A Stormy Spanish Summer(33)

‘Just like you didn’t see the point of me writing to him. In fact as far as you are concerned it would have been better if I had never been born, wouldn’t it?’

Without waiting for Vidal’s reply—what was the need, after all, when she already knew the answer to her own question?—Fliss moved further into the house.

Although it was far more simple in style and decoration than the castillo, it was still furnished with what Fliss suspected were valuable antiques.

‘Which was my father’s favourite room?’ she demanded, after she had walked though a well-proportioned drawing room and explored the elegant, formal dining room on the opposite side of the hallway, as well as a smaller sitting room and a collection of passages, storerooms, and a small businesslike office situated at the back of the house.

For a minute she thought that Vidal wasn’t going to answer her. His mouth had hardened, and he looked away from her as though impatient to be free of her company. She held her breath.

But then, just as she thought he was going to ignore her, he turned back to her and told her distantly, ‘This one.’ He opened the door into a small library. ‘Felipe loved reading, and music. He …’ Vidal paused, looking into the distance before he continued. ‘He liked to spend his evenings in here, listening to music and reading his favourite books. The sun sets on this side of the house, and in the evening this room is particularly pleasant.’

The image Vidal was painting was one of a solitary, quiet man—a lonely man, perhaps—who had sat here in this room, contemplating what might have been if only things had been different.

‘Did you … did you spent a lot of time with him?’ Fliss could feel the words threatening to block her throat. Her hand went to it, tangling with the slender gold chain that had been her mother’s, as though by touching it she could somehow ease away the pain she was now feeling.

‘He was my uncle. He managed the family orchards.’ Vidal gave a shrug which Fliss interpreted as dismissive and thus uncaring. ‘Naturally we spent a good deal of time together.’

Vidal was turning away from her. Releasing her chain, Fliss looked back at the desk, her attention caught by the gleam of sunlight on the back of a small silver photograph frame. Driven by an impulse she couldn’t control, she picked it up and turned it round. Her heart slammed into her ribs as she looked down at a photograph of her mother, holding a smiling baby Fliss knew to be herself.

Her hand shaking, she put the photograph down.

Vidal’s mobile rang, and whilst he turned away to take the call Fliss studied the photograph again. Her mother looked so young. So proud of her baby. What had her father thought when he had seen the photograph? Had he been filled with regret—guilt—even perhaps longing to have the woman he loved and the child he had created with her there with him? She would never know now.

He had kept the photograph on his desk, which must mean that he had looked at it every day. Fliss tried to drive away the feeling of deep sadness permeating her, but still her questioning thoughts tormented her. Had he ever hoped that one day they would meet? He had never made any attempt to contact her.

Vidal had ended his call.

‘We have to get back to the castillo,’ he told her. ‘Ramón has arranged for me to see the water engineer. A decision needs to be made with regard to the problem with our water supply. We can come back here in the morning if you wish to see upstairs.’

His voice suggested that he couldn’t understand why she should want to, but Fliss had a more pressing question she wanted to ask.

‘Did my father know about my mother’s death?’

She could see the way Vidal’s chest lifted as he breathed in.

‘Yes, he did know,’ he told her.

‘How do you know he knew?’

She didn’t need to see the way Vidal’s mouth compressed or to hear his irritably exhaled breath to know that she was testing his patience. But she didn’t care.

‘I know because I was the one who had to break the news to him.’

‘And he … no one thought that I might have needed to hear from him, my only living relative, my father …?’

All the pain she had felt at losing her mother at eighteen came rushing back over her.

‘It was you—you who kept us apart,’ she accused Vidal.

The look in Vidal’s eyes silenced her, choking the breath from her lungs.

‘Your father’s health suffered a great deal when he was parted from your mother. His doctor felt that it was best that he lived a quiet life, without any kind of emotional pressure. For that reason, in my judgement—’