‘And what if he says no?’ Felipe asked. ‘What if, once he finds out, we have to put an end to this?’
‘He won’t, I’m certain of it,’ she murmured. ‘All he wants is for me to be happy, and if it’s you who makes me happy, if he truly understands how we feel, then I think he will give us his blessing.’
So long as Felipe didn’t ask her mother’s permission, because she knew that she would rather lock her in her bedroom for the rest of her life than accept that Valentina was in love with a boy like Felipe. Her mother had much grander ambitions for her only daughter, was always talking of the matches she’d like to make for her, tempered only by the fact that her father insisted they wait until Valentina was older, so that she could have a say in whom she married. Secretly, she guessed that her father wanted to keep her at home for longer, and she was only too happy to oblige.
‘We’d best get back,’ Felipe said. ‘Basilio won’t forgive me if he has to send out a search party to look for us. It’ll put an end to us before I ever gather the courage to tell him.’
Valentina sighed and let Felipe pull her to her feet, their fingers interlinked, wishing they could have their morning all over again. But as she was smoothing her hands down her blouse to brush away the creases, not wanting anyone to guess that they’d been rolling around on the grass, she heard galloping hooves and her heart began to race as a lone rider came into view.
No one other than her and Felipe galloped around the farm like that, especially this early in the morning, which meant that something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
‘Miss Valentina,’ the breathless rider called as he approached. ‘Come quickly!’
Valentina looked helplessly to Felipe, who quickly leapt up and readied the horses for their ride back.
Please don’t be Papa. Let it be anyone but my darling papa.
‘Papa!’ Valentina called as she ran into the house, throwing her leather gloves to the ground and shrugging out of her jacket, hot from the fast ride back. Her heart was beating so hard it felt as if it might explode out of her chest, her breath coming in heavy pants that made it almost impossible to draw enough air into her lungs.
The doctor was already there, but she couldn’t see or hear her mother, only their staff scurrying around as if they weren’t sure where they should be. Their maid, Ana, was sobbing near the door, and the worker who’d come to fetch her stood now with his hat folded in his hands, as tears trickled down his cheeks, butit was the doctor to whom Valentina gave her full attention, her heart racing even faster as she clocked his solemn expression.
She already knew what the news was going to be.
‘What happened?’ she asked, as she entered the ground-floor bedroom where he must have been taken, sitting down on the edge of the four-poster bed and staring at her father’s ashen face. She reached for her father’s hand, but quickly withdrew it when she felt his cool, damp skin. It didn’t feel like her papa’s hand, and if this was the last time she held it, that wasn’t how she wanted to remember his touch. This wasn’t how she wanted to rememberhim.
‘Miss Santiago, I regret to inform you that there was nothing I could do for your father.’
‘He’s gone?’ she whispered, looking back at her father. ‘But we had breakfast together this morning, I just saw him, I?—’
The doctor reached out and placed his hand gently over her arm, and she found herself staring down at where he touched her. She could hear his words but they made absolutely no sense, and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to scream at him that he was wrong or slide to the ground and beg him to tell her different news. Because this couldn’t be true—none of it could be true!
‘Your father suffered a heart attack,’ he explained, his voice low and soft. ‘There was nothing anyone could have done to save him, it happened so quickly and so unexpectedly. I’m sorry. Your father was a wonderful man.’
Valentina began to nod, and she wished Felipe had come with her, holding her hand as she’d received the news, so that she hadn’t been alone. Only minutes ago, she’d been imploring him to tell her beloved papa about their relationship, and now he was gone. Felipe was never going to be able to ask him for her hand, and she was never going to have the chance to tell him that she’d loved Felipe since she was a young girl at hervery first harvest. That she’d found the love match he’d been so determined that she find.
She blinked away her tears, trying her best to stay composed in front of the doctor even as her body began to tremble. Her mother should have been here, by her side, but instead Valentina was alone.
‘Thank you, for coming so promptly,’ she said, trying to find the right words. ‘I appreciate what you did to try to save my father, that you came here, that…’ It didn’t matter how hard Valentina tried—she simply didn’t know what else to say.
The doctor nodded and let go of her as she lost her words, reaching for his black leather bag and doing up the zip as she watched on, keeping her gaze fixed on him so that she didn’t have to see her father. A shudder ran through her as she realised that someone would have to decide what to do with his body, that the doctor was leaving and there was no one else there to tell her what to do next. Her mother clearly hadn’t been able to cope and had taken to her bedroom or sought refuge somewhere else in the house.
‘He was a great man, Miss Santiago, one of the very best,’ the doctor said. ‘I’m truly sorry for your loss. Please pay my respects to your mother when she returns.’
‘You haven’t seen my mother?’ Valentina asked, confused. Where would her mother be at this time of the day?
‘Unfortunately, I have not. Your maid let me in when I arrived.’
Valentina nodded and waited for him to leave the room, before she rushed back to her father and collapsed over him, her tears coming in powerful sobs as she cried over the body of the man she’d loved more than life itself, still not believing that he was gone.
Why did you have to leave me? Papa, it can’t be true, you can’t be gone.
‘Mama,’ Valentina gasped, rising and holding her arms out to fold herself against her mother when she heard her return. She’d been sitting beside the bed with her father for hours, waiting, not wanting her mother to discover what had happened without being there to break the news. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. Something terrible has happened.’
But instead of the embrace she’d been expecting after so many hours of holding vigil alone, her mother’s body was rigid, her arms not even moving from her sides to return her embrace. Instead, she was as stiff and cold as the body lying on the bed.
‘Did you know?’
Valentina blinked back at her mother, wrapping her arms around herself as she stared into her cold eyes. She glanced back at her father, wishing that he was still there, that he’d reprimand her mother for being so cold towards her, that he could see the way his daughter was being treated in his absence. But her father was gone; it was just her against the world now.
