‘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 findonline, 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,’ shebegan, 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.’
