Her eyes met his again.
‘You look really pretty today.’
She burst out laughing, her hand across her heart. If this wasn’t what falling in love felt like, then she couldn’t imagine what was.
7
PRESENT DAY
This time when Rose stepped out onto the gravel driveway at the Santiago estate, she didn’t feel quite so out of place. She’d woken up in a beautiful hotel, discovered upon checking out that the entire bill, including room service from the night before, had already been taken care of, and now she was getting out of a taxi and bringing her suitcase and bag with her.
After paying the driver, Rose stood for a moment and watched the car go, wanting to wait until she was alone to walk up to the front door of the house. She fumbled in her bag for the key, which was hanging from a ring with a small silver horse on it, and lugged her things up the three steps. She almost knocked, just to make sure no one was inside, but the lawyer’s words from the day before kept echoing through her mind.
‘All of it is yours, Rose,’ he’d said, pointing to the map that was spread over his desk as they sat in his office. ‘This property is almost one hundred hectares, and you can see the boundary clearly marked here. With it comes the homestead and the stables, as well as a small holding of land in Mendoza that Valentina bought back some years ago, which I can arrange to have shown to you at your earliest convenience.’
‘Mendoza?’ she’d asked.
‘It’s where the Santiago family continued to build upon their great fortune when they arrived here from Spain. They once owned the largest property in the region but that, my dear, is a story for another day. Perhaps we can meet for dinner before you go, so that I can share more of the family’s history with you?’
Rose had agreed to meet with him for dinner before her flight to New York, curious to hear everything she could about the mysterious Santiago family, but for now she was looking forward to discovering the property and the house that came with it.
She turned the handle, resisting the urge to call out ‘hello,’ which was as hard not to do as knocking had been. But it was obvious once she was inside that there was nobody in the house. Rose had been told that there was still a housekeeper who called in twice a week, and who’d made up the main bedroom for her as well as a downstairs room in case she preferred it, and she was surprised at how lived-in the house felt. She’d presumed it would feel dusty or stifling inside, given that no one had lived there for some months now, but it felt as if it had just been aired out. And when she walked down the hallway, she could see fresh flowers on the table at the end. Someone had clearly gone to some effort to make the house feel welcoming to her ahead of her arrival.
Rose left her luggage in the hallway as she kept walking, heading into the kitchen and finding a large space with huge windows that faced out over the property. She could see horses grazing in the distance, the windows framing a view that looked like an artist had painted it, which made her realise just how easy it would be to fall head over heels with the property.
She stood for a moment, her hands splayed on the granite kitchen counter as she stared outside, wondering how she’d gone from looking out of the small windows of her London flat one day, staring at a gloomy sky, to being here today.
Rose turned on her heel then, suddenly feeling melancholy as her mind filled with thoughts of home, and in turn her mother. She ran her fingertips beneath her eyes to brush away tears as she looked into the living room and then another room that she guessed might once have been used to host parties, but was now full of furniture and paintings propped against walls—a storage room of sorts.
She walked up the stairs, loving how cool the house felt despite the warmth outside. Everything about the architecture felt Spanish in style, from the high ceilings to the terracotta tiles in the foyer, and as she found her way to the bedrooms, she immediately saw the billowing white drapes in the room at the farthest end of the hall.
Rose walked slowly towards the room, feeling welcomed by it somehow, glancing into every other bedroom as she passed, counting five in total. But when she walked into the room ahead of her, she immediately felt at home.
There was a small jar of flowers on the bedside table, along with a note, and as she read it she sat on the white bedcovers, glancing up and admiring the wooden four-poster bed that somehow felt as if it came from another age.
Dear Miss Santiago,
I have worked for Valentina Santiago for the past twelve years, and the more time that passed, the more she talked about the daughter she was forced to part with. Her guilt over the years has become immeasurable, but her only comfort was that one day she could leave everything to her biological granddaughter or great-granddaughter. Valentina was a kind, wonderful woman who would do anything for anyone, and I will never forget our spirited conversations, or the way I would find her sometimes staring out of the window, lost in thought, as she imaginedhow her life might have turned out if things had been different.
I’ve left fresh towels in the bathroom for you, and there is enough food in the pantry to last a few days, as well as coffee and other things you might find yourself in need of. I’ve also put some meals in the fridge that you can heat up. I hope to meet you on Friday, when I’m scheduled to work next.
Yours truly,
Clara
Rose set the note back down on the bedside table, appreciating the kind gesture but finding it hard not to be disappointed. When she’d seen it sitting there, her heart had leapt for a moment, thinking it might have been left by Valentina herself.
She stood then, looking in at the adjoining beautifully tiled bathroom before going to stand at the bedroom window, loving the gentle breeze that whispered through the just-open frames. Rose wished that she could have brought Jessica with her, so that at least one other person in her life could have seen what she was seeing. Perhaps then, it might have been easier to believe that she wasn’t dreaming.
Just as she was about to take her phone from her pocket to call Jessica and insist that she and the children schedule a holiday there soon, a figure in the distance caught her eye. There was a man on horseback heading towards the stables, and she couldn’t be sure, but she thought it might have been the same man whom she’d glimpsed the day before.
Rose decided to leave her exploration of the house until later, walking quickly back downstairs and stopping only to find the small wooden box that was in her handbag, reaching in and taking out the little horse figurine and slipping it into the pocketof her jeans. She left her hand there, liking the way the figurine fitted into her palm as she hurried through the house to another door that was positioned much more closely to the stables.
She kicked off her sandals there and slipped her feet into a pair of brown leather boots that were only slightly too big for her, closing the door behind her and crossing the expanse of grass that separated the two buildings. Trees had been cleverly planted to provide shade, and she saw that a large tabby cat was lounging beneath one of them.
Rose made a mental note to check whether she’d also inherited a cat along with the countless retired and current polo ponies that were on the list she’d been presented with, before clearing her throat to call out to the man who’d just disappeared ahead of her.
‘Hola!’ she called, raising her voice when she didn’t receive a response. ‘Hello there!’
