Page 21 of The Spanish Daughter (The Lost Daughters #5)
20
ARGENTINA, 1939
Valentina felt as if she were living in a nightmare; a nightmare that she woke up to in the morning and lived through until she went to bed each night. Most days she could barely keep the tears from falling from her lashes, which only irritated her new husband all the more. She would always collapse back into bed when he left for the day, only to find out that his maid was telling him about her behaviour in his absence.
It was also the reason for her very first bruise, inflicted by a man she should have been able to trust, that left a blue-green welt so dark that no amount of powder or cream would conceal it.
‘Look at me!’ he’d roared to Valentina at the dinner table, as she’d whimpered at the other end, her eyes downcast and her napkin furrowed between her fingers.
Valentina had lifted her gaze, bravely meeting his angry stare.
‘You look at me like you’re scared of me, you spend all day miserable in bed, and you haven’t even the decency to greet me properly when I arrive home from work. What is wrong with you?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Valentina had murmured. ‘This marriage, being here with you, it’s all a shock. I wasn’t prepared for any of it.’
‘Come here.’
Valentina froze. She did not want to go to him. She knew what happened when she went to him, what he expected from her, what he took from her. Her body began to tremble.
‘I told you to come here!’ he repeated, but louder now, angry as he stood and marched around the table to her, grabbing her long hair in one fist as he raised the other in an open palm, slapping her so hard across the cheek that she would have fallen had he not been gripping her hair so tightly.
‘Your mother warned me that you were a princess, but I want to make this very clear,’ he said, his face inches from her own. ‘You are my wife now. You are no longer the daughter of Basilio Santiago, you’re my wife.’
I’m only seventeen. This isn’t the life I was supposed to have. I cannot belong to you!
But instead of speaking her mind, Valentina merely nodded, accepting of her fate. The time for defiance had been before she was betrothed to him—now she was resigned to the fact that she had no say in her own life. It would have broken her father to know what had happened to her and the fortune he’d worked so hard to create; her father, who’d treated her with so much love and kindness.
‘Now,’ her husband said calmly as he hooked his finger beneath her chin and turned her face slowly, inspecting her cheek, ‘shall we get back to dinner? It would be a shame to let our food go cold because of your bad behaviour.’
Valentina nodded, swallowing and forcing a small smile even though it made her cheek hurt all the more. But she wouldn’t touch it, wouldn’t lift her fingers and acknowledge the pain in front of him. She could at least control how he saw her react; she could cry about it later, when she was alone.
‘How was your day?’ she asked, mimicking the question her mother had always asked her father when he’d arrived home. ‘Would you like me to prepare a drink when you arrive home each evening?’
His smile made her feel sick to the stomach. ‘See? You already have the hang of it.’ He took a mouthful of his food and she forced herself to pick up her fork and taste a little, even though the last thing she wanted was to eat. ‘Fernet and cola, and make sure to give it a good stir.’
Valentina nodded, squeezing her eyes tightly shut for a moment when her husband turned his attention back to his food and trying desperately hard not to cry. She found herself imagining what it would have been like to sit across the table from Felipe when he returned from work each day. They wouldn’t have had a meal prepared by a cook or formal silverware, but his smile would have melted her. His eyes meeting hers would have made her want to run into his arms. She could have dealt with being penniless, so long as she had Felipe.
When she opened her eyes, something shifted inside of Valentina. The past two months, she’d been resigned to what had happened to her, told that she had no say in the matter due to her young age, bullied by her mother and now her husband. But there had to be a way to leave, to find her way back to Felipe, who’d promised to wait for her forever if he had to. There had to be a way to escape this horror of a marriage, but she couldn’t conceive of a way to return to Felipe without ruining his family in the process.
A few weeks later, Valentina gripped the porcelain edge of the toilet seat as she vomited up the last of whatever had been left in her stomach from the previous night. Her knees ached on the cold tiles below, but every time she tried to rise, her stomach would lurch again and she’d find herself bent over the toilet.
It wasn’t until she’d finally risen, splashing cold water on her face before staring at her reflection in the mirror, that she realised why she was so unwell. Valentina gasped, lifting her cotton nightdress off her body and standing in her undergarments. She stared at her stomach in the mirror, running her palm across it, and then looking at her breasts and touching them gently to see if they were sensitive. She’d always been slender, and her stomach was still small, but her breasts were bigger. And she knew. There was no denying what was wrong with her, and it certainly wasn’t the bife de chorizo they’d had last night that had caused her nausea.
I’m pregnant.
Tears began to slide down Valentina’s cheeks then as she reached for her nightgown, not bothering to slip it back on and instead walking half-naked back into her bedroom. The house was empty save for a maid or two; her husband had already left early for work, and she was too shocked to care about her state of undress.
The baby is his. I’m having a child with a man who isn’t Felipe.
The thought continued to circle her mind as she got back into bed, pulling the covers high up to her chin, her fingers gripping tightly to the sheet as she stifled a cry. If she was pregnant, that meant she couldn’t ever return to Felipe. What man would want a baby that wasn’t his? And how would she ever leave now, anyway? Her husband was unkind and unsympathetic at the best of times—there was no way he’d ever agree to her leaving if he knew she was carrying his child. Valentina was under no illusion that he cared for her—he’d agreed to marry her quickly in exchange for money, and the longer they were together, the more money he would receive. If they had a child together?
I’ll be stuck with him for the rest of my life.
Valentina closed her eyes and tried to picture her father, desperately wishing she had him to turn to. But if she’d had him, then she would never have been in this predicament in the first place.
Treat the people who work for you with kindness and generosity, and they’ll be there for you when you truly need them, mi chica .
Valentina sat bolt upright. With her father’s words ringing in her mind, she knew what she had to do.
She jumped out of bed, dashing to her closet to find something suitable to wear. She couldn’t have her husband find out where she’d been, so she would have to get their driver to take her somewhere else and then discreetly go the rest of the way on foot.
When she was finally dressed, with her hair carefully pinned back from her face, she went downstairs and had the maid call her a driver, under the illusion that she wanted to go into town to shop for her husband. It would mean she’d have to dash to get him a gift or two while she was there, but at least it wouldn’t raise any suspicions among his staff.
You can do this, Valentina.
And do this she would. It was one thing for her to be trapped in a loveless marriage, but it would be something else entirely to bring a child into it.
By midmorning, Valentina was sitting in the reception area at the offices of her father’s lawyer, trying to look as if she belonged there but at the same time finding it almost impossible not to keep watching the door. She was terrified that somehow her husband might find out and come looking for her, that he would march through the door and drag her back home by the hair.
‘Valentina?’
The man she was hoping to meet stepped into the waiting area, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes as if he couldn’t believe who was sitting there.
‘I’m sorry to call unannounced, but?—’
‘No need to apologise, come this way,’ he said, indicating that she should follow him. ‘Maria, please move my next appointment and cancel my lunch meeting.’
‘I don’t want to cause?—’
‘Valentina, it’s my pleasure to see you. Your father was one of my best clients for more than a decade, so let me assure you that seeing you today is not an inconvenience.’
He held open the door to his office for her and Valentina sat down, folding her hands in her lap.
‘It is my understanding that my mother no longer uses you for my family’s business affairs,’ she said. ‘After what happened with my father’s will.’
The lawyer sat down across from her, his elbows braced on the solid wood desk. ‘Unfortunately that is correct.’
‘Lorenzo—if I may call you by your first name as my father did?’
‘Of course you may.’
‘Lorenzo, my father trusted you implicitly, and that’s why I called on you today,’ Valentina said. ‘My father was an astute businessman, but he was also a very compassionate man who believed deeply in looking after those he loved. From the reading of his last will and testament, you will be aware that he not only intended for his estate to be left to me, but he also left generous sums and even gifts to many of those in his employ.’
He nodded, taking off his glasses and rubbing at his temple. ‘Valentina, everything you say is true. In fact, I was there to draft his wishes and turn it into the document that became his will, so I know how passionately he felt about these things.’
‘And yet despite that, I am seated before you, forced into a marriage I did not consent to, with no control over my father’s estate or businesses, and in the knowledge that none of his wishes have been followed.’
‘You’re here to ask for my help?’ Lorenzo asked.
She took a deep breath. ‘I’m here to ask if you’ll represent me. I would very much like for you to be my lawyer.’
If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. ‘I’m honoured that you’d even think to ask me.’
‘Before you accept, though, I must tell you that I have no money from which to pay you right now, so I cannot offer you the kind of retainer that my father did, but what I will do is promise to pay you handsomely as soon as I secure my rightful inheritance.’
The lawyer sat back as a smile spread across his face.
‘I have no doubt that you’re as honourable as your father, Valentina, so the matter of payment isn’t a problem. Basilio was a very special man.’
‘But?’
‘But I want to understand what you’re asking of me,’ he said. ‘Challenging your mother in this way will divide your family and ruin any chance you might have at a reconciliation.’
‘Let me make one thing clear,’ Valentina said, a steely reserve settling over her that she’d never experienced before. ‘As far as I’m concerned, I no longer have any family. My mother betrayed my father, and I will never forgive her for what she did to me, so maintaining a relationship with them isn’t my concern.’
He nodded and reached for his pen, which he held poised above the notepad on his desk.
‘Tell me what you would like me to do, Valentina, and I’ll find a way to help you.’
‘I want to honour my father’s wishes, by ensuring that everything he detailed in his will is actioned. I want every word of his intentions followed.’
‘I presume that includes inheriting what is rightfully yours?’
‘Yes. I know that we might have to wait until I turn eighteen, but I want to remove my mother from the estate, and my stepbrother too, and divorce my husband. I don’t care what you have to pay him, but I know that there is a price at which he would consent. Your job is to discover what that price is.’
‘The divorce might be the hardest part, but I understand that you wouldn’t want to remove your mother, only to have your husband step in to claim what was left to you.’
Valentina closed her eyes for a moment. ‘There is one other thing that I need to tell you.’
When she opened them, he was staring back at her.
‘I’m pregnant.’
He dropped his pen. ‘Valentina?—’
‘Don’t tell me that this changes things, because it doesn’t. You are the only other person who knows that I’m expecting, and we’re going to keep it that way,’ she said. ‘I need your help to leave Argentina until after the baby is born.’
‘You want to leave Argentina?’
‘Yes. And when I come back, it will be to claim what is mine.’
When Valentina returned to the lawyer’s office five days later, she felt like a different woman. The bruise around her eye from her husband’s last show of dominance was finally fading, and she was quietly confident that her plan was going to work. So long as the lawyer had done his part, she had every confidence that she would be leaving Argentina before the end of the month. And most important, before anyone else discovered that she was expecting. Her biggest worry was that one of the maids would hear her being sick in the mornings.
‘Please go straight into his office,’ Lorenzo’s secretary said when she stepped through the door.
Valentina nodded to her, pleased that she didn’t have to wait.
‘Good morning,’ she said, standing at the door a moment until the lawyer looked up.
When a smile lit the man’s face, she breathed a sigh of relief.
‘You have good news for me, don’t you?’
‘You can read me like a book,’ he said, setting aside whatever papers he was working on to face her. ‘It just so happens that I do.’
His secretary appeared then with a coffee pot but Valentina shook her head, not able to stomach it, sitting in silence until she’d gone and closed the door behind her. She didn’t trust anyone other than Lorenzo.
‘I have a proposition for you,’ he said, as she folded her hands in her lap.
Valentina found herself leaning forward in her seat. ‘Please, tell me.’
‘I propose that we send you to London for the time being, well away from your mother and husband, until you turn eighteen.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And after you have had the baby, because that would certainly complicate matters if anyone were to find out.’
She nodded. It was only a couple of months until she was of age, but she understood that the baby complicated matters. ‘Go on.’
‘Once you’re eighteen and the infant has been born, we will mount a claim to contest the will, and at the same time we will apply for an annulment of your marriage, rather than a divorce. Of course, we will have to offer your husband a significant sum of money to walk away from your marriage, but everyone has a price, and if we are successful in challenging your mother in court, then you will be a young woman with enormous funds at your disposal.’
Valentina sat back in the chair. ‘And how, exactly, do you suggest I hide my baby when I return?’
At that, the lawyer’s cheeks turned a deep shade of pink, but she was impressed that he didn’t break eye contact, however embarrassed the subject might make him.
‘After some discreet research, I have found two options in London,’ Lorenzo said. ‘There is a woman running a place called Hope’s House, only very recently opened and hardly known about yet, and you would be able to deliver your baby there and place the infant for adoption to an approved family. It seems to be a more progressive place, one that understands how these things happen without bringing judgement on the mother.’
Valentina’s mouth went dry. ‘Adoption?’ She hadn’t imagined the idea of actually giving her baby up. In truth, she hadn’t thought what it would be like to have a child at all, or the logistics of hiding another human being as she fought her mother.
‘I can’t see any other way, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Although, of course, you would potentially be able to return for the child and come to an agreement with the adoptive parents after your annulment and inheritance. It would be difficult, but not impossible with the right guidance and of course funds.’
‘So, I would have the baby, and then return immediately to Argentina?’ Valentina asked. ‘That would be seven months from now, give or take a few weeks. I’m afraid of what my mother could do during that time, the interests of my father’s that she might dispose of. He was adamant that I not sell off any of the property and that I continue to run the olive oil business.’
Lorenzo stroked his chin and sat back, deep in concentration. ‘Your father always believed that you would be more than capable of taking over his affairs, and although I wasn’t convinced at the time, I can see that he was quite right.’
Valentina sat quietly, waiting for him to continue, flattered by his praise.
‘There is little we can do to control what your mother does over the next seven months, but what we can do is agree to a plan. I have every confidence that you will win in a court of law, and I can assure you that I’ll do my best to ensure success on your behalf.’
‘You do understand that I can’t pay you until?—’
‘Valentina, please don’t concern yourself with my payment. You’re your father’s daughter, and I know that you will pay my account once you’re reinstated as his rightful successor. Until that day, you’re not to even think about it.’
She nodded. ‘Thank you. In return, I can assure you that I will not look anywhere beyond your firm for advice and assistance on all legal matters, now or in the future.’
Lorenzo smiled. ‘So, we are in agreement? You will leave for London just as soon as I can secure you passage on the next ship leaving from Buenos Aires. On the day of travel, you will make your way here, to my office, and I will have a car waiting to take you to the port.’
‘Perhaps I could arrange to have some things sent here, a bag of essentials that I will need for the trip?’
‘And I’m afraid I have to mention money, because you will need to sustain yourself for the seven months away from Argentina,’ he said. ‘I would offer to help you, but?—’
‘I have jewellery to sell,’ Valentina said, opening her handbag and taking out a ruby necklace that her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday, along with a diamond tennis bracelet that he’d bought for her shortly before his death. She also had a handful of other rings and pieces of jewellery that held less sentimental value that she would part with, too.
Tears pricked her eyes as she placed them on the desk between them. ‘Is it too much to ask you to sell these for me? I don’t want to raise suspicion.’
‘Of course,’ he said, softly. ‘And perhaps you could sell your engagement ring when you arrive in London.’
Valentina looked down at the large diamond on her finger. ‘I will sell it with pleasure,’ she said.
‘I will give you a small loan, too,’ he said. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
She took a deep breath and offered a shaky smile, knowing that her father would understand why she was selling the precious jewels he’d gifted her. She was doing this for him as much as for herself, to honour his memory in the only way she knew how.
‘Thank you,’ she said, reaching out and clasping Lorenzo’s hands. ‘I will never be able to repay you for your kindness.’
As she turned to walk away, Valentina was certain she saw tears in the old man’s eyes.
I promise you, Papa, I will honour you. I will right every wrong. I won’t stop until every last request in your will has been completed.
Valentina paused at the door, turning back to look at the lawyer who was still seated behind his desk, the jewellery she’d left still spread out in front of him. She reached into her pocket and felt the weight of the small wooden horse there, the one thing that she would never give up, and the one thing that reminded her every day of what her mother had taken from her.
‘There’s one more thing,’ she said.
His eyebrows lifted in question.
‘Once all this is done, I want you to have my mother escorted from the house. She may take her belongings, but I want her left penniless for what she’s done to me.’ Valentina placed a hand over her stomach. ‘She will never be welcome on a Santiago property ever again.’
He looked as if he might question her, but there must have been something in her gaze that told Lorenzo it would be fruitless.
‘And your stepbrother?’
She thought of the way he’d stood there as she’d cried and begged her mother not to force her into marriage; the numerous times he could have put his foot down and allowed her to stay in the house, to follow the wishes of the man who’d taken him in and become a father to him. The night he’d come looking for her when she’d been hiding in the stables with Felipe.
‘Turn them both out. I never want to set eyes on either of them ever again. Not after what they did to me.’
Valentina would be generous to her father’s many employees—she would give them the money they were owed and spend the rest of her days honouring her father and showing the people around her how much she cared for them. But she would show no mercy when it came to her mother.
Even if it meant turning her out into the streets.