she shivered as discouraging memories engulfed her. During their separation, Duarte had exiled her to the country house in the Douro for the winter. She had lived there alone for three months, hoping against hope that he would eventually agree to see her and talk to her again and that the great divide between them might somehow be miraculously mended. But that had been such a naive dream.

For Duarte, Emily thought painfully, would be happy to acquire a son and dispense with the baby machine who had produced that son. For really that was all she had ever been to her gorgeous husband…a baby machine. For what other reason had he married her? Certainly not for love, lust or loneliness. Childlessness was a disaster to the average Portuguese male and Duarte had an illustrious name. The Monteiro family could trace their aristocratic lineage back to the thirteenth century and, naturally, Duarte had wanted a child to carry on into the next generation.

Accustomed to early rising, Emily was up before dawn the following morning.

She’d packed the night before. After feeding Jamie and making herself some toast and tea, she collapsed his cot and stowed it safely away. Living in a small caravan had taught her to be tidy. As she slid into a pair of old navy jodhpurs and pulled on a voluminous grey sweater to combat the early morning chill, she watched her son. Sitting on the carpet in the compact seating area, Jamie was chewing industriously on the corner of a horse magazine.

Emily darted over and detached the magazine from his mouth. ‘No, Jamie…here’s your ring.’

Presented with the teething ring which had been chilled specially for his use, Jamie dropped it again and his bottom lip came out, brown eyes filming over with tears as he tried without success to reach for the magazine again. Sweeping her son up into her arms, Emily cuddled him and wondered why he loathed the teething ring which would have been so much kinder to his sore gums.

As always the warm baby smell of Jamie sent a great wave of love through her and she hugged him tight. He had Duarte’s black hair and golden skin and the same shape eyes as her. Right now, because he had another new tooth on the way, he had pink flushed cheeks and he looked absolutely adorable in his red sweatshirt top and tiny jeans.

Checking that she had secured everything moveable, Emily decided to put Jamie out in his car seat. She had said her goodbyes the night before and all she still had to do was hitch up the caravan to the car.

It was a fresh spring day and the breeze blew back the Titian red curls from her brow. With Jamie balanced on her hip, she unlocked the passenger door of the car. Strapping her son into his seat and stowing the baby bag of supplies that went everywhere with them, she chatted with greater cheer than she felt to him. ‘I timed this so that we would see the six o’clock train passing at the crossing. Choo-choo, Jamie—’

‘Choo…’ he seemed to sound out but she was prepared to concede that it might have been the wishful thinking of a proud mother.

Another day, another place, Emily reflected wearily and it was no longer the smallest thrill to contemplate the unknown that lay ahead. She had stayed longer than was wise at Alice Barker’s stables, not only because she liked the older woman but also because she had been in dire need of a period of regular employment and earnings. Running even an old car was expensive; she had recently had to renew her insurance and replace the whole exhaust system. So, once again, she had little cash in reserve.