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Strolling over, Duarte extended a large jewel case. ‘Sapphires to go with the dress.’
She froze as if a spectral hand had danced down her spine. As he flipped open the case to display a gorgeous necklace and drop earrings, Emily exuded discomfiture rather than pleasure. ‘Did Izabel…ever wear them?’ she whispered haltingly.
‘No…I have never asked you to wear anything worn by Izabel!’ Duarte grated in a seriously rattled response.
‘But I thought…you know? All that jewellery you shoved at me just after we got married…I thought it had belonged to her.’
Duarte looked heavenward as if praying for self-control. ‘Izabel only ever wore diamonds and Victorine has them now. I gave you the family jewellery, not one piece of which Izabel liked.’
‘Well, I wish you’d told me that a long time ago…’ Emily admitted tremulously, now willing to stretch out a shy fingertip to touch the gleaming beauty of a single sapphire. For her, just for her. She could hardly believe it. She swallowed the great fat lump forming in her throat and blinked back tears.
‘I may have my flaws but I am not that insensitive.’
They were talking about Izabel quite naturally, Emily registered in surprise. He was finally talking about Izabel instead of going horribly silent and bleak and avoiding the subject.
‘I’m really touched that you should go to all this effort just for me,’ Emily said chokily but she hoped, where the dress and the bra were concerned, he wasn’t planning to make a habit of spontaneous shopping trips on her behalf.
‘It’s an effort that I should have made a lot sooner than this,’ Duarte breathed almost harshly.
‘Better late than never…’ Emily mumbled, pretty much stunned by that admission of fault. She felt even guiltier that she had never worn any of the jewellery he had given her after their marriage because she’d honestly believed it had all been Izabel’s. She must have seemed so ungrateful, she thought now.
She took a deep breath. ‘I think I ought to admit that I’ve always been terribly jealous of Izabel.’
‘Jealous?’ Duarte awarded her a startled look.
Emily winced. ‘She got the wedding dress and the honeymoon. She was so beautiful and really gifted at decorating—’
‘She hired top designers—’
‘And being a hostess—’
‘She hired the best caterers—’
Emily frowned, for he was denting the mystic myth of Izabel and she could not understand why he should be so disloyal to her predecessor’s memory. ‘Obviously, she was special. You fell in love with her when you were only a teenager—’
Duarte vented a grim laugh that silenced her. ‘Please don’t tell me that you listened to Victorine’s story about Izabel and I having been childhood sweethearts!’
‘Well, yes…but—’
Seeing her confusion, Duarte groaned out loud, his lean strong face bleak. ‘You really don’t know the truth even now, do you? But then, who would go out of their way to tell you the sordid details? I didn’t want to relive them and Victorine always preferred to inhabit a dream world where her daughter was concerned.’
‘Sordid details?’ Emily queried in bewilderment. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Izabel was a drug addict and not one who had any desire to be cured.’
Feeling the bed hit the back of her knees, Emily dropped down on it in a state of shock. ‘You’re not serious…’
Recognising her disbelief, Duarte expelled his breath on a hiss. And then he told her about Izabel. Yes, he had first met her when he was sixteen but Izabel had been five years older and quite out of his reach. Indeed he had not met her again until he was in his twenties. An heiress in her own right, Izabel’s father had died when she was a child and she’d been raised by her adoring mother and allowed unlimited freedom from an early age.
‘Unfortunately, I didn’t move in Izabel’s world, nor did I know her circle of friends. While they were partying, I was studying and then working eighteen-hour days in the bank. When I met her again six years later, I was mad for her,’ Duarte admitted bluntly. ‘I couldn’t believe that she was still single. I couldn’t wait to marry her; I just couldn’t believe how lucky I was…’
Emily studied the rug at her feet. She really didn’t want the intimate details, but they washed off her again because her mind was still fighting to handle the concept of the glamorous Izabel as an addict.
‘I caught her with cocaine on the second day of our honeymoon. She just laughed, called me a killjoy and said I had better get used to it because that was how she lived. I was shattered,’ Duarte confessed with grim exactitude. ‘Before the wedding, I had seen her in a very excitable state but I didn’t recognise her behaviour as abnormal or suspect the truth. She did have a very lively personality…and she was a tremendous show-off.’
