Two Wrongs Make a Marriage. Christine Merrill

Jack turned suddenly to her, and it felt as though she were standing trial and guilty of some horrible crime. ‘Just what artefact did your father purchase that could have been worth so much?’

      Spayne looked at her expectantly.

      ‘It is very complicated,’ Thea said, not knowing how best to start.

      ‘We have time,’ Jack said, folding his arms and settling into a chair. Both men were staring at her now and the silence was nearly as pregnant as it had been when Jack had revealed her lack of funds. It was clear that they were not going to say another word until they had heard her story.

      Very well, then. If she must tell it, she had best make a clean breast, start at the beginning and give them every last embarrassing detail. ‘It all began,’ she said, ‘when my father married an actress.’

      Spayne laughed.

      ‘An actress?’ For the first time since she’d met him, Jack was caught flat-footed, unable to respond with more than two words and a gaped-mouth stare.

      Thea looked around carefully, to be sure that no servants could hear. It was hardly a secret, but the less said on her mother’s career, the better. ‘Mother has worked very hard in the last twenty years to put it behind her and, for the most part, she has succeeded. The scandal is nearly forgotten. Although, when we are alone, she is more candid about her past than is proper.’

      ‘Twenty years,’ Jack repeated, as though the passage of time had some added significance. ‘When she performed, was she, by any chance, one Antonia Knowles?’

      ‘How did you know?’ It had been a long time since someone had recognised her, but it seemed that the past was impossible to bury.

      Jack smiled at the memory. ‘Because I saw her perform. She did Ophelia. And I wept buckets when she died.’

      ‘You saw my mother? On the stage?’

      He closed his eyes, his head raised to the ceiling as though giving thanks for an answered prayer. Then, a sigh of ecstasy escaped his lips.

      And as she sometimes did, Thea felt an odd prickling annoyance at the attention her mother garnered so effortlessly. It was common, earthy and certainly nothing Thea herself aspired to. But men other than Father seemed to find her near to irresistible when she made an effort to call attention to herself. The fact that it came from the man who would be her son-in-law was more annoying by far than any past irritations. ‘She is much older now,’ Thea reminded him.

      ‘But still a surpassingly handsome woman,’ Jack replied, unfazed by her tone. Then he examined her as though it was their first meeting. ‘You hold many features in common with her.’

      ‘Because she bore me,’ Thea snapped. ‘It is hardly a surprise that I favour her.’

      But Jack was no longer looking at her, but at the woman on the faraway stage. ‘Antonia was the most radiant, most beautiful, most talented woman I had ever seen. I fell quite in love with her that day. It was hopeless, of course. She had many admirers, older, richer, more powerful …’