Chapter 13 The Old Hiding Place
YSABEL
Leon arrives at the farm the next morning with a question I don't expect.
"I need to go back to the estate for a few hours this afternoon. There's a delivery that requires my signature, and some paperwork that can't wait." He stands in the yard, hat in hand, looking at me with careful neutrality. "I was wondering if you wanted to come with me."
"Why would I want to do that?"
"You left things behind. Clothes, personal items. I thought you might want to collect some of them while you had the chance." He pauses. "You wouldn't have to stay long. I could bring you back before dinner."
I consider it. He's right that I left in a hurry. My wardrobe at the estate still holds most of my clothes, including the heavier things I'll need as the weather changes. There are other items too, small personal belongings I didn't think to pack when I was focused on getting out.
"My mother knows you're asking?"
"I mentioned it to her when I arrived. She said it was your decision."
Of course she did. Everything is my decision now, which is both freeing and exhausting.
"I'll come," I say. "But we leave after lunch and we're back before dark."
"Understood."
The drive to the estate is short, but it feels longer. The familiar roads unwind past olive groves and almond orchards, past the fields I've known my whole life, and with each passing kilometer I feel something tightening in my chest.
I grew up here. Not on this road exactly, but in this landscape, in the small rooms where servants' families lived at the great house. I know every turn, every landmark, every tree that marks the boundary between one property and another.
This is home in a way that my parents' farm, for all its warmth, will never quite be.
Leon drives in silence, giving me space to think. I'm grateful for that.
When we turn onto the long drive that leads to the main house, I feel my breath catch.
The building rises at the end of the avenue, golden stone and tall windows, the place where I've lived for two years as Leon's wife. The place I left little more than a week ago with a suitcase and a recipe notebook and no idea what came next.
"My mother is out this afternoon," Leon says as we approach. "She had an appointment in town. She won't be back until evening."
I nod, relieved. The last thing I need right now is a confrontation with Vera.
He parks near the side entrance, the one the family uses rather than the formal front doors. When we get out, the afternoon sun is warm on my face, and the smell of the estate hits me like a physical thing. Stone and flowers and the faint sweetness of the orchards in the distance.
"Take whatever time you need," Leon says. "I'll be in my study dealing with the delivery. Come find me when you're ready to leave."
I go inside alone.
The house is quiet, the way it always is in the afternoon when the staff are busy elsewhere and the family is occupied.
My footsteps echo on the tile floors as I make my way toward the stairs, past the sitting room where Vera holds court, past the dining room where I set a table that was never used.
I don't look at the dining room. I can't.
Our bedroom is at the end of the upstairs hallway. I push open the door and stand in the threshold, looking at the space I shared with Leon for two years.
The bed is made, the curtains drawn back to let in light. My side of the wardrobe is still full of clothes I didn't take. The small desk in the corner where I kept my laptop is empty now, but the chair is still there, pushed in neatly, waiting for someone to sit down.
I move through the room quickly, pulling open drawers and gathering the things I came for. Warmer clothes for the changing season. A few personal items I forgot in my haste to leave. A pair of comfortable shoes I've been missing.
I'm filling a bag when I hear footsteps in the hallway.
"Ysabel?"
It's Lucia, the young woman who's worked here since she was sixteen. She stands in the doorway, her expression uncertain, caught between formality and the easier warmth we used to share.
"Signora," she corrects herself. "I didn't know you were here. Is there anything you need?"
"Just collecting some things. Don Leon brought me."
"Of course." She hesitates. "It's good to see you. The house has been... quiet."
I don't know what to say to that. I settle for nodding and turning back to my packing.
Lucia hovers for another moment, then seems to make a decision. She steps into the room properly, her hands clasped in front of her.
"Can I help you find anything? I know where most things are kept."
I pause with a cardigan in my hands. "You don't have to do that."
"I know I don't have to." She moves toward the wardrobe, hesitant but willing. "But you're trying to pack and I'm standing here being useless. At least let me find you a proper bag."
She opens the wardrobe door wider and reaches up to the top shelf, pulling down a cloth bag I'd forgotten was there. An old scarf is tucked beside it, one my mother gave me years ago.
"This one?" Lucia asks, holding up the bag.
"That's fine. Thank you."
She hands it to me, and for a moment we're just two women standing in a bedroom, the same way we stood in the estate kitchen a hundred times before everything changed.
"Lucia. You can call me Ysabel. You always did before."
"Before was different." She looks at me, then away. "I wasn't sure what was right anymore."
"Ysabel is fine. It was always fine."
She nods, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. I fold the cardigan and place it in the bag, then add the scarf and the comfortable shoes I came for.
"The house feels different," I say. It comes out before I can stop it.
"It is different. Quieter." Lucia watches me pack. "I keep expecting to smell something baking. You used to be in the kitchen so often."
"The almond crescents."
"Those ones, yes. With the powdered sugar." A small smile crosses her face. "Tommaso used to hide two of them in the pantry before anyone else could get to them. He thought no one noticed."
"I noticed. I always made extra."
We share a moment of something that feels almost like the old ease, before titles and distance complicated everything.
"Are you back?" Lucia asks. "For good, I mean?"
"No. I'm just here to collect some things."
"Oh." She doesn't ask more, doesn't push. That's always been one of the things I liked about her. "Well. If you need anything else while you're here, I'll be downstairs."
"Thank you, Lucia."
She leaves, and I'm alone again with the quiet of the room. I look around at the space that was mine for two years. The bed I shared with Leon. The window that looks out over the garden. The wardrobe full of clothes I chose because I thought they might make me look like I belonged here.
Part of me wants to stay. Part of me wants to unpack the bag and put everything back and pretend that I never left. This room knows me. This house knows me, even if the people in it sometimes forgot.
But wanting to stay isn't the same as being able to. And belonging somewhere isn't just about the walls.
I close the wardrobe, pick up the bag, and walk out into the hallway. Lucia has left a second cloth bag by the door, empty, in case I need it. I add it to my things and head for the stairs.
At the bottom, I leave both bags by the entrance where I can retrieve them later.
Then I turn toward Leon's study.
I find Leon signing papers at his desk. He looks up when I appear in the doorway.
"Did you find everything you needed?"
"Most of it." I glance toward the hall where I left my bags. "There are a few more things in the kitchen. Baking tins I brought from home. My mother's been asking about them."
"I can walk you down there if you'd like."
We go together, through the back corridors that lead to the working parts of the house.
The kitchen is empty at this hour, the staff elsewhere, and I find the cabinet where I kept my personal baking equipment.
The tins are there, the ones my mother gave me when I got married, the ones I use for family cakes.
I carried the crescents to market yesterday in an ordinary basket; these tins stayed here.
I'm reaching for them when Leon speaks.
"Do you remember that night you were testing the crescents in here?"
"Of course I remember."
"It was in this kitchen. Late at night, after everyone had gone to bed. You were testing the recipe, and I came down for water and found you covered in flour."
I pause, my hand on the cabinet door. "That was before we were married."
"I know. We weren't supposed to be spending time alone together. But you were there, and you looked so happy, and I couldn't make myself leave."
The memory surfaces, unbidden. I was twenty, still living in the servants' quarters with my parents, stealing time with Leon, who wasn't supposed to be spending his nights downstairs with me.
That night in the kitchen, with flour on my apron and the smell of almonds in the air, he'd kissed me for only the third time.
"That was a long time ago," I say.
"Not that long." He's closer now, though I didn't hear him move. "Some things don't change."
"Some things have to change." I turn to face him. "We can't go back to sneaking around, Leon. That's not what I want."
"I know. That's not what I want either." He looks at me with something in his eyes that I can't quite read. "But I miss you. I miss the way things were before everything got so complicated."
"Things were always complicated. We just pretended they weren't."
"Maybe. But we were happy, weren't we? At least some of the time?"
I think about it. The stolen moments in hallways and gardens. The late-night conversations when everyone else was asleep. The way he used to look at me like I was the only person in the world who mattered.
"We were happy," I admit. "When it was just us."
"I miss talking to you in here," he says. "Before you started checking the time whenever we had a few minutes alone."
"I was usually wondering when someone would come to get you."
He looks down. "I know."