A Close Match
by Rachel Cray
An erotic romance in the Maybourne Series
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Rachel Cray
Discover other titles by Rachel Cray at Smashwords.com:
A Stranger in My Bed
Jack, Me, and His Lodger
Interview For Love
Village Accounts
Kate’s Return (publication due August 2011)
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons (living or dead), actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission by the author, except for brief quotations for review purposes.
This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be access by minors.
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Author's Note
To have a clearer understanding of the relationship between Paula and Dan,
readers should refer to the family tree at
http://www.rachelcray.com/general/a-close-match-family-tree.doc
Because of the diversity of ebook formats, it wasn’t possible
to include this in the main text of this story.
CHAPTER 1
“Paula, we’ve got something to ask you.” Jenny looked so serious that I wondered what had gone wrong now.
I turned to them – Jenny (my elder sister) and her fiance Rob – ready to listen to what she wanted. She had always treated me like shit. It was perhaps not very surprising, then, that I had plotted to kill her occasionally when we were younger, and I had always bottled out; when I was three years old, and she was five, I had an urge to push her into the pond and, when I was ten, and she was twelve, I was all set to trip her near a cliff edge to send her crashing down on to the beach a hundred feet below while we were on holiday with our parents. But now, when I was 22 and she was 24, I had grown out of such childish urges.
“Will you be the chief bridesmaid at our wedding?” Her sour look turned to a smile. She was always teasing me. And now she was serious.
I was thrilled. “Of course! I’d be delighted. And, Jenny, thank you for asking.” I’d never been a bridesmaid before, and I thought I’d been passed over again. All my friends had been bridesmaids at least once, and this was a rite of passage which had escaped me time and time again.
“That’s settled, then,” Rob smiled. “We’ll go out for a drink later and talk through our plans. Is tonight O.K. for you?”
Suddenly, it looked as if there was a glimmer of a promise that life might be turning round for me. It was about time, I thought.
Jenny had always been the family favourite. My whole family had spoiled her. Our parents had tried for over ten years to have a child – without any success – and then, out of the blue, Jenny arrived. And she was special. Very special. When I followed her into the world, a couple of years later, hardly anyone blinked. I didn’t matter. I was the afterthought.
Those horrible feelings that I harboured about Jenny gradually diluted with the passage of time as I came to glimpse the light at the end of the long tunnel of puberty. But the green monster lingered silently in the corner, no matter how hard I tried to ignore him.
My height didn’t help me. I was 6 feet tall. I didn’t look very feminine, either, apart from my average-sized breasts. I was teased mercilessly at school about my height and my looks, but I grew used to it. My big sister, naturally, was a more comfortable 5 feet 7 inches and, yes, she was blessed with an attractive face. She had a warm, confident personality and boys always sought her attention.
A couple of weeks before, when Jenny had first announced her engagement, I resolved that I had to get myself off the shelf. I rang a number that a friend had given me – the secretary of the local choral society. I had a reasonably good singing voice, I enjoyed music, and my friend suggested it might be a good way to broaden my horizons and meet people. The secretary said she’d get back to me when she could arrange a date for an audition. These guys didn’t take just anyone, it appeared.
I was settled in a job as a dental hygienist, and going nowhere fast. The dentists with whom I worked all remarked favourably on my patient-handling skills and general professionalism; most people – those outside my family, anyway – actually liked me.
But this wasn’t everything. Last year, at my 21st birthday party, I had wept. People who noticed had felt embarrassed and looked the other way, thinking I was bemoaning the loss of youth. But I was crying because I still hadn’t lost my virginity. Sure, I had had plenty to drink and that had influenced me; on those few occasions when I had been out with young men who wanted to fuck me, I had chickened out at the last minute. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with a vibrator for company, and I had to create my own opportunities to get a decent social life.
Up until the time when I was 19, I had one special friend, Carole. She and I went everywhere together; we’d known each other since we were seven years old, and had always been in the same class at school.
One day she rejoiced in telling me she had suddenly acquired a boyfriend, Larry. She talked about him endlessly; I was becoming bored with her chatter, but listened anyway. As I anticipated, we began to see less and less of each other; she was far more interested in Larry than me. His body was more interesting than my friendship.
Carole invited me round to see her one Saturday afternoon; Larry was out to watch a football match with some other lads, her parents were out and we would have the house to ourselves. It was a particularly warm day, I remembered; when I arrived at her front door, I rang the bell but there was no answer. I rang again. Nothing. But I heard Carole laughing from the rear of the house. Perhaps she was on the lawn in her back garden, sunbathing, and hadn’t heard me.
I went round the side of the house, and undid the back gate. There, I saw Carole with Larry, performing a sex act on each other. They were both naked. And they hadn’t seen me.
I quickly hid behind their garden shed, and watched them carefully. Carole was now standing against a high wall, and Larry was on his knees, licking her private parts. I shall never forget her face, screwed up in a contortion of ecstasy; she held his head as he performed this service to her.
“Oh, God, Larry, that’s fantastic. Don’t stop! Please! This is gorgeous!”
A feeling of utmost jealousy enveloped me. Why should she have this, and not me? I put my hand up my skirt, inside my panties, and began stroking myself. I was surprised to discover how wet I had already become down there. Envy had never hit me like this before: a blinding wall of intense green crashed into me, demanding that I take whatever I wanted. If she’s going to enjoy herself, I thought, I’m going to fucking enjoy it too. I didn’t care whether they saw me there or not.
I parted my legs and bent my knees, adopting Carole’s posture, and leaned against the shed and continued stroking myself. I noticed my underwear was getting wet. I rubbed myself faster; my clit grew very excited now, and I felt an overwhelming desire to abandon my body to the oncoming force. I noticed Carole gasp; Larry moved away and she cried out. She gasped for a few moments, her face changing into a delighted smile. Her orgasm had arrived.
But mine hadn’t.
Then Carole and Larry changed positions. But I couldn’t see his dick very easily; it was hidden by Carole’s head and she moved back and forth; his face was screwed up in the pleasure of a wild frenzy. I found this very frustrating now, because I hadn’t really seen a man’s dick close up, at least not in real life.
I began rubbing myself again; I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to bring back the image of Carole’s creased face as she was being masturbated by her boyfriend.
Then I heard him groan. And shout “Yes! Yes! Now!”
And I saw her hand wrapped round his cock, but I watched his sperm spurt out. I never knew it could be so powerful, that it could shoot so far.
In that instant, my orgasm came crashing through. I held my breath as I climaxed, not wanting to reveal my presence to Carole and Larry. I held that moment in my mind’s eye for months to come; whenever I felt the need to masturbate, I would remember this scene, I resolved.
I quietly let myself out from my hiding place, and returned up the passage at the side of the house. My thighs were wet; I had to stop, get out a tissue and mop up the residue of my cheap thrill.
Carole disappeared from my life abruptly; she moved away some three weeks later, without any warning, and without saying goodbye. I shrugged my shoulders; I had a couple of other friends in my social circle whom I began to see more often.
Jenny had a larger number of friends, although I sometimes doubted the sincerity of a few of them. I wondered if I would see them all at her wedding reception.
The phone rang. Jenny answered it, as usual.
“It’s for you. Choral society secretary.” She passed me the receiver.
I announced myself.
“Hello, Paula. The conductor wondered if you could spare him half an hour tomorrow evening for an audition? Is 7.30 all right for you? He just wants to determine the range of your voice and try out your sight-reading skills.”
“Yes, that would be fine.”
She gave me the address of his home, which wasn’t too far away, and hung up.
There was another dimension to Jenny’s impending marriage; she would be moving out of the family home and leaving me alone with our mother and father. I remembered hearing about previous generations in our family – and so many other families – where one daughter was doomed to spend her life in spinsterhood, caring for her parents while her siblings enjoyed life with their own families. That was not going to happen to me.
* * *
That evening, Jenny, Rob and I went round to the local pub to discuss various aspects of the wedding. When Jenny had asked me to be a bridesmaid, I didn’t realise until a little later that she must have already asked a friend to fulfil the role, and that her friend had had to pull out because the date clashed with her family’s holiday plans. So she had chosen me as “second best” for the job. This came as no surprise to me, in view of all that had happened before. I imagined our mother having had a quiet word with her and insist that it would have been more appropriate for her to approach me in the first place.
Rob went to the bar to buy the drinks.
“What colour dress do you want me in?” I asked.
“I was thinking about lilac. How do you feel about that?”
“You’re the boss. Lilac would be fine.”
“And we’d better get you along for rehearsal at the church – but that won’t be for a while yet.”
Rob returned to our table with a trayful of drinks. There was a fourth glass, containing a pint of beer. “That’s for my best man,” he explained. “He’ll be here in a few minutes. You haven’t met Andy, have you, Paula?”
“No.” But I had wondered about him. Guests at weddings frequently nudged each other when they saw the best man and bridesmaid together at the reception after the ceremony.
He sat down next to Jenny and I noticed him slip his hand up her skirt and rest on her thigh. She put her hand on his crotch. They just couldn’t keep their hands off each other and just didn’t seem to care.
“Rob! Jenny! Hi!” a deep voice called from behind me.
I turned round. A tall guy – probably in his early thirties – walked in, waving his arm at us. He was well-dressed in a suit and tie and, I guessed, had just finished his day job and popped into the pub on the way home.
“Here he is!” Rob smiled. “Paula, meet Andy. Andy, this is Jenny’s new bridesmaid, Paula.”
Andy stretched his hand across the table to shake mine. “And you’re Jenny’s sister, I’m told,” he smiled.
He seemed presentable enough, I thought, as he sat down between Rob and me.
But first impressions can sometimes have a very short lifespan. He turned to Rob, with his back to me, as they shared a joke. And then I heard Andy’s laugh. It resembled the sound of a braying donkey. He obviously didn’t know he was making such a ridiculous noise, and didn’t know when to stop either.
Jenny and I turned to each other and started talking about wedding gifts, wedding guests, how much involvement our parents were going to have in the preparations, and how much it was all going to cost.
Thankfully, Andy made his apologies and departed after his single drink. We three remained for a second drink, during which little was said between us; the lovebirds continued fumbling under the table and I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t rushed off somewhere to screw each other silly.
We finished our drinks and rose to leave the pub. Jenny went first; Rob gestured to me to follow, but I shook my head and allowed him to go next.
Near the door, I glanced into a large mirror. In the gloom, I thought my reflection seemed a little further away and smaller than I had expected. No, it wasn’t the drink: I’d only had a couple of straight orange juices.
I had to look again. It wasn’t my reflection. And it wasn’t a mirror; it was a large window. Someone else who looked almost exactly like me, dressed like me – in a red sweater and blue jeans – and light hair swept back like mine, although mine was a lot longer. We were the same height. There was only one difference: this person wasn’t wearing a bra. It was a man. He had stubble on his chin.
He smiled at me. I opened my mouth in surprise.
“Come on, Paula,” called Jenny.
I followed them out. I had heard of people having a doppelganger, but they were always the same sex. I shrugged my shoulders and dismissed the idea as we returned home.
* * *
The following evening, a Thursday, I went to visit Barry Scott, the conductor of the local choral society, for my audition.
We discussed the programmes undertaken by the society in the past few years to give me some idea of their repertoire – mostly works by Bach, Handel, Vaughan Williams, Faure, and other popular classical composers – and then he put me through my paces to assess my sight-reading skills.
“Not bad at all,” he remarked. “Much better than many of our members, I’d say. Now let’s try you with a few scales.”
At the end of the session, he was very encouraging.
“I wish you could have joined us sooner,” he said. “We could do with a few more voices like yours. We meet every Tuesday evening at 7.30 at the church hall, and we’re currently practicing for Bach’s St Matthew Passion. But I’m sure you know that already.”
I nodded.
“You have a rich, low range and I want to put you in the Second Altos. We’ve had a couple of members leave from that section, and you’ll be a very welcome replacement for them.”
I breathed more easily now. I was in.
We shook hands. “Welcome to the choral society, Paula.” He handed me a copy of the score. “You’ll need to look through this before next Tuesday.”
“Thanks very much,” I smiled.
I could hardly wait until my first practice; each evening until then, I shut myself away in my room and crawled through the score, singing softly to acquaint myself with the part sung by the second alto section.
Then, on Tuesday evening, I arrived ten minutes early; I was asked to sit at one side of the hall until the conductor arrived to introduce me. There were about eighty people there; I supposed the membership comprised twice as many ladies as men. Happily, I noticed one of the patients at our dental practice was a member, so there was at least one person whom I knew from the start. She gave me a wave and a grin.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Barry called as he walked in. He stood at the front and addressed the society. “We have a new second alto – Paula Bush. She passed her audition with flying colours and I’m sure she’ll be an asset to the society. Stand up, Paula.”
I stood, and was met with polite applause from the membership.
“We have to place you somewhere. We have a vacant seat right at the end of the second altos, next to the first tenors. There we are.”
He pointed to the seat where he wanted me to be, and I walked across to occupy it.
Then, to my surprise, I saw a familiar face looking up at me with a welcoming smile. It was him, my doppelganger.
“Good evening, Paula. I saw you at the pub one evening last week.”
I sat down, still looking at him, unable to speak.
He offered his hand. “Dan Collins. Welcome to our little singing club.”
Without trying to appear rude, I studied his face. Yes, it was so like mine, but I detected some stubble round his lips and chin, and his bones round his eyebrows were more pronounced. His hair was swept back, like mine, but was short at the back, while I had a ponytail.
Barry put us through a warm-up session and then, after five minutes, we began on Page One of the Bach score.
I listened to snatches of Dan’s singing voice when the altos rested; even the range of his voice resembled mine.
After three-quarters of an hour, we were given a 20 minute break. Everyone either turned to their neighbour and began speaking or got out of their chair and walked across to speak to someone else. Most of the ladies spoke to other ladies, and most of the men kept to their own group.
“This is where we get to gossip,” Dan said to me. “Some people might say this is the only reason they come here.”
I smiled. “You’re saying it’s a social club?”
“A very elite social club. You have to take a test before you can join.”
“And how long have you been coming?”
“About two years now, I should think.”
“Excuse me,” a lady in front turned round to us and butted in. I judged she was in her sixties. “Are you two related? You look so alike. Don’t you think so, Vera?”
Her neighbour Vera – of a similar age – turned round, looked at us, and agreed. “Yes, you’re right, Hazel. You know, they could be taken for twins. Obviously Dan’s a man, and you’re clearly a woman, because your features are softer – she gestured to me because she’d forgotten my name – but it looks as if you both came from the same pot.”
We laughed. “No, Hazel, we’re not related,” said Dan. “In fact, I’ve only glimpsed this lady – she’s Paula, by the way – I’ve only seen her once before in my life.”
Vera and Hazel looked at each other. “You know, Vera, it’s like one of those stories I’ve read, about two people separated at birth, and...”
“No, Hazel,” Dan cut in firmly, to save us both any embarrassment. Paula and I are not twins, we weren’t separated at birth, and any similarity is purely coincidental.”
The two ladies shrugged, turned back and began speaking about something else.
“Do you live locally?” Dan asked.
“Yes. I’ve come for a couple of the society’s concerts, but that was some years ago. I was probably in my last years at school then. Are you from around here?”
“No,” he answered. “I’m from Buckford, around six miles away. I love music, and there’s nothing there for me to do.”
“And no pubs there either, I suppose, since I saw you in our local the other day.”
“Oh, I was visiting an old friend. I’d spent the day researching my family tree and thought I’d round off the evening by taking him out for a drink.”
“That’s interesting. Did you find any surprises about your family?”
“Not really, although -“
“O.K., ladies and gentlemen, I have a few announcements to make.” The secretary stood up to bring the attention of everyone to some forthcoming events, and Dan never completed his sentence.
After the announcements, we went straight into the second half of our practice. I felt that my voice was being stretched more in this session than the first half. Perhaps that was the way the conductor worked, trying to bring out the best in us as the evening progressed.
At the end of the evening, Dan wished me goodnight, and said he’d see me next week. In front of us, Hazel and Vera turned and gave me a smile and a nod as they left the hall.
Walking home, I felt exhilarated by the music. There were several times during the course of the evening when I wished I could have stopped singing so I could listen to the rest of the voices in harmony together.
I let myself into the house, greeted my parents – sitting comatose in their armchairs watching something on television – and made myself a cup of tea. I took it upstairs to my room.
Then I sat down and thought about Dan. I looked at myself in my dressing-table mirror and wondered whether there was any reason why we should resemble each other so closely. I dimmed the light switch and looked again in the mirror. The likeness was quite astonishing now; it was as if I could see him looking at me in the privacy of my bedroom. There was something intensely erotic about the ambience, in the subdued lighting.
Absently, my hand fell on my lap and I touched myself. I could look at him in the mirror and imagine he was masturbating with me, his hand moving at the same rhythm as mine. I was in the mood to pleasure myself. Or to pretend to watch him pleasuring himself. My fingers reached inside my underwear; I was soaked in the excitement of his closeness. I moved to the edge of the chair and stroked myself slowly with my middle finger; it had never been this intimate before. I longed for this man in my mirror. I could give myself to him. Totally. I reached beneath my bra and felt the hardening nipple. I wanted his hand there, coaxing it, teasing me. And I wanted his cock at the gateway between my legs, ready to slide in when it was ready....
CHAPTER 2
I found it hard to concentrate at the dental surgery the next morning. Luckily, nobody seemed to notice any lack of attention on my part, but it was hard not to allow my mind to wander and think about Dan at the choral society practice the previous evening.
At lunchtime, I found myself wondering whether I had ever felt sexually attracted to any other man like this before. There had been schoolgirl crushes on older boys and even some of the male teachers, but this had to be different. I scolded myself for being so immature. For all I knew, he might be already married with a nest of growing children. I didn’t know his surname, what he did for a living, or how old he was.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask him, but I had to be subtle enough not to be seen to be throwing myself at him. My family had always been considered me to be gauche – probably because of my height – and, as I result, I was incredibly self-conscious. I was assured by my parents that I still had so much to learn about men.
When I returned home, my mother cooked dinner as usual, and the four of us sat round the table at the appointed time, which was invariably 6 o’clock. Jenny was anxious to get away as quickly as possible to see Rob that evening; he and the braying Andy were entertaining her at some hostelry a few miles away.
Just as we were finishing, the telephone rang. My father sighed and answered it.
“It’s for you, Paula,” he said. “A lady from the choral society.”
I rose and reached across for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hello, Paula. I’m sorry to disturb you. I’ll be quick. I’ve had an enquiry from Daniel Collins – he’s a tenor in the choral society, and I think you were sitting next to him last night. He asked me if I could give him your telephone number – he says he has something to tell you, and he doesn’t want to wait until next Tuesday. I thought I ought to ring you first to get your permission to give him your number. Or, he said, it would be O.K. for me to give you his number, and you can ring him.”
I wondered what on earth he wanted to say to me. “Yes, it’s all right for you to give him my number,” I replied. “And thanks for phoning.”
I quickly hung up and returned to my place at table.
“I’m off now,” said Jenny, jumping up from the table and grabbing her bag. Through the open door, I saw her grasp her coat in the hall, and we heard the front door slam behind her.
My parents ignored her. “What was that about, dear?” my mother asked me.
“Someone from the choral society wants to contact me.”
“A man, was it?”
“Yes. I was sitting next to him last night. He says he needs to speak to me.”
“What about?” asked my father.
“I really don’t know. Perhaps I dropped something and he picked it up and wants to return it to me. I’ve no idea.”
“You want to be careful, dear,” my mother said. “There are a lot of strange people about who could try to take advantage of you.”
“I’m a big girl now. I can take care of myself.” I got up and cleared the dishes from the table. My parents looked at each other. I had seen that look so many times before. Once Jenny was married, there would be some changes. I wouldn’t be too far out of the door behind her. I don’t know how I was going to make it happen, but I was determined to get out before it was too late.
I started washing up in the kitchen. My father followed, and grabbed a tea towel.
“It’s OK. I’ll dry up too. You go back and watch television.”
He shrugged and left me alone.
What on earth did Dan want to speak to me about? I asked myself. I would just have to wait and find out. The society secretary had offered to give me his number, but I didn’t want my parents to think I was desperately chasing after the first man who appeared on my horizon this year.
Just as I was finishing in the kitchen, the telephone rang again.
“I’ll get it!” I called to my parents, as I rushed into the hall to pick up the receiver.
I announced our number and my name.
“Hi, Paula. It’s Dan from the choral society. Remember me from last night?”
“Yes.” I checked that the lounge door was open so that my parents could eavesdrop if they wanted to.
“I wonder if we could meet sometime. Remember last night that I said I’d been doing some research? Well, I don’t want to go into details now but I’ve got something to show you. I can guarantee that it will be of special interest to you. And I need your input to complete the picture. Can we meet?”
“Well...”
“Paula, I can probably guess what’s going through your mind. This isn’t a crazy ploy to tempt you out on a date.”
“You could come round to our house.”
“You live with your parents, don’t you? Then that would not be a good idea. You’ll have to trust me on this. I promise you, there are good reasons for my not coming to your home.”
It sounded very mysterious. But I was hooked. “O.K., then. How about tomorrow night?”
“At the same pub where we first saw each other? How about 7 o’clock?”
“All right, then. But my sister sometimes goes in there with her fiance.”
“We can find a quiet spot to talk.”
“O.K. See you tomorrow.”
I put the phone down, and went upstairs to my room.
“Who was that, dear?” I heard my mother call.
I chose not to hear her. I sat at my dressing table and looked in the mirror. What should I do with myself to look different tomorrow evening?
Then I asked myself: Why should I want to make changes to my appearance? Why should I want to look more attractive for him? It wasn’t a date, after all. He was working on a project and had found something which might interest me. That’s all.
Men don’t normally make great changes to their appearance. Occasionally they might change their hairstyle or grow a beard or moustache. But I hoped he’d look exactly the same when I saw him the following evening: almost exactly the same as I looked now, when I stared at myself in the mirror.
Instinctively, I touched myself. No, I thought. I must resist the temptation. This is like eating treats between meals. Let’s just see what happens tomorrow evening.
I lay back on my bed, and picked up the music score, leafing through the pages until I came to a passage that needed more of my attention. I hummed the alto line to myself until I was satisfied that I had it right. It seemed such a pity that we would only perform it once, then put it away for another five years and try and remember it all over again. But that’s the way of things.
This was no good. I couldn’t stay cooped up here this evening. I went downstairs, put on my coat and told my mother I was going for a short walk round the block to clear my head.
* * *
I arrived at the pub promptly at seven the next evening, scanned the scene and found Dan sitting at a table in the far corner.
“Hi, Paula,” he stood to greet me as I approached. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll have an orange juice, please.”
He went to the bar to order my drink, and I sat down opposite his place at the table. It wasn’t long before he was back with my orange juice.
“This sounds all very mysterious,” I began. “What’s it all about?”
He pulled out an envelope from his brief case, and from it he extracted a large sheet of paper which he spread across the table. “You remember at the choral society practice the other night, people were joking that they thought we were related?”
“Yes. Vera and Hazel.”
“Well, it’s just possible that we might have some kind of family connection. Look, I’ve set out my family tree here.” He began to explain everything carefully, his finger moving to each person in the chart, working back through the generations. “We start with me, and my sister Yvonne, and move back to my parents Peter and Laura. Then there are my father’s parents, John and Marjorie, and then her parents are William and Sarah.”
“Your greatgrandparents.”
“That’s right. Now Sarah’s maiden name was Bush, the same as yours. And she was born right here, a couple of streets away, but moved to Birmingham when she married. So I was wondering if your family have always lived in this town.”
“I’m not sure, going that far back. I’d have to ask my grandmother – she would know. I could go and see her on Saturday and ask.”
“If she has any old documents – birth or marriage certificates – that would help. And any old photographs.”
“Photographs don’t help, do they?”
“Ah. I’ve got something else to show you. I have an old photograph of Sarah here.”
He showed me the old sepia photograph, grainy and creased in the corners.
“Look at the face. Ignore the hairstyle. Does it remind you of anyone?”
I looked carefully, and recoiled. “Me. She looks just like... us.”
“Exactly. Now I did a little work on genetics at university, and certain features can skip one or more generations. Sarah’s features were inherited from one of her parents, who could be our common ancestor – a great-great-grandparent. And it looks as if her looks been suppressed and now they’ve reappeared in our generation.”
“This is extraordinary, if my grandmother can confirm that this Sarah was related to one of my greatgrandparents.”
“Of course, it may just be a coincidence.”
“But we’re the same height and build, more or less, allowing for certain... sexual differences.”
He chuckled. “And the same hairstyle, allowing for certain differences in length.”
“But why were you so reluctant to bring these materials round to my home so that my parents could examine them? They might have been able to cast some light on this Sarah and her family, if we really are related.”