House in the Hills by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788634526
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2019-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

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The three miles back up to the quinta flew by, simply because Catherine was simmering with anger. It wasn’t just Donna Nicklau who was taking Francisco away from her; so was the Church. Added to that, the women at the market who had made her feel dirty and incredibly rebellious.

The hurt and the anger stayed with her. Only once she set eyes on the long, white quinta nestled among stone pens and fruit trees, did she begin to calm down.

Blasted with the sun and rain of a hundred summers and just as many winters, the dried-out door was smooth to the touch as she pushed it open. The old house was silent except for a few cicadas singing in the rafters and the scurrying of a lizard in response to her footfall. Life is unkind, she thought as she placed her basket of purchases on the kitchen table. Only in those formative years at the Castile Villanova had she been really happy and sure of her place in life and now that was gone. It was only a matter of time before this place too, this place where she had also been happy, would fade into her past.

Hiding was what she felt like doing. There was no future for her with Francisco and she did not want to face her father. On the other hand, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to stay here.

Being jilted would be the subject of gossip every time she was seen in the village. She could almost hear their comments. Most of them true. She was the girl rejected by the respectable family of the man she loved – or thought she loved. Being illegitimate was bad enough, but being also the great-niece of Lopa Rodriguez didn’t help. Some people viewed Aunt Lopa feeding wolves and going from door to door selling her homemade goods as merely eccentric. Others considered her mad.

What worried her more was her growing relationship with Umberto. In her mind she no longer referred to him as Father Umberto. His title, his vocation no longer mattered to her. What was happening between them was far stronger, and far older than any church. It was as though the years in between, including his ordination as a priest, had never happened. She tried to counsel herself that it was unwise to continue what could only end in tears – or more gossip.

She sighed and opened the shutters, flakes of green paint fluttering like snow as they slammed against the outside walls.

Twenty-four hours seemed more like forty-eight living alone with little human contact. The time was spent looking after the goats, tending the vegetable patch and tidying up the house. All these things kept her hands busy, though her mind was with Umberto. Each day she looked out at the track expectantly, narrowing her eyes against the glare of a metallic-blue sky, seeing his figure in the twisted shadows of a tree, a flash of birds against the horizon, the shape of a scudding cloud.

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