bites from one of the fresh warm rolls which she had broken open and spread with sharp orange conserve. Her mother had told her about this special orange conserve, beloved of the family, which was made with the oranges from their own groves. Just tasting it reminded her of her mother, and that in turn helped to calm her and steady her resolve.
Half an hour later she was showered and dressed in a clean tee shirt and her plain dark ‘city’ skirt, her hair brushed back off her face and confined in a clip in a way that unwittingly revealed the delicacy of her features and the slender length of her neck. Fliss automatically touched the small heart-shaped gold locket that hung from her neck on its narrow gold chain. It had been a gift from her father to her mother. Her mother had worn it always, and now Fliss wore it in her memory.
A swift curl of mascara and a slick of lipstick and she was ready. And just in time, she reflected as she heard another knock on her bedroom door—a rather more confident one this time. When she opened the bedroom door it was to find Rosa standing outside, her expression as wary and disapproving as it had been the previous evening.
‘You are to go down to the library. I will show you the way,’ she announced in Spanish, her button-shiny, sharp dark eyes assessing Fliss in a way that made Flissfeel her appearance had been found wanting when compared with the elegance no doubt adopted by the kind of women a man like Vidal preferred. Soignée, sophisticated, designer-clad women with that air of cool hauteur and reserve her mother had told her that highborn Spanish women wore like the all-covering muslin robes once worn by the Moors who had preceded them.
So what? She was here to speak with her father’s lawyers, not to dress to impress a man who filled her with dislike and contempt, Fliss reminded herself.
No sound other than that made by their feet on the stairs broke the heavy silence of the house’s dark interior as Rosa escorted her down to the library, opening the door for her and telling her briskly that she was to wait inside for Vidal.
Normally Fliss would have been unable to resist looking at the titles of the books filling the double-height shelves that ran round the whole room, but for some reason she felt too on edge to do anything other than wish that the coming meeting was safely over.
Safely
over? Why should she feel unsafe and on edge? She already knew the contents of her father’s will so far as they concerned her. He had left Fliss the house he himself had inherited from Vidal’s grandmother, on the ducal estate in the Lecrin Valley, along with a small sum of money, whilst the agricultural land that surrounded it had been returned to the main estate.
Was she wrong to feel that there was a message for her in this bequest? Was it just her own longing that made her hope it was the loving touch of a father filled with regret for a relationship never allowed to exist? Wasit foolish of her to yearn somehow to find something of what might have been? Some shadowy ghost of regret to warm her heart, waiting for her in the home her father had left her?
Fliss knew that if Vidal were to guess what she was thinking he would destroy her fragile hopes and leave her with nothing to soften the rejection of her childhood years. Which was why he must not know why she had come here, instead of staying in England as he instructed her to do. In the house where her father had lived she might finally find something to ease the pain she had grown up with. After all, her father must have intended
something
by leaving her his home. An act like that was in its own way an act of love, and she longed so much to have that love.
Not that she couldn’t help wishing the house was somewhere other than so close to Vidal’s family
castillo.
As grand as this townhouse was, Fliss knew from her mother that it couldn’t compare with the magnificence of the ducal
castillo,
in the idyllically beautiful Lecrin
Half an hour later she was showered and dressed in a clean tee shirt and her plain dark ‘city’ skirt, her hair brushed back off her face and confined in a clip in a way that unwittingly revealed the delicacy of her features and the slender length of her neck. Fliss automatically touched the small heart-shaped gold locket that hung from her neck on its narrow gold chain. It had been a gift from her father to her mother. Her mother had worn it always, and now Fliss wore it in her memory.
A swift curl of mascara and a slick of lipstick and she was ready. And just in time, she reflected as she heard another knock on her bedroom door—a rather more confident one this time. When she opened the bedroom door it was to find Rosa standing outside, her expression as wary and disapproving as it had been the previous evening.
‘You are to go down to the library. I will show you the way,’ she announced in Spanish, her button-shiny, sharp dark eyes assessing Fliss in a way that made Flissfeel her appearance had been found wanting when compared with the elegance no doubt adopted by the kind of women a man like Vidal preferred. Soignée, sophisticated, designer-clad women with that air of cool hauteur and reserve her mother had told her that highborn Spanish women wore like the all-covering muslin robes once worn by the Moors who had preceded them.
So what? She was here to speak with her father’s lawyers, not to dress to impress a man who filled her with dislike and contempt, Fliss reminded herself.
No sound other than that made by their feet on the stairs broke the heavy silence of the house’s dark interior as Rosa escorted her down to the library, opening the door for her and telling her briskly that she was to wait inside for Vidal.
Normally Fliss would have been unable to resist looking at the titles of the books filling the double-height shelves that ran round the whole room, but for some reason she felt too on edge to do anything other than wish that the coming meeting was safely over.
Safely
over? Why should she feel unsafe and on edge? She already knew the contents of her father’s will so far as they concerned her. He had left Fliss the house he himself had inherited from Vidal’s grandmother, on the ducal estate in the Lecrin Valley, along with a small sum of money, whilst the agricultural land that surrounded it had been returned to the main estate.
Was she wrong to feel that there was a message for her in this bequest? Was it just her own longing that made her hope it was the loving touch of a father filled with regret for a relationship never allowed to exist? Wasit foolish of her to yearn somehow to find something of what might have been? Some shadowy ghost of regret to warm her heart, waiting for her in the home her father had left her?
Fliss knew that if Vidal were to guess what she was thinking he would destroy her fragile hopes and leave her with nothing to soften the rejection of her childhood years. Which was why he must not know why she had come here, instead of staying in England as he instructed her to do. In the house where her father had lived she might finally find something to ease the pain she had grown up with. After all, her father must have intended
something
by leaving her his home. An act like that was in its own way an act of love, and she longed so much to have that love.
Not that she couldn’t help wishing the house was somewhere other than so close to Vidal’s family
castillo.
As grand as this townhouse was, Fliss knew from her mother that it couldn’t compare with the magnificence of the ducal
castillo,
in the idyllically beautiful Lecrin
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