by Ella Carey
Richard stepped into the old pavilion, its soaring ceilings as high as any cathedral in Europe.
She stood there among his staff, who were setting everything up. And she turned to face him once he came in. She was gracious and elegant in her deep red dress. She held out her hands to him, moving toward him through the vast space.
Richard kissed her on the cheek.
“He is here, you know,” Richard whispered. “He’s getting changed in his old bedroom. Putting on a tux.”
Richard noticed the way Rebecca’s eyes darted to the vast double doors at the entrance to the pavilion. He didn’t let go of her hands. Instead, he caught one of the waitstaff’s attention. The man appeared with two glasses of champagne on a silver tray.
“Drink up,” Richard murmured. “A little Dutch courage is what you need now.”
Rebecca sensed something as she took her first sip of champagne. She would have felt him in a crowd of a thousand people. When Richard stepped away from her, like a curtain that parted in a theater, she found herself face-to-face with Edward.
Her awareness was only of him, not the milling waitstaff, not the first guests who were arriving to the fundraiser where she had pledged to auction off the entire collection of her early artwork, with the blessing of the descendants of the Heide group; the artwork she created at Victor Harbor and Heide in 1946 would raise money for the restoration of Haslemere. She moved toward him as if compelled by something that was other than this world, as if by some sort of magic that only existed between the two of them. Their little circle—or was it a heart?—in which the two of them were safe and together and complete.
And then she stopped.
Everyone in the pavilion was silent.
Edward took a step closer. “For all those years we weren’t together, I was always with you, you know that,” he said. “And we always knew,” he went on, taking her in his arms—she felt his chin resting on the top of her head—“that it’s the things we cannot see that matter in this world.”
Rebecca reached up, her arms curling around him just as they always had, the same arms that belonged to that young girl on a beach in Melbourne. The same two hearts. Ending up in the right place—it was all that mattered in life.
New York, 1987, six months later
Tess surveyed her office. Everything was back in place. Her author list, thank goodness, had remained intact because of James. The proofs of Edward’s book sat on her desk, ready to go off for printing. Rebecca’s revelation—her decision to announce who she truly was to the public—had stunned the art world. The fact that she, as the most famous recluse in the country, had declared her true identity after a career that spanned over thirty years, while coming out with her explosive story, had propelled interest in Edward’s book into the stratosphere. They had become a pair of sixty-something darlings across the country, not to mention instant celebrities back in Australia. They seemed to be handling it with aplomb. Edward’s early poetry was being reprinted, and Rebecca’s work had reached new records in auction sales.
The news that Edward was releasing the entire love story with such honesty had sent people into a frenzy. Tess had been approached by countless production companies eager to turn the book into a film.
Tess gathered her red coat. The streets in New York were dressed for Christmas. Lights and dazzle and color decorated Manhattan. She gazed out of her office window for a moment, before turning.
“Tess.” James stood at her office door in a dark cashmere coat. “We should celebrate.”
They had celebrated the huge presales success of Edward’s book, Secret Shores, the night before. Dinner with the entire staff.
Tess looked at him.
“Come with me?”
Tess couldn’t stop the fluttering that began in her heart.
“I want to take you somewhere,” he whispered.
She could not stop the smile that formed on her lips.
He walked with her through the freezing, icy streets. He chatted and made her laugh, her breath curling out in frosty swirls. And then he stopped. Outside the Met.
A uniformed guard stood outside the building, but once he saw James, he unlocked the front door and let them in. And James, still holding her hand, followed the guard into the building, through the vast, empty lobby, into an elevator to the second floor, past the gift shop area where everything was locked up, to a single, solitary door.
“What are we doing?”
“It’s a surprise.”
The guard shook James’s hand and disappeared into the distance.
James held the small door open.
“After you,” he said.
She climbed the narrow staircase inside as it wound up through the building, passing all those iconic artworks. She stopped at the top of the icy cold stairwell. James reached forward, his gloved hand pushing the door open at the top.
Tess stepped out. And gasped. The rooftop of the Met, just opened, with the most spectacular and romantic view of Manhattan that anyone could imagine spread before them. The city’s buildings sparkled against the inky night sky.
Tess turned back then to the man who had stood beside her through everything, joining her as her equal, in a relationship that Tess knew would be based on mutual respect. And now she knew that this life could indeed be filled with love and with kindness. They were the things that mattered. And she was never going to deny herself those things again—not for any reason.
James drew her toward him, and as he leaned down toward her, she reached up, their lips touching each other in exquisite unison, like a perfect, eternal song.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book, while a work of fiction, was inspired by several personal stories which led me to delve into the wider context of the modernist movement in Australian art. Sunday and John Reed, Max Harris, Joy Hester, Albert Tucker, and Sidney Nolan were key figures in the rise of modernism in Australia, but all other characters and the story in this novel are entirely from my own imagination.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply grateful to my editor, Jodi Warshaw at Lake Union Publishing, for her support and enthusiasm for this novel and for my writing. Every writer needs someone who believes in them and I am incredibly fortunate to work with Jodi. I thank the team at Lake Union—Gabriella Dumpit, Michael Grenetz, and Devan Hanna. Thank you to Shasti O’Leary Soudant for her beautiful cover design that has captured Rebecca and, extraordinarily, the real Granite Island. Thanks to Tegan Tigani, my amazing structural editor, with whom it is a complete delight to work, to my copyeditor, Amanda Gibson, for her wonderful attention to detail, and to my proofreader, Ramona Gault.
I would like to acknowledge and thank Andrew Morphett of Anlaby Station for his hospitality, for his help with my research and for talking with me about some of the true stories that inspired this book. To the staff at Heide Museum of Modern Art—you do a wonderful job keeping the spirit of Sunday and John Reed alive, and the fact that Heide is one of the most popular art galleries in the country is testament to your efforts and your belief in their modernist vision.
Thank you to Sue Brockhoff at Harlequin Australia for your support of my work, to Nas Dean, and to the Historical Novelists’ Society of Australasia, especially Elisabeth Storrs and Chris Foley. Huge thanks to my wonderful readers—in particular to Helen Sibritt, members of ARRA, and all those readers who contact me on Facebook and via email. You are the ones who bring these books to life.
Thanks to my friends and family, particularly to my children, Ben and Sophie, and to my sister, Jane.
This book is in memory of my mother, who was of the World War II generation and who had personal links with the people who inspired this book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2014 Alexandra Grimshaw
Ella Carey is the international bestselling author of The House by the Lake, From a Paris Balcony, and Paris Time Capsule. A Francophile who has long been fascinated by secret histories set in Europe’s entrancing past, Ella has degr
ees in music, nineteenth-century women’s fiction, and modern European history. She lives in Australia with her two children and two Italian greyhounds.
