The Secret Legacy: The perfect summer read for fans of Santa Montefiore, Victoria Hislop and Dinah Jeffries
’A delightful read’ BooklistSome loves are worth sacrificing everything for . . . Santina is spending her final days at her home, Villa San Vito, in the beautiful Italian town of Positano. As she decides the fate of the magnificent eighteenth century palazzo she must confront the choices that led her here.In 1949, hoping to escape poverty, young Santina becomes housekeeper to a distinguished British major and his creative, impulsive wife, Adeline.When they move to Positano, Santina joins them, raising their daughter as Adeline’s mental health declines. With each passing year, Santina becomes more deeply entwined with the family, trying to navigate her complicated feelings for a man who is much more than an employer – while hiding secrets that could shatter the only home she knows . . .Readers love Sara Alexander:’A riveting read’ Online reviewer’Fabulous’ Online reviewer’A wonderful story’ Online reviewer
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SARA ALEXANDER attended Hampstead School, went on to graduate from the University of Bristol, with a BA hons in Theatre, Film & TV. She followed on to complete her postgraduate diploma in acting from Drama Studio London. She has worked extensively in the theatre, film and television industries, including roles in much loved productions such as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Doctor Who, and Franco Zeffirelli’s Sparrow. She is based in London.
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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Sara Alexander 2018
Sara Alexander asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008273699
To Stefan, for planting the seed
I ought to be glad I can afford home help. The lady in question takes to my dishes with an Eastern European verve that never fails to convince me that, to her, cooking is punishment. What those blessed vegetables, reared by our own hands, might have done to her is beyond me. Her impatience is tangible, even from here on the upper terrazzo beyond the kitchen. I can smell it in the bitter aroma of parsley crushed with too heavy a hand and the acidic odor of almost singed garlic hitting the back of my throat. I’ve lost count of how many times I have pleaded with her to not massacre the pasta, that to feed a Neapolitan woman wet mush will find her in the dock for manslaughter. Bad food kills. It’s loneliness on a plate; dishes made without love are venom. I will not hear otherwise. She’s arguing with the pot now, the water is boiling too fast. It’s overflowed. At the three-minute mark as usual.
Not that my neighbors don’t jump at the chance to come and take tea of an afternoon – every day in fact, since I decided to terminate my treatment. They sit beside me, each one believing that they are my true confidante, the sole keeper of my darkest secrets. They think I don’t notice the way they take in the high ceilings above my terraces or the green mist that wafts across them as they survey the riches bestowed to me, Santina Guida, no more than a peasant from the hills. They think I don’t see them wonder how a street urchin ended her life in this palace. They picture their lives in this place after I’ve gone; I see it in the way their eyes linger on my lower garden terrazzo, in the masked longing as they drink in the view of the coast framed by the columns supporting the terraces above. The way their hands linger just a little too long upon the waxed furniture. There are those with complicated families, more worthy than I of this vast home, those who have struggled their entire lives just to place bread upon the table, the ones who have been there for me as I trawled through the endless paperwork after the Major died. Each and every one of them is worthy of this home – perhaps this is a truth. But whose truth? They think I’m tired because cancer is winning. But I am tired of doing what is right, just, expected – so very tired of that.
She and I eat the wallpaper paste disguised as linguine con zucchini. She didn’t drain the zucchini with salt then wring out the excess water beforehand and thinks I don’t notice. On the contrary, I simply choose not to point it out for the hundredth time. Even old women get sick of their own voices.
After coffee – I use the term with trepidation, I know few people partial to boiled water with the memory of flavor – she clears up and helps me get dressed. I’m wearing the dress the Major had made for me. It still fits. The pleasure of this simple thing has not evaporated. A little vanity is not wasted on the dying. I can see my skin is powder white. I still don’t recognize the whisper of a person in the mirror. I know that if I live only another few days or weeks or months, this afternoon will be the most important hours of my final days.
