no importa . Never mind. We were getting the floors refinished, but I guess I will postpone that until the end of the summer. No reason to fix the floors if they are just going to get all scratched up again.”
Antonia started to point out that Pilar never came onto the boat anyway. What did she care what the floors looked like? But caught herself in time. She didn’t want to pick a fight. Certainly not with Señora Del Campo.
“That’s probably a good idea,” she said instead. “Waiting until we’re gone.”
Pilar shook her head, shooing her dogs into the house. “As if I have a choice,” she muttered before she followed her dogs inside and shut the door a little louder than Noni felt was strictly necessary.
Noni let the girls go and they raced off toward the barn.
The Del Campo farm in Southampton was less grand than the estate in Wellington, but worth far more. There were twenty acres of fields and paddocks behind high stone walls, half of which was given over to a regulation-sized polo field. The house was a stately three-story colonial tucked away at the back of the farm, built in the 1700s and covered in the traditional silvery cedar shakes that were seen all over the Hamptons. The numerous twelve-over-twelve windows were original to the house, the glass panes thick, bubbled, and wavy. Noni loved the distorted underwater feeling she got when she gazed through them.
There were old-fashioned cottage gardens all around the house, filled with lilacs and peonies, roses and hydrangeas, daisies and bearded iris. The gardens were flanked by half a dozen enormously old and twisted black walnut and maple trees and a long, lush lawn that rolled down to meet the graveled circular driveway.
It was her favorite property that the Del Campos owned.
The Hamptons summer polo season was not as prestigious as the London summer season, and La Victoria usually played in England, but whether her boys were abroad or not, Pilar preferred to be in the Hamptons for her summers. The Del Campo brothers and their families took their jet back and forth from England for charity games to occasionally take part in the social whirl that was a Hamptons’ summer and see their mother, but Pilar was content to stay put in Southampton, puttering about her garden and helping keep track of the ponies they kept quartered up here.
With the team scouting for a fourth player in England this summer, most of the ponies would be housed here while they were gone. She and Enzo would be kept very busy, indeed, thought Noni.
The Hamptons house was, more than any other property, Pilar’s home. The house in Wellington was all Carlos—all about flash and presentation, designed to entertain the local horsey set. The estancia in Argentina was the family seat, owned by Del Campos for generations and generations. But the Hamptons house was something that Pilar had picked out for herself once she had realized that her husband would not be the husband she had hoped for him to be.
Carlos hadn’t liked the Hamptons, which had been nothing more than a sleepy community of artists and farmers when they had first moved in. He much preferred the London season, but the story that Noni had heard whispered was that Pilar had insisted on him buying her the Hamptons house after she had found out about his first affair. That she had wanted a place that was solely hers, untainted by his betrayal, and she had threatened to take the boys and go back to Argentina if he didn’t give it to her.
Sometimes Noni felt disloyal, loving the house that her father had liked least, the one that he had spent almost no time in. But that was, Noni mused, probably the exact reason she was attracted to the place. It felt like a safe harbor, unsullied by the poison that had seeped into Carlos and Pilar’s long and unhappy marriage. Pilar had made it a refuge for herself and her sons, and that feeling of shelter was still so strong that Noni could sense its pull, even from the outside.
She
Antonia started to point out that Pilar never came onto the boat anyway. What did she care what the floors looked like? But caught herself in time. She didn’t want to pick a fight. Certainly not with Señora Del Campo.
“That’s probably a good idea,” she said instead. “Waiting until we’re gone.”
Pilar shook her head, shooing her dogs into the house. “As if I have a choice,” she muttered before she followed her dogs inside and shut the door a little louder than Noni felt was strictly necessary.
Noni let the girls go and they raced off toward the barn.
The Del Campo farm in Southampton was less grand than the estate in Wellington, but worth far more. There were twenty acres of fields and paddocks behind high stone walls, half of which was given over to a regulation-sized polo field. The house was a stately three-story colonial tucked away at the back of the farm, built in the 1700s and covered in the traditional silvery cedar shakes that were seen all over the Hamptons. The numerous twelve-over-twelve windows were original to the house, the glass panes thick, bubbled, and wavy. Noni loved the distorted underwater feeling she got when she gazed through them.
There were old-fashioned cottage gardens all around the house, filled with lilacs and peonies, roses and hydrangeas, daisies and bearded iris. The gardens were flanked by half a dozen enormously old and twisted black walnut and maple trees and a long, lush lawn that rolled down to meet the graveled circular driveway.
It was her favorite property that the Del Campos owned.
The Hamptons summer polo season was not as prestigious as the London summer season, and La Victoria usually played in England, but whether her boys were abroad or not, Pilar preferred to be in the Hamptons for her summers. The Del Campo brothers and their families took their jet back and forth from England for charity games to occasionally take part in the social whirl that was a Hamptons’ summer and see their mother, but Pilar was content to stay put in Southampton, puttering about her garden and helping keep track of the ponies they kept quartered up here.
With the team scouting for a fourth player in England this summer, most of the ponies would be housed here while they were gone. She and Enzo would be kept very busy, indeed, thought Noni.
The Hamptons house was, more than any other property, Pilar’s home. The house in Wellington was all Carlos—all about flash and presentation, designed to entertain the local horsey set. The estancia in Argentina was the family seat, owned by Del Campos for generations and generations. But the Hamptons house was something that Pilar had picked out for herself once she had realized that her husband would not be the husband she had hoped for him to be.
Carlos hadn’t liked the Hamptons, which had been nothing more than a sleepy community of artists and farmers when they had first moved in. He much preferred the London season, but the story that Noni had heard whispered was that Pilar had insisted on him buying her the Hamptons house after she had found out about his first affair. That she had wanted a place that was solely hers, untainted by his betrayal, and she had threatened to take the boys and go back to Argentina if he didn’t give it to her.
Sometimes Noni felt disloyal, loving the house that her father had liked least, the one that he had spent almost no time in. But that was, Noni mused, probably the exact reason she was attracted to the place. It felt like a safe harbor, unsullied by the poison that had seeped into Carlos and Pilar’s long and unhappy marriage. Pilar had made it a refuge for herself and her sons, and that feeling of shelter was still so strong that Noni could sense its pull, even from the outside.
She
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