Observing her clever, capable hands as they moulded the damp clay, he said, ‘Did you do all these?’

Thea glanced up and responded with a brief smile. ‘Yes.’

‘You’re very good.’

‘Thank you.’

Intrigued by her apparent lack of interest in engaging him in conversation, Oliver Cassidy thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and surveyed the ballerina once more.

‘I particularly like this one.’

‘So do I,’ said Thea easily. Leaning back and resting her wrists on her thighs, careful not to get clay on the full, navy blue cotton skirt, she added, ‘It’s for sale at three thousand pounds.’

She liked the fact that he didn’t even flinch. She liked it even better when he frowned and said, ‘What’s the matter, are you trying to put me oft? Don’t you want to sell it?’

‘I’m an artist, not a saleswoman.’ Narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to one side in order to survey the figure currently in progress, she said, ‘And since three thousand pounds is a great deal of money, I doubt very much whether anything I say would have much impact either way. I couldn’t persuade you to buy something you didn’t want, so why on earth should I even try?’

Accustomed to the cut-throat machinations of the property business which had made him his fortune and rendered him impervious to the hardest of hard sells, Oliver Cassidy almost laughed aloud. Instead, however, and much to his own surprise, he heard himself saying, ‘But I do want it. So persuade me.’

Thea, enjoying herself immensely, replied, ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you might not be able to afford it. I couldn’t live with my conscience if I thought I’d inveigled you into buying something you couldn’t afford.’

In fifty-one supremely selfish years she had never yet been troubled by her conscience, but he didn’t need to know this. Her eyes alight with amusement, she shook her head.

‘Do I look,’ demanded Oliver Cassidy in pompous tones, ‘as if I can’t afford it?’

This time she gave him a slow, regretful smile. ‘I wouldn’t know. As I said, I’m not a saleswoman.’ He replied heavily, ‘I can tell.’

The ensuing silence lasted several seconds. Thea, determined not to be the one to break it, carried on working.

‘I’ll buy it,’ said Oliver Cassidy finally. ‘On one condition.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Mmm?’

‘That you have dinner with me tonight.’

Openly teasing him now, she said, ‘Are you sure you can afford both?’

For the first time, Oliver Cassidy smiled. ‘I think I can just about manage it.’

‘Oh well then, in that case it’s an offer I can’t refuse. I’d be delighted to have dinner with you, Mr—’

‘Cassidy. Oliver Cassidy. Please, call me Oliver.’

For buying the ballerina I’d call you anything you damn well like, thought Thea, struggling to conceal her inner triumph. Rising to her feet, she wiped her hands on her skirt. What did a few clay stains matter, after all, when you’d just made a mega sale? The contract was sealed with a firm handshake.

‘Thank you! It’s a deal, then. Oliver.’

Chapter 12

‘He’s a pig,’ said Janey, who still hadn’t forgiven Guy for his snide comments of the previous night. Overcome with a sudden need for companionship she had arrived at Thea’s house at eight only to find her mother getting ready to go out.

Thea, wearing her favourite crimson silk shirt over a peasant-style white skirt, was doing her make-up in the mirror above the fireplace. With an ease borne of long practice, she swept black liner around her eyes, enlarging and elongating them just as she had done for the past thirty years.

‘You mean that photographer chap?’ she said vaguely, having been only half listening to her elder daughter’s grumbling. ‘I thought he was supposed to be rather gorgeous.’

‘That’s beside the point.’ Janey, immune to Guy Cassidy’s physical attractions, threw her a moody glance. ‘And that stupid bottle of wine was just about the last straw. It w-as Maxine’s fault, of course, but he automatically assumed I’d opened it.’

Thea completed her make-up with a dash of crimson lipstick and treated herself to an extra squirt of Mitsouko for luck. Chucking the bottle into her bag, she said briskly, ‘Well, he isn’t your problem. And I’m sure Maxine can deal with him. She’s always been good with difficult men.’

Luckily, Janey hadn’t expected motherly support and reassurances; they simply weren’t Thea Vaughan’s style. Now, listening to her airy dismissal of the problem which as far as her mother was concerned wasn’t even a problem, she managed a rueful smile.

‘Speaking of difficult men, who are you seeing tonight?’ Is all this really in aid of Philip?’

‘Thea froze with her bag halfway to her shoulder. Her eyebrows lifted in resignation. ‘Oh, sod it.’

Philip Slattery wasn’t difficult at all. One of Thea’s long-standing and most devoted admirers, he was as gentle as a puppy. Janey liked him enormously, whereas her mother took him almost entirely for granted, seeing him when it suited her and ditching him unmercifully whenever somebody more interesting came along. As, presumably, somebody now had.

‘You mean, Oh sod it, you were supposed to be seeing Philip but you’d forgotten all about him,’ she said in admonishing tones. Then, because Thea was showing no sign of reaching for the phone, she added, ‘Mum, you’ll have to let him know. You can’t just stand him up.’

Thea pulled a face. ‘He’s going to be awfully cross with me. He’s holding a dinner party at his house. Now I suppose he’ll accuse me of lousing up the numbers.’

‘Mum!’ Janey protested, dismayed by this act of thoughtlessness. ‘How could you possibly forget a dinner party? Why don’t you just cancel your other date?’

‘Out of the question,’ declared Thea, picking up the phone and frowning as she tried to recall Philip’s number. Her own, it went without saying, was practically engraved on his heart. ‘I sold the ballerina this afternoon.’

‘So?’

‘He invited me to have dinner with him, on the strength of it. Darling, he’s seriously wealthy, not to mention attractive! This could be so important; I’d have to be a complete idiot to turn him down:

Poor, faithful Philip and cruel, mercenary Thea. Janey listened in silence to her mother’s side of the phone call as she blithely excused herself from the dinner party which he had undoubtedly spent the past fortnight planning to the nth degree.

Who is he, then?’ she said when Thea had replaced the receiver. .

Her mother, whose memory was notorious fickle, checked her reflection in the mirror and smoothed an eyebrow into place. ‘Oliver. Kennedy, I think.’ With a vague gesture, she dismissed the problem in favour of more important details. ‘He wears extremely expensive shoes, darling.

And drives a Rolls Royce.’

‘You mean he’s a chauffeur.’

Thea gave her daughter a pitying look. Janey, don’t be such a miserable spoilsport. He’s rich, he’s interested, and I like him. I mean this is the kind of man I could even be persuaded to marry.’

It was the kind of lifestyle she could easily get used to, the kind she had always felt she deserved. Hopeless with money herself, however, Thea had got off to a poor start When, at the age of nineteen, she had met and fallen even more hopelessly in love with Patrick Vaughan. Big, blond and a dyed-in-the wool Bohemian, he was the mercurial star of his year at art college, adored by more women than even he knew what to do with and a dedicated pleasure-seeker.

Within six weeks of meeting him, Thea had moved into his incredibly untidy attic apartment in Chelsea, embracing with enthusiasm the chaotic lifestyle of her lover and encouraging him in his work.

But Patrick only embraced her in return when no other more interesting women were around. Incurably promiscuous, his wanderings caused Thea such grief that, looking back over those years, she wondered how she’d ever managed to stand it. At the time, however, she had loved him so desperately that leaving had been out of the question. When Patrick, laughing, had told her that fidelity was bourgeois, she’d believed him. When he’d told her that none of the others meant anything anyway, she’d believed him. And when — quite seriously — he’d told her that he was going to be the greatest British artist of the twentieth century she’d believed that too.

She was lucky to have him, and nobody had ever said that living with a genius would be easy.

It wasn’t. The never-ending supply of eager women continued to troop through their lives and turning a tolerant blind eye became increasingly difficult. Furthermore, Patrick Vaughan only painted when he felt like it, which wasn’t often enough to appease either the buyers or the bookmakers.

Gambling, always a passion with him, fulfilled yet another craving for excitement. And although it was fun when he won, the losses far outweighed the gains. As his addiction spiralled, Thea began to realize that maybe love wasn’t enough after all. The all-consuming intensity with which Patrick gambled might divert his attention from the numerous affairs but it scared her.

Patrick, still laughing, told her that worrying about money was even more bourgeois than fidelity but this time she had her doubts. Neither the promised luxurious lifestyle nor his glittering career were showing any signs of materializing and the novelty of being poor and perpetually cheated on was beginning to wear off.

Unable to find a market for her own work she had reluctantly taken a job in a Putney craft shop, but Patrick was spending everything she earned. Bailiffs were knocking on the door. She deserved more than this. It was, she decided, time to leave.

Fate, however, had other ideas. Discovering that she was pregnant threw Thea into a flat spin. She was only twenty-two, hopelessly unmaternal and deeply aware of her own inability to cope alone. All of a sudden Patrick and-all-his-faults was better than no Patrick at all.

To everyone’s astonishment Patrick himself was delighted by the news of the impending arrival. Never having given much thought to the matter before, he was bowled over by the prospect of becoming a father and didn’t — as all his friends had secretly imagined — do one of his famous runners. He had created a son who would inherit his artistic genius, good looks and charisma, he told everyone who would listen. This was his link with immortality. What could be more important than a child? At Patrick’s insistence, and to his friends’ further amazement —

they had assumed he would think it far too bourgeois — he and Thea were married at once. The wedding was funded by a timely win on the Derby. Fascinated and inspired by his new wife’s condition, he resumed painting with a vengeance, insisting that she sit for him whilst he captured her voluptuous nakedness in oils. The paintings, among the best he’d ever done, sold easily through a West London gallery. Gradually the creditors were paid off. And if Patrick was still seeing other women, for once in his life he exercised discretion. For Thea, the months before the birth were some of the happiest she had ever known.

Janey, when she arrived, was a monumental disappointment to both of them. Squashed and ugly, not only did she bear no resemblance whatsoever to either parent, she was entirely the wrong sex.

With all his visions of Madonna and child shattered and the reality of fatherhood failing abysmally to live up to fond expectations, Patrick promptly reverted to type. The painting ground to an abrupt halt, the gambling and womanizing escalated to new and dizzy heights, and in order to escape both the noisy wails of his daughter and the silent tears of his wife, he spent less and less time at home.

Maxine, born twenty-two months later as a result of a last-ditch attempt at reconciliation, failed to do the trick. Another daughter, another shattering disappointment. Knowing that it was hopeless to go on trying and by this time so miserable that it was hardly even a wrench, Thea packed her things, gathered up the two girls and left.

Not wanting to stay in London, she moved to Cornwall in order to start a new and happier life. From now on, she vowed, she would learn by her mistakes and Patrick’s example. Being a doormat was no fun; selfishness ruled. Never again would she let herself be emotionally intimidated by a man. She was going to make damn sure she kept her self-respect and enjoyed the rest of her life.

For twenty-five years she had kept her promise to herself. Bringing up two young daughters single-handed wasn’t easy, but she’d managed. And whilst it would have been easy to let herself go, she deliberately didn’t allow this to happen.