The Angel Tree

by Lucinda Riley

  And to my wonderful readers around the world – without your support, this book would never have had a second chance.

  Author’s Note

  It was Christmas 2013 when I was asked if I would like to republish Not Quite an Angel, which was first published in 1995 under my old pen name, Lucinda Edmonds.

  I had enjoyed revisiting The Italian Girl (previously Aria) the year before, and amidst our family’s yule-tide celebrations, a picture began to form in my mind of a snowy Welsh landscape and a beautiful house with an enormous Christmas tree standing in the front hall . . .

  I dusted off my one dog-eared copy of the book, read it for the first time in eighteen years, and was pleasantly surprised by what a compelling tale it was. However, my writing style has evolved over the years and I knew I could make it even better (I understand now why some novels are several years in the writing – sometimes it’s only distance that truly gives an author perspective on a manuscript). So I set to work, little knowing what I was letting myself in for, and became so engrossed that I ended up writing a virtually completely new novel – The Angel Tree.

  While many elements of the original remain, key characters have had their roles and dialogue rewritten, settings have been enhanced, and several chapters and plotlines are entirely new. I even resurrected one character I’d always regretted killing off in the original novel. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to breathe new life into this story. I hope that you enjoy it.

  Lucinda Riley, 2015

  OUT NOW

  The Seven Sisters

  A MAJOR NEW SERIES FROM LUCINDA RILEY

  Maia’s Story

  Maia D’Aplièse and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home, ‘Atlantis’ – a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of Lake Geneva – having been told that their beloved father, the elusive billionaire they call Pa Salt, has died. Maia and her sisters were all adopted by him as babies and, discovering he has already been buried at sea, each of them is handed a tantalising clue to their true heritage – a clue that takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of where her story began . . .

  Eighty years earlier, in the Belle Epoque of Rio, 1927, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is working on a statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela – passionate and longing to see the world – convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski’s studio and in the heady, vibrant cafés of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.

  In this sweeping, epic tale of love and loss – the first in a unique series of seven books, based on the legends of the Seven Sisters star constellation – Lucinda Riley showcases her storytelling talent like never before.

  Turn the page to read the first spellbinding chapter now.

  1

  I will always remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard that my father had died.

  I was sitting in the pretty garden of my old schoolfriend’s townhouse in London, a copy of The Penelopiad open but unread in my lap, enjoying the June sun while Jenny collected her little boy from nursery.

  I felt calm and appreciated what a good idea it had been to get away. I was studying the burgeoning clematis, encouraged by its sunny midwife to give birth to a riot of colour, when my mobile phone rang. I glanced at the screen and saw it was Marina.

  ‘Hello, Ma, how are you?’ I said, hoping she could hear the warmth in my voice too.

  ‘Maia, I . . .’

  Marina paused, and in that instant I knew something was dreadfully wrong. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Maia, there’s no easy way to tell you this, but your father had a heart attack here at home yesterday afternoon, and in the early hours of this morning, he . . . passed away.’

  I remained silent, as a million different and ridiculous thoughts raced through my mind. The first one being that Marina, for some unknown reason, had decided to play some form of tasteless joke on me.

  ‘You’re the first of the sisters I’ve told, Maia, as you’re the eldest. And I wanted to ask you whether you would prefer to tell the rest of your sisters yourself, or leave it to me.’

  ‘I . . .’

  Still no words would form coherently on my lips, as I began to realise that Marina, dear, beloved Marina, the woman who had been the closest thing to a mother I’d ever known, would never tell me this if it wasn’t true. So it had to be. And at that moment, my entire world shifted on its axis.

  ‘Maia, please, tell me you’re all right. This really is the most dreadful call I’ve ever had to make, but what else could I do? God only knows how the other girls are going to take it.’

  It was then that I heard the suffering in her voice and understood she’d needed to tell me as much for her own sake as mine. So I switched into my normal comfort zone, which was to comfort others.

  ‘Of course I’ll tell my sisters if you’d prefer, Ma, although I’m not positive where they all are. Isn’t Ally away training for a regatta?’

  And as we continued to discuss where each of my younger sisters was, as though we needed to get them together for a birthday party rather than to mourn the death of our father, the entire conversation took on a sense of the surreal.

  ‘When should we plan on having the funeral, do you think? What with Electra being in Los Angeles and Ally somewhere on the high seas, surely we can’t think about it until next week at the earliest?’ I said.

  ‘Well . . .’ I heard the hesitation in Marina’s voice. ‘Perhaps the best thing is for you and I to discuss it when you arrive back home. There really is no rush now, Maia, so if you’d prefer to continue the last couple of days of your holiday in London, that would be fine. There’s nothing more to be done for him here . . .’ Her voice trailed off miserably.

  ‘Ma, of course I’ll be on the next flight to Geneva I can get! I’ll call the airline immediately, and then I’ll do my best to get in touch with everyone.’

  ‘I’m so terribly sorry, chérie,’ Marina said sadly. ‘I know how you adored him.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, the strange calm that I had felt while we discussed arrangements suddenly deserting me like the stillness before a violent thunderstorm. ‘I’ll call you later, when I know what time I’ll be arriving.’

  ‘Please take care of yourself, Maia. You’ve had a terrible shock.’

  I pressed the button to end the call, and before the storm clouds in my heart opened up and drowned me, I went upstairs to my bedroom to retrieve my flight documents and contact the airline. As I waited in the calling queue, I glanced at the bed where I’d woken up this morning to Simply Another Day. And I thanked God that human beings don’t have the power to see into the future.

  The officious woman who eventually answered wasn’t helpful and I knew, as she spoke of full flights, financial penalties and credit card details, that my emotional dam was ready to burst. Finally, once I’d grudgingly been granted a seat on the four o’clock flight to Geneva, which would mean throwing everything into my holdall immediately and taking a taxi to Heathrow, I sat down on the bed and stared for so long at the sprigged wallpaper that the pattern began to dance in front of my eyes.

  ‘He’s gone,’ I whispered, ‘gone forever. I’ll never see him again.’

  Expecting the spoken words to provoke a raging torrent of tears, I was surprised that nothing actually happened. Instead, I sat there numbly, my head still full of practicalities. The thought of telling my sisters – all five of them – was horrendous, and I searched through my emotional filing system for the one I would call first. Inevitably, it was Tiggy, the second youngest of the six of us girls and the sibling to whom I’d always felt closest.
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br />   With trembling fingers, I scrolled down to find her number and dialled it. When her voicemail answered, I didn’t know what to say, other than a few garbled words asking her to call me back urgently. She was currently somewhere in the Scottish Highlands working at a centre for orphaned and sick wild deer.

  As for the other sisters . . . I knew their reactions would vary, outwardly at least, from indifference to a dramatic outpouring of emotion.

  Given that I wasn’t currently sure quite which way I would go on the scale of grief when I did speak to any of them, I decided to take the coward’s way out and texted them all, asking them to call me as soon as they could. Then I hurriedly packed my holdall and walked down the narrow stairs to the kitchen to write a note for Jenny explaining why I’d had to leave in such a hurry.

  Deciding to take my chances hailing a black cab on the London streets, I left the house, walking briskly around the leafy Chelsea crescent just as any normal person would do on any normal day. I believe I actually said hello to someone walking a dog when I passed him in the street and managed a smile.

  No one would know what had just happened to me, I thought, as I managed to find a taxi on the busy King’s Road and climbed inside, directing the driver to Heathrow.

  No one would know.

  Five hours later, just as the sun was making its leisurely descent over Lake Geneva, I arrived at our private pontoon on the shore, from where I would make the last leg of my journey home.

  Christian was already waiting for me in our sleek Riva motor launch. And from the look on his face, I could see he’d heard the news.

  ‘How are you, Mademoiselle Maia?’ he asked, sympathy in his blue eyes as he helped me aboard.

  ‘I’m . . . glad I’m here,’ I answered neutrally as I walked to the back of the boat and sat down on the cushioned cream leather bench that curved around the stern. Usually, I would sit with Christian in the passenger seat at the front as we sped across the calm waters on the twenty-minute journey home. But today, I felt a need for privacy. As Christian started the powerful engine, the sun glinted off the windows of the fabulous houses that lined Lake Geneva’s shores. I’d often felt when I made this journey that it was the entrance to an ethereal world disconnected from reality.

  The world of Pa Salt.

  I noticed the first vague evidence of tears pricking at my eyes as I thought of my father’s pet name, which I’d coined when I was young. He’d always loved sailing and often when he returned to me at our lakeside home, he had smelt of fresh air and of the sea. Somehow, the name had stuck, and as my younger siblings had joined me, they’d called him that too.

  As the launch picked up speed, the warm wind streaming through my hair, I thought of the hundreds of previous journeys I’d made to Atlantis, Pa Salt’s fairy-tale castle. Inaccessible by land, due to its position on a private promontory with a crescent of mountainous terrain rising up steeply behind it, the only method of reaching it was by boat. The nearest neighbours were miles away along the lake, so Atlantis was our own private kingdom, set apart from the rest of the world. Everything it contained was magical . . . as if Pa Salt and we – his daughters – had lived there under an enchantment.

  Each one of us had been chosen by Pa Salt as a baby, adopted from the four corners of the globe and brought home to live under his protection. And each one of us, as Pa always liked to say, was special, different . . . we were his girls. He’d named us all after The Seven Sisters, his favourite star cluster. Maia being the first and eldest.

  When I was young, he’d take me up to his glass-domed observatory perched on top of the house, lift me up with his big, strong hands and have me look through his telescope at the night sky.

  ‘There it is,’ he’d say as he aligned the lens. ‘Look, Maia, that’s the beautiful shining star you’re named after.’

  And I would see. As he explained the legends that were the source of my own and my sisters’ names, I’d hardly listen, but simply enjoy his arms tight around me, fully aware of this rare, special moment when I had him all to myself.

  I’d realised eventually that Marina, who I’d presumed as I grew up was my mother – I’d even shortened her name to ‘Ma’ – was a glorified nursemaid, employed by Pa to take care of me because he was away such a lot. But of course, Marina was so much more than that to all of us girls. She was the one who had wiped our tears, berated us for sloppy table manners and steered us calmly through the difficult transition from childhood to womanhood.

  She had always been there, and I could not have loved Ma any more if she had given birth to me.

  During the first three years of my childhood, Marina and I had lived alone together in our magical castle on the shores of Lake Geneva as Pa Salt travelled the seven seas to conduct his business. And then, one by one, my sisters began to arrive.

  Usually, Pa would bring me a present when he returned home. I’d hear the motor launch arriving, run across the sweeping lawns and through the trees to the jetty to greet him. Like any child, I’d want to see what he had hidden inside his magical pockets to delight me. On one particular occasion, however, after he’d presented me with an exquisitely carved wooden reindeer, which he assured me came from St Nicholas’s workshop at the North Pole itself, a uniformed woman had stepped out from behind him, and in her arms was a bundle wrapped in a shawl. And the bundle was moving.

  ‘This time, Maia, I’ve brought you back the most special gift. You have a new sister.’ He’d smiled at me as he lifted me into his arms. ‘Now you’ll no longer be lonely when I have to go away.’

  After that, life had changed. The maternity nurse that Pa had brought with him disappeared after a few weeks and Marina took over the care of my baby sister. I couldn’t understand how the red, squalling thing which often smelt and diverted attention from me could possibly be a gift. Until one morning, when Alcyone – named after the second star of The Seven Sisters – smiled at me from her high chair over breakfast.

  ‘She knows who I am,’ I said in wonder to Marina, who was feeding her.

  ‘Of course she does, Maia, dear. You’re her big sister, the one she’ll look up to. It’ll be up to you to teach her lots of things that you know and she doesn’t.’

  And as she grew, she became my shadow, following me everywhere, which pleased and irritated me in equal measure.

  ‘Maia, wait me!’ she’d demand loudly as she tottered along behind me.

  Even though Ally – as I’d nicknamed her – had originally been an unwanted addition to my dreamlike existence at Atlantis, I could not have asked for a sweeter, more loveable companion. She rarely, if ever, cried and there were none of the temper-tantrums associated with toddlers of her age. With her tumbling red-gold curls and her big blue eyes, Ally had a natural charm that drew people to her, including our father. On the occasions Pa Salt was home from one of his long trips abroad, I’d watch how his eyes lit up when he saw her, in a way I was sure they didn’t for me. And whereas I was shy and reticent with strangers, Ally had an openness and a readiness to trust that endeared her to everyone.

  She was also one of those children who seemed to excel at everything – particularly music, and any sport to do with water. I remember Pa teaching her to swim in our vast pool and, whereas I had struggled to stay afloat and hated being underwater, my little sister took to it like a mermaid. And while I couldn’t find my sea legs even on the Titan, Pa’s huge and beautiful ocean-going yacht, when we were at home Ally would beg him to take her out in the small Laser he kept moored on our private lakeside jetty. I’d crouch in the cramped stern of the boat while Pa and Ally took control as we sped across the glassy waters. Their joint passion for sailing bonded them in a way I felt I could never replicate.

  Although Ally had studied music at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève and was a highly talented flautist who could have pursued a career with a professional orchestra, since leaving music school she had chosen the life of a fulltime sailor. She now competed regularly in regattas, and had represented
Switzerland on a number of occasions.

  When Ally was almost three, Pa arrived home with our next sibling, whom he named Asterope, after the third of The Seven Sisters.

  ‘But we will call her Star,’ Pa had said, smiling at Marina, Ally and me as we studied the newest addition to the family lying in the bassinet.

  By now I was attending lessons every morning with a private tutor, so my newest sister’s arrival affected me less than Ally’s had. Then, only six months later, another baby joined us, a twelve-week-old girl named Celaeno, whose name Ally immediately shortened to CeCe.

  There was only three months’ age difference between Star and CeCe, and from as far back as I can remember, the two of them forged a close bond. They were akin to twins, talking in their own private baby language, some of which the two of them still used to communicate to this day. They inhabited their own private world, to the exclusion of us other sisters. And even now in their twenties, nothing had changed. CeCe, the younger of the two, was always the boss, her stocky body and nut-brown skin in direct contrast to the pale, whippet-thin Star.

  The following year, another baby arrived – Taygete, whom I nicknamed ‘Tiggy’ because her short dark hair sprouted out at strange angles on her tiny head and reminded me of the hedgehog in Beatrix Potter’s famous story.

  I was by now seven years old, and I’d bonded with Tiggy from the first moment I set eyes on her. She was the most delicate of us all, suffering one childhood illness after another, but even as an infant, she was stoic and undemanding. When yet another baby girl, named Electra, was brought home by Pa a few months later, an exhausted Marina would often ask me if I would mind sitting with Tiggy, who continually had a fever or croup. Eventually diagnosed as asthmatic, she rarely left the nursery to be wheeled outside in the pram, in case the cold air and heavy fog of a Geneva winter affected her chest.