Last of the Summer Vines: Escape to Italy with this heartwarming, feel good summer read!

The house also seemed smaller and less impressive than I remembered. There were still towers on either side, topped with the crenelated turrets of my childhood memory, but now I could see they were mere decorations, pretentious additions to make an ordinary villa look more like a castle.

With a sigh, I turned away. The taxi was already halfway down the drive, taking all my childhood illusions away with it, and leaving me stranded in cold, hard reality. At least I had the really hot lawyer to soothe the transition.

I rejoined Luca on the front steps. He held a large ring of ancient-looking keys, and with a flourish, he slid the largest key into the lock, turned it, and gave the big brass handle a twist. The door stuck. I had to lean on it beside him to get it to finally open, and when it swung suddenly open, squealing on its old hinges, we both fell inside.

Oh, great. Trust me to be clumsy and ungraceful in front of the most gorgeous man I’d ever stood within breathing distance of.

‘The wood has swollen a little,’ Luca observed, sounding inordinately cheerful considering the grim welcome.

The hall inside was dark and gloomy, the effect no doubt of all the house’s shutters being closed. Luca set down my cases on the bottommost step of the stone staircase, then followed as I wandered through the downstairs rooms.

Dust sheets covered the furniture, which loomed up out of the shadows, filling almost all the floor space. As a child, I used to play hide and seek in these rooms, and searched for treasure, but viewed though adult eyes it was simply cluttered, as if several hundred years’ worth of inhabitants had collected furniture as a hobby – and never threw out a single item.

‘The house is about a thousand square metres in size,’ Luca said as he trailed me through the rooms. When I turned a bewildered expression on him, he laughed. ‘That’s over ten thousand English square feet.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Feet! Not a very attractive language, your English. But the real jewel, of course, is the land. More than two thirds of the property is arable. There’s a fruit orchard, olive trees, and at least half the land is covered in vines. Mostly Sangiovese, but some Malvasia and Vernaccia grapes too.’

‘Do you know a lot about wine?’

‘Everyone in this region knows at least a little about wine.’ He smiled, and his dark eyes lit up. ‘And you?’

‘I know absolutely nothing about wine – except how to drink it.’

‘That is a good place to start.’

I didn’t plan to get started. I had zero interest in learning anything about wine farming, and was just as happy drinking wine out of a box as out of a bottle with a real cork. I suspected if I admitted that out loud here in Tuscany, I might be deported immediately, inheritance or not.

In the drawing room, the long room which faced down over the valley, I threw open the windows and shutters. The afternoon light streaming in did nothing to dispel the gloom, because now I could see the layer of dust and grime on everything, the threadbare carpet, the peeling burgundy wallpaper, and the dust motes stirred up and set dancing by the inflow of fresh, warm air.

‘How long ago did my father die?’

‘A little over two weeks ago.’

This kind of neglect had taken a great deal longer than two weeks to accumulate.

‘Was he sick for a long time?’ I didn’t really want to know the answer. I felt guilty enough already. I should have known. I should have called. I should have made more of an effort to keep in touch with my own father, even though he made very little attempt to keep in touch with me.

‘No, he died very suddenly. He was in the winery when he had the heart attack. Tommaso found him there.’

He spoke the name as if it should mean something to me, but I only shrugged and turned away. I hadn’t been here in nearly two decades – I could hardly be expected to remember the names and faces of my father’s employees.

The only person I remembered was Elisa, John’s housekeeper. Nonna, I used to call her. Grandmother, though she was no blood relation. But Elisa died a few years ago. That much my father had told me in one of our rare phone calls.

‘He didn’t have any help in the house?’ I asked.

Luca shrugged. ‘After Elisa died, your father never replaced her. He was an old man who didn’t like too much change, and he didn’t like strangers. He only lived in a handful of rooms these last few years.’

That would explain the dirt and general shabbiness. Thank heavens the property still had all those acres of vines to attract potential buyers, or I’d be screwed.

‘I’d like to put this place on the market as soon as possible. Can you handle that for me?’

‘Si.’ He drew the word out, as if doubtful.

‘What price do you think I can get?’

He studied the bubbling wallpaper as if fascinated. Now, I most certainly was not imagining his hesitance. ‘It is a little complicated,’ he said. ‘Your father having been a resident here for so long, naturally he chose to have his will drawn up under Italian law, so the rule of legittima applies. It will take some time to resolve.’

What needed to be resolved? I was John’s only living relative. ‘How long?’

‘That will depend on the circumstances of the successione necessaria, the statutory shares.’

I’d had enough experience with corporate speak to recognise when someone was deliberately hedging.

‘I need a cup of tea.’ I turned away from the scene of neglect and headed down the terracotta-tiled passage to the kitchen.

Luca’s soft chuckle followed me. ‘So like your father. The one part of his English heritage he clung to was his tea.’

The high-vaulted kitchen was at the back of the house, opening onto the back yard which almost seemed cut out of the hillside. The kitchen featured the same terracotta floor tiles as the rest of the ground floor rooms, and the same deep windows. Dusty Delft plates decorated one wall. At least this room looked cleaner and more lived in than the other rooms, though it still felt more like a museum than a home. In the two decades since I’d last been here, the only new appliance to find its way into this kitchen was an electric kettle. And thank God for that.

Dismayed, I eyed the antique wood stove, with its blackened top and grimy porcelain façade. It had been my lifelong dream to own a home with a great big old-fashioned Aga. This vintage stove was nothing like that Aga of my dreams. Surely this couldn’t be the same stove Nonna taught me to bake in?

Beside the kettle, I found a tin of loose leaf tea that still smelled fresh, and a china teapot decorated with delicate pink roses. Setting the kettle to boil, I rinsed out the teapot at the enormous sink, noting the deep crack in the side of the marble, then brewed a strong pot of tea. The comforting, familiar smell in this alien place calmed me. Though I’d been fully prepared to drink the tea black, I discovered fresh milk in the fridge. Someone had anticipated my arrival. Luca?

I poured out two steaming cups, then sat across from Luca at the big wooden kitchen table. ‘Okay. I’m ready to hear it. What haven’t you told me?’

He looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Under English law anyone making a will has the “testamentary freedom” to choose whoever they would like to inherit their estate.’

I nodded. That was easy enough to follow.

‘However, here in Italy we have the rule of legittima, of forced heirship. This means that in Italy, the person making the will cannot freely determine who gets what. Italian law is set up to protect the inheritance of family members who might have been … overlooked.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Here in Italy we cannot threaten to disinherit a family member who has displeased us, since everyone knows the law will decide who inherits and who will not, to ensure that all heirs receive a fair share.’

I sipped my tea. Could he just get to the point, already? I didn’t see how any of this was relevant, since I was John’s only child.

Luca’s expression turned serious. ‘You see, under Italian law it is obligatory for certain immediate family members to inherit a proportion of the estate, regardless of what it says in the will.’

It finally occurred to me where this conversation was headed. ‘You’re saying there’s another heir? Someone else with a claim who might want to contest the will?’

He nodded, relieved I’d got there ahead of him. ‘You are that someone.’

It took a moment for his words to sink in. And an even longer moment for me to shut my mouth again.

Slowly, I drained the last of the tea from my cup and poured another, careful to keep my hand from shaking. Only when I’d added milk and stirred, did I risk looking back at Luca, my emotions once again under firm control.

‘You are telling me that my father did not leave me any part of his estate. He left it to someone else. And it is only because of this law of legittima that I have any claim at all?’

‘Si.’

‘Who did he leave it to?’ My voice sounded astonishingly steady, considering my entire world had suddenly shifted beneath my feet.

Sure, we were never close, but whose fault was it that my father and I were as good as strangers? I was the only child he’d ever had, and this was how little he’d cared for me?