The Butterfly Box

• Title Page
  
• Also by Santa Montefiore
  
• Copyright Page
  
• Dedication
  
• Part One
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Part Two
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  
• Chapter 26
  
• Chapter 27
  
• Part Three
  
• Chapter 28
  
• Chapter 29
  
• Chapter 30
  
• Chapter 31
  
• Chapter 32
  
• Chapter 33
  
• Chapter 34
  
• Chapter 35
  
• Chapter 36
  
• Chapter 37
  
• Chapter 38
  
• Chapter 39
  
• Chapter 40
  
• Chapter 41
  
• Chapter 42
  
• Acknowledgements
  

SIMON & SCHUSTER

London • New York • Sydney "Toronto • New Delhi

A CBS COMPANY

Born in England in 1970, Santa Montefiore grew up in Hampshire. She is married to historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha, in London. Visit her at www.santamontefiore.co.uk and sign up for her newsletter.

Praise for
The Butterfly Box:

This is a good, old-fashioned saga with all the classic ingredients. Frederica

has genuine pathos and charm, and those qualities permeate the whole book’

Penny Vincenzi,
Mail on Sunday

‘Refreshing .. . Delightfully written’
Daily Mail

Thoroughly readable’
Evening Standard

‘Absorbing’
Vogue

Praise for Santa Montefiore:

‘Santa Montefiore is the new Rosamunde Pilcher’
Daily Mail
‘A superb storyteller of love and death in romantic places in fascinating times -her passionate novels are already bestsellers across Europe and I can see why. Her plots are sensual, sensitive and complex, her characters are unforgettable life forces, her love stories are desperate yet uplifting - and one laughs as much as one cries’ Plum Sykes,
Vogue

‘A gripping romance ... it is as believable as the writing is beautiful’
Daily Telegraph

‘Anyone who likes Joanne Harris or Mary Wesley will love Monteflore’
Mail on Sunday

‘One of our personal favourites and bestselling authors, sweeping stories of

love and families spanning continents and decades’
The Times

The novel displays all Monteflore’s hallmarks: glamorous scene-setting,

memorable characters, and as always deliciously large helpings of yearning

love and surging passion’ Wendy Holden,
Sunday Express

‘Engaging and charming’ Penny Vincenzi

Also by Santa Montefiore

The Secrets of the Lighthouse

The Summer House

The House By The Sea

The Affair

The Italian Matchmaker

The French Gardener

Sea of Lost Love

The Gypsy Madonna

Last Voyage of the Valentina

The Swallow and the Hummingbird

The Forget-Me-Not Sonata

Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree

SIMON & SCHUSTER     

London • New York • Sydney ‘Toronto • New Delhi

A CBS COMPANY      

First published in Great Britain by Hodder & Stoughton, 2002

An Hachette Livre Company

This paperback edition first published in 2014 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

A CBS COMPANY

Copyright © Santa Montefiore, 2002

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction without permission.

® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

The right of Santa Montefiore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

With thanks to Gibran National Committee for granting their permission to

quote from Kahlil Gibran’s
The Prophet

Simon & Schuster UK Ltd 1st Floor

222 Gray’s Inn Road London WCiX8HB

www.simonandschuster.co.uk

Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

A Cl P catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Paperback ISBN 978-1-47113-210-0

Ebook ISBN 978-1-47113-211-7

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely

coincidental.

Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRo 4YY

To my parents

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

Kahlil Gibran,
 
The Prophet

PART ONE
 

Viña del Mar, Chile, Summer 1982

Federica opened her eyes onto a different world. It was hot, but not humid for the sea breeze carried with it a cool undercurrent from where it had dallied among the waves of the cold Pacific Ocean. Her room was slowly coming to life in the pale morning light that spilled in through the gap in the curtains, casting mellow shafts onto the floor and walls, swallowing up the remains of the night, exposing the regimental line of sleeping dolls. The constant barking of Señora Baraca’s dog at the end of the street had left the animal with little more than a raw husk, but he still continued to bark as he always did. Some day he’d lose his voice altogether, she thought, which wouldn’t be a bad thing; at least he wouldn’t keep the neighbours awake. She had once tried to feed him a biscuit on her way to school but her mother had said he was probably riddled with all sorts of diseases. ‘Best not to touch him, you don’t know where he’s been,’ she had advised, pulling her six-year-old daughter away by the hand. But that was the problem; he had never been anywhere. Federica breathed in the sweet scent of the orange trees that floated up on the air and she could almost taste the fruit that hung heavily like lustrous packages on a Christmas tree. She kicked off the sheet that covered her and knelt on the end of her bed, leaning out through the curtains onto a world that wasn’t the same as the one the sun had set on the day before. With the rising of the new sun a quiver ran through her skinny body, causing a broad smile to spread across her pale face. Today her father was coming home after many months travelling.

Ramon Campione was a giant of a man. Not only in stature - at well over six foot he was tall for a Chilean and tall for an Italian, which was where his family originated from - but in his gigantic imagination, which, like the galaxy itself, seemed never-ending and full of surprises. His adventures took him to the far corners of the earth where he was inspired by everything different and everything beautiful. He travelled, wrote and travelled some more. His family barely knew him. He was never around long enough for them to find the person behind the writing and the magical photographs he took. In the mind of his daughter he was more powerful than God. She had once told Padre Amadeo that Jesus was nothing compared to her father who could do so much more than turn water into wine. ‘My papa can fly,’ she had said proudly. Her mother had smiled apologetically to the priest and rolled her eyes, explaining to him