Page 11 of The Spanish Daughter (The Lost Daughters #5)

10

PRESENT DAY

Rose looked up at Benjamin, struggling over how to explain why she had the horse figurine without opening up and telling him the whole story about Hope’s House. But she could see from the way he was staring back at her that he wasn’t convinced she was supposed to have it.

‘It was actually left for my grandmother,’ she said. ‘In fact, there’s a long story about how I came to have it.’

His expression was hard to read, but she could tell he was surprised. ‘Could you tell me about it this afternoon, while we tour the property?’

She nodded. ‘I will. I promise.’

Benjamin held out his hand and she opened her palm to take it, closing her fingers around the figurine. And as she stood and watched him go, she experienced the strangest sensation that he had a much deeper connection to the property and what she was searching for than she’d realised.

Then Rose’s phone vibrated in her pocket, and she took it out, happy to see that it was Jessica, and even happier that it was a video call. She swiped to answer and held the phone out at arm’s length.

‘Hello from sunny Argentina,’ she said, doing a little circle so her friend could see the stables and grounds behind her.

Rose looked up and saw that Benjamin was standing at the end of the building, watching her, but when she glanced at him, he gave her a tight smile and turned, disappearing behind a door. She pushed him from her mind as she smiled into the screen, grinning harder when she saw that Jessica was at home with the girls.

‘Quiet day at home?’ Rose asked, waving to the girls as they jumped up and down in the background.

‘I spent a few hours in the office this morning, but I just got home and thought I’d call,’ Jessica said. ‘Tell me everything. What’s it like there? Have you discovered anything yet?’

Rose began to walk back to the house, slowly, and making sure to stop often so that Jessica could see the property.

‘It’s beautiful here,’ she said. ‘Like a raw, honest kind of beauty. It’s all huge fields and sunshine, trees and horses. I don’t think I’ve ever been surrounded by so much space in my life before. It’s like something from a film, or a retreat.’

‘It sounds like exactly what you need,’ Jessica said. ‘Hell, it sounds like exactly what I need.’

Rose watched as Jessica walked from the living room to the kitchen, pouring herself a coffee before sitting down at the kitchen table. Jessica’s home was gorgeous—a New York brownstone that had been extensively renovated, the kind of home that Rose had always imagined herself living in. But as she looked at Jessica’s home in the background now, she wondered if perhaps she’d wanted what Jessica had because she hadn’t figured out what she actually wanted herself. It had been easier to see herself having the same life as her friend’s one day, rather than trying to forge her own path.

‘I like it here more than I expected I would,’ Rose said, sitting down beneath a tree and leaning against the rough bark of the trunk as her left hand fell to the ground, fingers playing over the stems of grass below. ‘I mean, I can’t even remember the last time I touched actual grass. Part of me wants to hurry back to the familiarity of London and my flat, but the other part of me is curious about life here. About how it would feel to spend some time here and live a different kind of life for a while.’

Jessica nodded, sipping her coffee, the house sounding quiet in the background now as if the girls had either gone outside or perhaps snuck onto their iPads. ‘I was hoping you’d say that. I mean, you’ve had a year that would have defeated most people. You deserve some time to recalibrate.’

‘I haven’t given my firm an answer yet, about returning to work.’

Jessica stayed silent, and Rose blinked back at her, knowing what she was thinking.

‘You think I should quit, don’t you?’ Jessica had said as much when they’d been in London, and Rose had purposely not been thinking about the decision.

‘I think that you need to follow your heart. Do what you want to do rather than what everyone expects of you,’ Jessica said. ‘If you need this break before you go back to work, and you can afford to take that break, then I don’t think it would be the worst thing for you to do. You can always go back to practising law; a short break isn’t going to end your career. I don’t think you need to be afraid of that.’

‘But what if it does?’ Rose asked, blinking away tears. She didn’t even know why she was so emotional, but even thinking about the life she’d built and walking away from it was terrifying to her. ‘What if I take the time off and nothing is ever the same again? I already feel like it will be hard to go back, but if I take even longer…’

‘You’re scared because everything has changed,’ Jessica said. ‘You feel like your job is the last link to the way your life used to be, before the cancer, before your mum passed, but it’s not. You still have your home to go back to, and you still have me, and no one can take your memories away. You might find that you feel even closer to her there, away from everything familiar.’

Rose sighed. ‘Maybe I should just move to Argentina then, and start over.’

They both laughed, and Rose felt so much better for having spoken to her friend. She always seemed to know just what to say, just when she needed it.

‘Show me around more,’ Jessica said, leaning in closer to the screen. ‘I want the full tour, and I have to see the house. I still can’t believe it’s as beautiful as the pictures looked.’

Rose stood, realising the cat she’d seen earlier had come to stand nearby. She reached out and scratched the top of his head, noticing that he followed her as she walked away. She’d wanted a friend, and it seemed that she’d found one, albeit one who looked like he’d seen a few fights, given the tear to one of his ears and a scar that ran down his front leg. Rose gave him one last pat. We’re not so dissimilar, you and me. I feel like I’ve been through a few rounds in the ring, too .

‘Okay, so this is the house,’ Rose said, standing to show her the exterior and leaving the cat to stretch out in the sun. ‘It’s stunning, and the inside is just as gorgeous. There’s something very relaxed and peaceful about it, despite how large it is. Like you can tell it’s been loved.’

‘I can see why you like it so much.’

‘Honestly, it’s impossible not to like it, even if I can’t see myself staying here.’

‘And have you met anyone there? Do they have a groundskeeper or any staff?’

Rose glanced back out at the stables, catching sight of Benjamin leading a horse that was all saddled up for a ride. She watched him again, not quite sure what she thought of him yet. She didn’t care about the way he’d first reacted to seeing her; it had been amusing seeing him back-pedal, but there was something she couldn’t quite put her finger on yet. ‘There is someone here, I’m not sure how to describe him but he rides the polo ponies. It seems that my great-grandmother was his sponsor, which I suppose means that I am now.’ She was about to tell Jessica that there was also a housekeeper whom she hadn’t met yet, but she was interrupted before she had the chance.

‘What’s he like? Anything like the gorgeous players we found online?’

She paused. ‘He was, well, he’s fine. I’m reserving my judgement until we meet again later today.’

‘Fine?’

‘Okay, he’s absolutely gorgeous, I’m not going to lie. I mean, he’s an Argentinian sportsman, so use your imagination, but I just wasn’t sure about him when we met. I’ll let you know what I think when I see him again.’

‘All right. But I’ll hold you to that. I want to hear all about him.’

Jessica let her get away without asking more, for now, and Rose quickly began a proper tour of the house so that she didn’t have to answer any more questions about the elusive Benjamin just yet. But her thoughts kept being drawn back to him—there had been something about the look on his face that she just couldn’t stop thinking about, and she realised that if she was going to ask him more about the figurine, then she would have to show him the piece of blue silk, too. And tell him exactly how she’d found herself on an unexpected flight from London to Buenos Aires to inherit the infamous Santiago estate.

Rose hadn’t been sure whether to walk down to the stables and look for Benjamin, or wait for him to call at the house, so she was happy to see him crossing the lawn barely three hours later. She found herself watching him, noticing the way his long stride covered the ground, his golden forearms on display thanks to his rolled-up shirtsleeves, one hand lifted to shield his eyes from the sun as he approached the house.

‘Hi again,’ she said as she opened the door. ‘Would you like to come in?’

‘I have two horses saddled up and ready for us, but I could do with a cold drink if you’re offering.’

‘Follow me and I’ll see what we have,’ Rose said. ‘Someone was kind enough to stock the fridge and pantry for my arrival, so I’m sure there will be something.’

‘Clara,’ he said, taking his boots off before following her in his socks. ‘She took very good care of Valentina, but I know she’s been worried about losing her job. She usually calls in and cleans the house, brings groceries, that sort of thing.’

‘Valentina was in the house until the end?’ Rose asked, opening the fridge. ‘I can’t believe someone of her age would want to rattle around such a big place, but it does sound as if she was very well cared for.’

When she turned back around with a bottle of juice in one hand and a Coke in the other, she saw that Benjamin was studying her with a surprised expression on his face.

‘You truly don’t know anything about Valentina, do you?’ he asked.

Rose slowly shook her head from side to side. ‘Other than what the lawyer told me and the few articles I managed to find online, I know virtually nothing about her.’ She hesitated, not sure how much to tell him. ‘I feel as if I’ve been transported to another place and time, where everyone expects me to know this woman they admired, but I’m honestly just a stranger.’

He took the juice without saying anything, and Rose watched as he unscrewed the top and took a few long sips. His face was brushed with dirt from being outside all day, his hands weathered and his nails clipped short, and she couldn’t help but think how different he was to almost every other man she’d ever met in her life before. The men she worked with looked like they lived in their suits, and she couldn’t think how they’d ever end up with dirt beneath their nails. Benjamin was not the kind of man she’d ever been around before.

‘I think you need to start at the very beginning, so I understand your story,’ he finally said, before finishing the juice. ‘The figurine you showed me earlier? I don’t think anything has ever taken me by surprise like that before. I’ve been thinking about it all day.’

‘I could see that when I showed it to you. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.’

‘Honestly? I felt like I had,’ he said, settling on one of the high stools at the kitchen counter. ‘You see, the only person I know who could carve a small piece of wood into something so intricate was my great-grandfather. My father has one just like it beside his bed to this day, and I have the strangest feeling that if we put them side by side? That they’d be identical.’

Rose swallowed, unscrewing the lid on the glass bottle of Coke she was holding and taking a sip, for something to do. It also gave her an excuse to look away from Benjamin, who was staring at her in a way that made her uncomfortable it was so intense.

‘I can’t imagine how unusual it must seem, having me turn up here with no knowledge of the woman you all admired,’ she began, setting down the bottle on the counter. ‘But I need you to understand that it couldn’t be more unusual than it is for me. I still can’t quite wrap my head around it all.’

‘You’re asking if it seems strange to have an English woman turn up claiming to be the long-lost descendant of Valentina Santiago?’ Benjamin laughed. ‘You have no idea.’

Rose sighed. ‘The great-granddaughter of Valentina Santiago,’ she corrected. ‘Or at least, that’s what I’m told.’

He frowned, opening his mouth to say something before closing it. She could tell he had something on his mind but was perhaps too polite to say what he was thinking.

‘Just say it,’ she said. ‘I have a thicker skin than you’d expect, and I’d rather you spoke freely.’

‘None of us can believe that Valentina had a daughter, or great-granddaughter in your case,’ Benjamin said. ‘I mean you no disrespect, but why come now? Why not come before she died? Why wait all this time?’

Rose met his gaze, understanding why he was asking. She would have felt the same if someone had appeared out of thin air after her mother died, and it seemed like he had been very close to Valentina given how protective he was of her.

‘Because until last week, I didn’t even know she existed.’

Benjamin didn’t blink. ‘I’m sorry, you?—’

‘I received a letter from her lawyer in Buenos Aires, notifying me that a large estate had been left to me, and I only came here because my best friend convinced me to. To begin with, I didn’t even believe it.’

It was possible she’d never seen another human being look so taken aback in all her life.

Benjamin looked away and rubbed his hand across his jaw, before turning back to her. ‘So, you didn’t read that she’d passed away and come here to stake your claim once she was gone?’

Rose’s eyebrows peaked. ‘No, I most certainly did not. But I did come here to try to find out about the woman who was my biological great-grandmother, and I’m hoping you might be able to tell me more about her. I want to know who she was, where my family came from, how I’m connected to Argentina.’

‘But the figurine,’ he said. ‘How did you have that if you didn’t know about?—’

Rose held up her hand. ‘It was left to my grandmother, along with something else.’ She stood and walked across the room to the table, returning with the little wooden box and passing it to him. ‘Please, open it.’

Benjamin carefully opened the lid, his hands dwarfing the box, and she watched as he took out the little horse, before reaching for the piece of silk.

‘A few months ago, I received this little box. It was left for my grandmother by her biological mother, when she placed her for adoption. I’m told it sat hidden, undiscovered until very recently, and they were clues that made no sense to me.’ She swallowed, unsure if she’d already told him too much. ‘My grandmother never found what was left to her.’

‘Until you came here,’ he said, putting the two items back into the box and returning it to her.

‘Until I came here,’ she agreed. ‘I never expected to figure out the link between my grandmother and what was left for her, because as far as my family were aware she wasn’t even adopted, but when I received the letter from the lawyer here, it suddenly all started to fall into place. The clues that had seemed impossible to make head or tail of suddenly had meaning.’

‘Just so I understand correctly, it was Valentina’s choice not to make contact with you all these years? She was the one who made that decision?’

Rose could see that Benjamin had already softened towards her. His shoulders were more relaxed now, his smile easier than it had been before. ‘That’s right. It appears that she watched my grandmother from afar her entire life, and perhaps my mother and me, too. Which makes me think that there was a reason she never tried to make contact.’

He stroked his jawline again, his brow creased as if he were trying to work it all out. ‘Valentina was a woman with all the resources a person could need at her disposal, so she must have had a very good reason not to make contact.’

‘Or perhaps, despite everything she had, an adoption was a source of shame for her?’ Rose said. ‘Trust me, I’ve turned the question over in my mind for days now, and all I can think is that she didn’t want to come forward and turn my grandmother’s life upside down by revealing such a secret. Or that perhaps she was still trying to hide what had happened in her past? It was different for women then, and she might have still held on to how she felt as a young pregnant woman.’

Benjamin nodded. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry for ever questioning your right to be here in the first place. We were all very protective of Valentina and of this property. Did anyone tell you that it’s been held in the one family for almost a century?’

‘Trust me, I feel the weight of that history,’ Rose said.

‘It’s hard to explain what it’s like to lose someone, especially someone who meant so much.’

She smiled, refusing to let it slip in front of Benjamin even as she felt herself cracking. ‘I understand.’ More than you could possibly imagine .

‘Well, on that note, how about we go for a ride? I’d very much like to show you just how special this property is.’

Rose’s stomach did a little flip, and she was grateful for the distraction from her thoughts. ‘Let’s go now, before I change my mind about this whole riding business.’