It Started With A Kiss

‘Haven’t you got that tea made yet?’ Betty grumbled as she bustled into the kitchen. ‘I don’t know… a young girl like you, daydreaming all the time. What you need is a nice young man,’ she added, sighing thankfully as she sank down into a comfortable chair.

‘The last thing I want is a “nice young mian”, thank you very much! haven’t forgotten that rat, Nigel Browning, even if you have,’ Angelica retorted grimly as she poured boiling water on to the tea-leaves in the pot.

‘Yes, well…’ Betty muttered, two high spots of colour flaring in her cheeks. ‘I made a bit of a mistake there.’

‘Let’s face it, Betty—he charmed the socks off both of us,’ Angelica sighed, reaching up into a cupboard for some cups and saucers.

How could she have been so foolish as to fall, hook, line and sinker, for that smooth-talking bastard Nigel Browning? Even now, almost a year later, Angelica simply couldn’t understand why she’d been such an idiot. She’d had lots of casual boyfriends at university, of course. But her grandmother’s long terminal illness had left her very little time for any private life. So maybe it was her youth and inexperience which had led to her becoming so blindly infatuated with the attractive rogue? Although even Betty—who was normally a very shrewd judge of character—had also been captivated by the rotten man’s overwhelming charm.

Looking back at the distressing episode, she could still feel almost sick with embarrassment. It was humiliating to have to acknowledge what a fool she’d made of herself—and over a man who was, it transpired, nothing but a professional con man! So professional, in fact, that it had taken Angelica some time before she could bring herself to believe the police, when they’d told her that Nigel had been caught red-handed, trying to sell part of Sir Tristram’s valuable collection of gold snuff-boxes.

‘That’s the way it goes, sweetie. It was just my bad luck to get caught,’ he’d admitted with a shrug and one of his charming smiles when she’d rushed to the police station, quite convinced that he must be the victim of a terrible mistake.

But it was clearly she who’d made such a terrible mistake. Deeply scarred by the shame of having been so easily duped, Angelica was determined that she would never, never again allow herself to fall so disastrously in love with anyone—let alone Betty’s idea of a ‘nice young man’!

‘Do you know what I need at the moment?’ she told the other woman as she poured them both a cup of tea. ‘What I really need is to get my hands on a very large sum of money.’

Betty nodded. ‘All that work on the roof isn’t going to come cheap. Do you reckon you’ve got insurance cover for the storm damage?’

‘I hope so,’ Angelica sighed. ‘But now that a problem has also arisen over the roof timbers, I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that the trust will pay for the necessary repairs.’ She gave an unhappy shrug. ‘If only we could find Mrs Eastman, maybe she and I could get together and really put this house in order.’

Following her grandmother’s death over two years ago, Angelica had discovered that she was one of two heiresses to the property, sharing her inheritance with a very distant relative who apparently lived in America. Although the trustees had done their best to trace the woman—a Mrs Elizabeth Eastman, aged approximately sixty years of age, who was descended from a brother of old Sir Tristram—they had drawn a blank so far. However, until the other beneficiary had been found, the trustees had agreed that Angelica could continue to live in the house and receive a small income from the trust, providing that she maintain the house and open it once a week to interested visitors, as outlined in Sir Tristram’s will.

None of which was a problem, Angelica told herself as she sipped the hot liquid. Having lived in the large old house with her grandmother, ever since her own parents’ death in a car crash in France when she was only ten years old, she dearly loved the place which she’d always thought of as home. Unfortunately, keeping the old building in good repair seemed to take up virtually every penny of her income from the trust. Every day Lonsdale House seemed to become more and more expensive to maintain in good order. Although she’d managed to pay the bills so far, a large and worrying problem had arisen over the roof timbers, which were apparently in a terrible state and would have to be replaced.

How on earth was she going to find the money? The small amount of money she earned from working for David Webster wasn’t enough to pay for her food, let alone anything else. And Betty had only a small private pension. It had seemed, therefore, that the obvious solution would be for her to try and get a full-time job. However, since open days at Lonsdale House required at least two people to be in attendance, that idea had proved to be totally impractical, because any salary she might earn would only have to go to pay the wages of a curator. It seemed to be an insuperable problem, and one which she couldn’t seem to resolve however hard she tried.

‘If only you could sell some of those paintings,’ Betty said, echoing her own thoughts. ‘There’s one or two in the dining-room—nasty, gloomy things they are too!—which we could well do without.’

‘It’s no good.’ Angelica shook her head. ‘I’ve already tried to persuade the trustees to part with some of the minor paintings, which would certainly solve all our problems. But they simply won’t budge from the terms of old Sir Tristram’s will.’

‘Well, I’d better get back to work before my old bones completely seize up,’ Betty said, putting down her cup and easing herself up from the chair. ‘And you’d better get a move on. I hope you’re not intending to go out in those dirty old jeans?’

‘No, of course not.’ Angelica grinned, putting an affectionate arm around the elderly woman’s stout figure as they left the kitchen. ‘You know what your trouble is, don’t you? You simply can’t seem to understand that now I’m grown-up I no longer need a nanny!’

‘Humph!’

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ignoring Betty’s loud snort of derision, ‘I’ve still got a lot of work to do before deciding what to wear for the tour this afternoon.’

‘You’ll have trouble finding anything decent,’ Betty reminded her gloomily. ‘With the rainwater gushing through that wardrobe of yours, it will be some time before we can get anything dried out.’

Angelica shrugged. ‘Never mind—I expect I’ll find something to wear. And as a last resort I can always raid Granny’s old costume hampers. After all, it’s only a short two-hour walk around the City. And since the group is likely to consist mostly of young students, it really won’t matter what I look like,’ she added as they continued to climb up the old oak staircase.

Later that afternoon, over four miles away in the City of London, Luke Cunningham had just finished signing the papers in front of him.

‘OK, that’s it, Norma.’ He raised his head to give his middle-aged personal assistant a warm smile of approval. ‘Is there anything else I ought to look at?’

‘There is just one item. Mr Richards was anxious for you to see this, as soon as possible.’ She handed him a file.

Gazing down at her boss, who was swiftly scanning the papers in front of him, Norma reflected that the last two years seemed to have passed by in a flash. Ever since the dynamic, high-powered Mr Cunningham had won the fierce take-over battle for Cornhill International, merging it with his own private merchant bank, it had seemed as if the whole of this huge, seven-storey office block in the City of London had been turned upside-down!

Almost from the first day he’d arrived in the office, news of Luke Cunningham’s rapid expansion of the company had seldom been out of the financial press. With the newspapers full of stories about the ‘Hot-Shot City Financier of the Nineties’, Norma had been unsure about her ability to cope with such an energetic and vigorous man— who reportedly ate secretaries for breakfast! However, Mr Cunningham had seemed to be very pleased with her efforts. Quickly finding herself promoted to the post of his personal assistant, she’d also been given a massive rise in salary, and two extra girls to help share the workload in the office.

Despite being permanently run off her feet, she loved her job—even if her elderly, invalid mother was apt to become tetchy when Norma had to work late at the office. She also had the considerable satisfaction of knowing that she was deeply envied by almost every other woman in the building.

‘I’d kill for your job—Mr Cunningham is so gorgeous and sexy!’ one of the young typists had sighed the other day, before Norma had briskly put the silly girl firmly in her place.

However, as her eyes now flicked over his dark head, Norma couldn’t help recalling a phrase often used in her favourite romantic novels. ‘Tall, dark and handsome’ was a description which might have been coined for the new chairman. Not only was he much taller than most men, there was something powerful and decidedly dangerous about the way he moved. Beneath the exquisitely cut, handtailored suit his body was lean and hard, with broad, muscular shoulders and narrow hips. His thick, dark hair swept down over his well-shaped head, clinging seductively to the nape of his neck, while his hard, tanned features and firm chin were those of a man to be reckoned with. It was an impression reinforced by the glittering grey eyes set beneath heavy eyelids, which even her middle-aged heart found profoundly disturbing.

And so did a lot of other women, Norma acknowledged wryly. A single multimillionaire of thirty-six, living in a small penthouse apartment overlooking Hyde Park, was bound to have a full social life. And Mr Cunningham was clearly no exception. Every day there seemed to be one glamorous female after another on the telephone—while his astronomically large bills for bouquets of flowers must surely be keeping the local florist in business!

Luke closed the file, leaning back in his leather chair for a moment, gazing at the shafts of brilliant sunlight streaming in through the large plate-glass window at the far end of the room.

‘OK, Norma—tell Richards I’ll see him tomorrow morning,’ he said, before rising to his feet and walking slowly across the thick beige carpet.

Staring down through the window at the tall trees in a nearby churchyard, whose, fresh green leaves were dancing in the light breeze, Luke was suddenly swept by an almost overwhelming urge to quit this modern, multi-storey building of glass and steel. And why not? It was far too nice a day to be cooped up inside a stuffy office block.

Ten minutes later, Luke had left the large building. Relishing the rare opportunity to stretch his legs and enjoy the bright sunshine of a warm June afternoon, he walked slowly down Bishopsgate, one of the main thoroughfares of the busy City of London.

Always fascinated by the history and ancient customs of the city in which he worked, he decided to stroll in the direction of the Thames, from whose docks and wharfs had flowed the wealth responsible for making London the heart of a world-wide trading empire. Striding through Leadenhall market with its ornate, glass-roofed arcade and on past the Monument, he crossed over London Bridge.

But when, some time later, he was slowly retracing his steps over the dark waters of the Thames, the sight of a young couple walking hand in hand reminded him it really was about time he came to a firm decision about Eleanor.

The senior partner of a prestigious accountancy firm, Eleanor Nicholson was a clever, forceful and sophisticated woman who’d made no secret of the fact that she wished to marry him. And he was quite sure that Eleanor would make a perfect wife. She was cool, calm and collected, and there was very little that was capable of disturbing her unruffled composure. She was always beautifully dressed, cooked like a dream and was a marvellous hostess. As one of his oldest male friends had pointed out the other day, what more could he possibly want?

He certainly wasn’t looking for ‘true love’, Luke told himself with a wry, sardonic grin. Both he and Eleanor were in complete agreement on that score, neither of them having any time for such an untidy, juvenile emotion. It had been very different when he was younger, of course. Looking back at his callow youth, it seemed to Luke as if he’d been violently infatuated with one totally unsuitable woman after another! But now that he’d reached a reasonably sober age in life—without ever having permanently lost his head or his heart to any woman—it was clearly time that he settled down to a life of quiet, calm domesticity. And, since he was taking Eleanor out to dinner at Le Gavroche tomorrow night, that was obviously the ideal time and place for a proposal of marriage.

Pleased to have come to a firm decision regarding his future, Luke’s attention was drawn to an odd assortment of people standing around the base of the Monument. They appeared to be listening to an extraordinary-looking girl, who was pointing at the tall column behind her.

Despite telling himself that she was undoubtedly a crazy, left-wing rabble-rouser, Luke was intrigued by the way the girl was dressed—and the sight of her long and straight ash-blonde hair, shimmering and sparkling in the bright sunlight. A moment later, he found himself stepping off the pavement and walking slowly across the road.

‘And now we come to a very important point in the history of the city of London—the Great Fire of 1666,’ Angelica told the group standing in front of her.

Considering that she’d never done this particular tour before, she was pleased at just how well things had been going over the past half-hour. In fact, although she was carrying a clipboard, holding a map of the route and a few hastily scribbled notes, she’d hardly had to use it.

Of course, she was less than thrilled at having to wear these awful clothes, but they were the only garments she’d been able to find which hadn’t been soaked by last night’s rainstorm. Luckily, none of her group seemed at all perturbed by the weird ensemble of tight black and white striped leggings, topped by a gentleman’s crimson silk waistcoat over a fine white lawn shirt edged with heavy lace ruffles at her neck and wrists. So who cared if she looked like the principal boy in a pantomime? All that mattered was the fact that, despite the narrow city streets which made it difficult to keep track of the numbers in her party, everyone still seemed to be with her—and really interested in what she had to say.

Proceeding to tell her audience of young backpacking Australians, some bored housewifes, two inscrutable Japanese businessmen and several elderly American tourists all about the Great Fire which had destroyed over eighty per cent of London, Angelica found that even she herself was becoming caught up in the drama of the story.

‘The fire raged through the city for four days and nights, devastating over thirteen thousand houses and businesses, before it was finally put out. This column is known as the Monument.’ She turned to put her hand on the tall stone edifice behind her. ‘It was erected to commemorate the Great Fire, and—’

‘No, I’m afraid that’s not right.’

The sound of the deep voice, cutting across her flow of words, threw her into momentary confusion.

‘Um—-er—’ She blinked, her wide blue eyes

quickly scanning the group. However, since no one seemed disposed to say anything further, she decided to press on. ‘As I was saying, this column was built to commemorate the Great Fire of 1666, and—’