It Started With A Kiss

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Betty gave a heavy sigh. ‘I still miss your grandma so much, you know. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of all the fun times we used to have together in the theatre.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Angelica murmured sympathetically.

She, too, deeply regretted the loss of her grandmother. Even in her old age and during her last, long illness, the elderly woman had possessed a bright, sparkling mind and a vibrant personality. Angelica knew, from the trunks of old costumes, photographs and posters, that her grandmother had once been outstandingly beautiful, and a star on the musical comedy stage, before leaving the bright lights behind her to marry old Sir Tristram’s grandson. Betty, who’d been her dresser in the theatre for many years, had insisted on accompanying her to Lonsdale House where, as her old nanny had so often pointed out, they’d all lived happily every after.

‘Ooo… the parties we used to have!’ Betty murmured, pausing in her dusting to stare into space for a moment. “There always seemed to be so much life and laughter in this house. But nowadays it’s more like a morgue,’ she added with a heavy sigh.

Angelica had to admit that Betty was right. She herself could just remember the glittering dinner parties and crowded, exciting receptions which had taken place when she’d been a small girl. However, as her grandmother had grown older and more infirm, fewer and fewer people had come to the house. Following her grandmother’s death two years ago, the large building now seemed to have become nothing but a dusty museum. Although Angelica made sure that Lonsdale House was open to the public once a week—as she was obliged to do by the terms of the trust—they very seldom had more than one or two visitors.

She really couldn’t blame people for not coming to the house in droves, she told herself glumly. Sir Tristram’s collection might be an interesting and fascinating one, but even she could see that the whole place required a completely radical overhaul. But, in order to put a fresh approach into action, she knew that she would need both expert advice and a great deal of money.

‘You’d better hurry up. If you don’t get a move on, you’ll be late!’ Betty’s warning voice broke into her dismal thoughts.

‘Yes—you’re right,’ Angelica muttered with a quick glance at one of the many large clocks scattered about the hall. Swiftly gathering up her handbag, she ran towards the front door. ‘Oh, by the way, I won’t be back until quite late this afternoon,’ she added. ‘I’ve promised to go and have tea with old Lady Marshall.’

‘Rather you than me, any day. That old hag is a right battleaxe!’ the older woman called out, her scornful peal of laughter echoing in Angelica’s ears as she hurried down the street.

There was clearly no love lost between her old nanny and Lady Marshall. Unfortunately, Betty had known the imperious old lady when she’d been plain Doreen Summers, kicking up her legs in the back row of the chorus. ‘A very flighty piece she was, too,’ Betty had said. ‘If Doreen hadn’t caught old Sir Edward Marshall’s eye, and frogmarched him to the altar, goodness knows where she might have ended up!’

However, as Angelica got off the bus at Sloane Square, she was far less interested in Lady Marshal’s past than in her present position as chairman of the board of trustees responsible for the maintenance and upkep of Lonsdale House… Of course, Betty was quite right. There was no doubt that the elderly lady was an extremely tiresome and difficult womam. Unfortunately, with her very strong, forcful personality, she had become the dominant voice among the other trusts, who all weakly bowed to her will.

Having greeted the group of people gathered together for her tour, with some latecomers still arriving, Angelica was still preocaupied with wondering exactly how to dealt with Lady Marshall. It was vitally important that the elderly woman should fully understand the immediate, desperate problems she was now facing with Lonsdale House.

Collecting the small fee for the tour, and automatically handing back the small yellow receipts, plus any necessary change, Angelica was just wondering if she could put forward the idea of obtaining advice from the Victoria and Albert Museum, when a deeply voiced ‘thank you’ caught her attention.

Looking more closely at the long, tanned fingers of the hand into which she was just placing a receipt, whose wrist was clasped by a distinctly familiar, wafer-thin gold watch, she suddenly felt faint. All the breath seemed to have been driven from her body, as though she’d been hit by a swift, violent blow to the solair plus. Feeling quite sick, her eyes ’slowly travelled up the dark sleeve of the immaculately cut suit towards the broad shoulders and…

This couldn’t be happening to her! Angelica clamped her eyelids tightly shut for a moment, fervently praying that she was mistaken. Could she be suffering from a very brief, temporary hallucination? But when she opened her dazed blue eyes again she realised that she was way out of luck. Because standing there and regarding her with a mocking, sardonic smile was the man who’d caused her such distress and emotional trauma only a few days ago.

‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped breathlessly.

‘I thought it might be interesting to learn something about the history of Chelsea,’ he drawled coolly, his lips twitching with amusement at her expression of consternation and horror. ‘I’m also looking forward to seeing if you are any better informed about this area of London than you were about the City.’

Ignoring the hateful man’s slur on her competence, Angelica quickly tried to pull herself together. ‘Go away!’ she spat through clenched teeth. ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with you!’

‘Well, I’m afraid that you don’t have any choice in the matter,’ he murmured sardonically, holding up the yellow receipt. ‘You have taken my money— which means that we now have a contract between us.’

What was it about this terrible man which could send her into a blind fury in just five seconds flat? Angelica asked herself wrathfully. And did paying his money really give him a lawful right to join

the tour?

‘So, OK—go ahead and sue me!’ she ground out defiantly. ‘Because you are definitely, absolutely not accompanying me on this tour today.’

The man raised a dark eyebrow, staring down at her blandly for a moment, before reaching Inside his expensive dark suit. Producing an equally expensive-looking leather wallet, he extracted a small white business card.

‘My dear girl, I have no intention of suing you,’ he informed her coolly. ‘However, if you continue to refuse to allow me to join this tour, I suggest that you give my card to your employer. You can tell him that he’ll be hearing from my lawyers— about a possible action for damages.’

‘A what…?’ Angelica stared up at him in dawning horror. ‘You’ve got to be kidding?’

The man shook his dark head. ‘By using totally incompetent guides such as yourself, your employer is clearly responsible for taking money under false pretences,’ he drawled silkily. Placing his business card in her nervously shaking hand, he added, ‘I can assure you that it will give me great pleasure—plus the considerable satisfaction of performing a public duty, of course—to put both him and his ramshackle firm out of business.’

‘You…you can’t possibly do that!’ she protested angrily.

‘Would you like to place a bet on it?’ he drawled, the hard, confident note in his voice sending shivers of fright scudding up and down her spine.

He gazed past her, to where the other members of the group were clearly becoming restless.

“It would seem that you have only a few seconds to come to a decision, Angelica. If you delay any longer, it looks as though I’m not going to be the only client to complain about the way your employer runs his business!’

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_bfefd6bc-018a-5d2b-b0ea-3ec053faa745)

THIS was definitely not one of her better tours, Angelica told herself glumly, staring blindly at an oil painting on the wall, while the other members of her group inspected the ancient hammer-beam roof and oriel windows of Crosby Hall.

She’d had no choice but to give in, of course. Despite practically dancing with rage in the middle of Sloane Square, Angelica had quickly realised that the awful man’s dire threats to sue her employer, David Webster, had virtually settled the argument. She wouldn’t have minded standing up in the High Court and telling the whole world just how objectionable the man really was. In fact, she’d have relished the chance to do so! But she really couldn’t expose poor David to the possibility of legal proceedings. Especially when the conflict had absolutely nothing to do with the conduct of his business, and far more—if she was to be entirely honest— with an overwhelming personality clash between herself and the man, whose name appeared to be Luke Cunningham.

‘This doesn’t mean a thing!’ she’d snorted, grimacing at the small white business card which he’d placed in her hand. ‘It wouldn’t take you more than five minutes to have one of these printed—with any name you chose to put on it. For all I know, you could be Jack the Ripper!’ she’d added belligerently, squinting down in the sunshine at the small print, which merely stated in capital letters ‘LUKE CUNNINGHAM’, and in the bottom left-hand corner the words ‘Cornhill Bank, Bishopsgate’.

‘Don’t be so stupid—of course that’s my real name!’ he snapped, clearly annoyed and put out by her temerity in suggesting otherwise.

‘Oh, yes?’ she queried sarcastically, before giving a bark of jeering, scornful laughter which she hoped he would find profoundly irritating. Although Angelica was well aware, from the sounds of general unrest in the group behind her, that she couldn’t afford to stand here arguing with this man for much longer, she was quite determined to fight Mr Luke Cunningham every inch of the way.

‘If you think that I’m likely to be impressed by the fact that you work in a bank, you couldn’t be more wrong!’ she added scathingly. ‘Bank managers, are definitely not my favourite people at the moment.’

‘Well, in that case you will be relieved to hear that I most certainly am not a bank manager!’ he told her grimly, a stormy glint of anger in his hooded grey eyes.

‘So, OK, you’re a lowly worm, slaving away behind the till. So who cares?’ she exclaimed, before deliberately tearing up his business card and tossing the bits high up into the air.

Almost laughing out loud at the expression of indignation and outrage on his handsome, tanned face as the little white pieces fluttered slowly down on to the pavement about his feet, Angelica nervously stood her ground as he took a threatening step forward.

‘It’s clearly time that someone gave you a good hiding!’ he growled. ‘And, believe me, I’d be happy to volunteer for the job!’

‘I just bet you would, you… you pervert!’

‘What did you say?’

‘I can see it all now,’ she ground out furiously, refusing to be intimidated by his tall, dominant figure, or the dark brows drawn together in a startled, angry frown. ‘That explains why you assaulted me the other day, right? I might have known that you’re the awful, disgusting sort of man who gets his kicks from attacking strange women. Well, you’d better not try it again, sunshine—not unless you want to be arrested and thrown into gaol! Because I must have at least twenty witnesses back there.’ She gestured behind her towards the group of walkers impatiently waiting for the tour to begin.

Angrily defiant, she was both astounded and totally confused when he suddenly threw back his head, and roared with laughter.

‘Oh, Angelica! What an amazingly funny girl you are!’ he declared, his broad shoulders shaking with amusement. ‘However, just before you clap me in prison,’ he added with a mocking grin, ‘I’d be fascinated to hear your explanation of just why you responded so enthusiastically to my—er—assault the other day?’

‘I did no such thing!’ she gasped, her face flaming with embarrassment as he gave a low, taunting laugh.