It Started With a Kiss Read online

  ‘I wasn’t that bad!’ she protested.

  ‘Oh, yes, you were,’ he grinned. ‘But then we kissed…and, to use Betty’s immortal phrase, I was absolutely gobsmacked! I didn’t know what was happening to me—but, whatever it was, I knew that it had definitely started with that kiss! I had to see you again, to hold you in my arms… I sometimes wondered if I was going out of my mind, because I couldn’t leave you alone! I was driven to possess you—totally and utterly. I’d never known anything like it. So I don’t see how I was supposed to know that it was really love, and not the sort of rampant lust which Norma reads about in her spare time.’

  ‘However did you know that?’ Angelica demanded.

  ‘I know everything that goes on in my office. But, out in the everyday world, it seems that I’m more than capable of being foolishly blind, just like everyone else!’

  ‘Well, you mustn’t tell Norma that you know, or she’ll think I told you. I really like her, and I wouldn’t want her to be upset.’

  ‘Yes, Norma’s a pearl among women,’ he agreed. ‘In fact, I used her to help me find out all about you. I knew that if I rang your tour outfit they might be suspicious of a man asking for the name of a female guide. So I got Norma to do it, and to find out where you were next going to be, after that tour of the City.’

  ‘You rotter!’ she laughed, giving him a sharp dig in the ribs. ‘That was downright sneaky of you! I nearly went mad worrying about how you’d found out my name and address.’

  ‘The name was easy. It was the address which was the puzzler. In fact, I had to buy half of David Webster’s company just so I could get a look at his address book.

  ‘What?’ She raised herself up on an elbow, storing down at him in astonishment. ‘Do you mean to tell me…?’

  ‘Hmm, I’m afraid so,’ he muttered, flushing slightly as she glared at him. ‘I seem to have spent much of my time trying to keep tabs on you. Betty was a great help, of course. It was she, for instance, who told me that you were going to be at that exhibition in Leighton House, which gave me time to organise our meal at the Ritz. And it’s no good being angry with her,’ he added with a laugh, adroitly moving aside as Angelica tried to kick him with her heavy plaster cast, ‘because, as you know, she loves you dearly, and only wants you to be happy. Luckily, she considers that I’m absolutely the right person to make sure of that!’

  ‘If I didn’t love you so much, I might think that you were an arrogant, conceited swine!’ she grumbled.

  ‘And you’d probably be right!’ he agreed with a grin, before tenderly pressing his lips to the warm, scented valley between her breasts. ‘Quite frankly, darling, I think I must have become almost insane as far as you were concerned. For instance, after I’d caught sight of you with your arms around a tall, fair-haired man in the street, I nearly went berserk! That’s when I had to make sure that I bought a controlling interest in Footsteps in Time, and got you well away from any attractive men.’

  She gazed at him in puzzlement for a moment, before giggling and throwing herself back on the pillows. ‘Oh, you are an idiot, Luke. If that was Greg, and I think it must have been, you’ve been wasting your time! I mean, he’s a dear friend, but he doesn’t… well, he doesn’t go out with women, if you know what I mean?’

  ‘Ah—I may have miscalculated slightly there,’ he admitted with a grin. ‘But by insisting on only having blue badge guides—which is good for business anyway—I made sure of putting pressure on you, when I was trying to get you to marry me. Not that I cared a fig for that crazy old house, of course, although I’ve now become extremely fond of it. But you loved it. So, offering to take over your burdens, and thus enabling you to continue living there, seemed the best route to your heart.’

  ‘But I thought…Eleanor said…’

  ‘That bloody woman!’ he exploded. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he added quickly, ‘but when I think of what she tried to do to you… I could quite cheerfully murder the evil woman!’

  ‘I think you’d better tell me all about her, and then… then, maybe, we can forget she ever existed?’ Angelica asked quietly.

  ‘The sooner we can forget her, the better I’ll feel,’ he agreed grimly, before taking a deep breath. ‘Well, I’d better get it over with, I suppose, and admit that I have, in the past, had a spasmodic affair with Eleanor. She never captured my heart, as you have so clearly done, and, if I could deny the awkward truth, believe me I would do so. But, from the very first moment I set eyes on you, please believe me when I say that there has never been anyone else in my life.’

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured, snuggling up to his warm body. ‘Yes, I do believe you, Luke.’

  He gave a heavy sigh of relief. ‘Unfortunately, and although it sounds immodest to say so, Eleanor didn’t take kindly to being so unceremoniously dumped by me, and it now seems that she was determined to pay me back. I understand the awful woman has a new, prestigious job in New York, and was just making as much trouble as she could before leaving Britain. However,’ he added grimly, ‘revengee is a dish best tasted cold. And, in the fullness of time, I think that she’ll find I have blocked all her career prospects, and that she is virtually unemployable. I sincerely hope so, anyway!’

  ‘That’s a bit bloodthirsty!’

  ‘Believe me, when I think what I’d like to do to her, I’m being generous!’ he growled. ‘However, the evil woman had a ring-side view of my unexpected inheritance, through her relationship with that old dragon, Lady Marshall. And she used her knowledge off my interview with the old woman to span a complete fabrication about my desire to oust you from Lonsdale House.

  ‘Nothing could be further from the truth, Angelica,’ he assured her with a loving kiss. ‘I was only interested in your home because it meant a great deal to you. Which is why I tried to “buy” you, that day I proposed to you in the garden. I wanted you, not the damn house! And that is why I never referred to your letter, which some kind passer-by must have picked up and put In the postbox. Because I was deeply ashamed to discover, after your terrible accident, that it had been my possessive greed which had led to your ending up in hospital. I wanted you to love me, without any pressure, and so I decided to try and slow things down with a bit of old-fashioned courtship.

  ‘Unfortunately, it appears that it’s not something I’m very good at,’ he admitted with an unhappy shrug. ‘I nearly went mad with frustration at not being able to get my hands on your lovely body. And I somehow mistakenly left you feeling that I didn’t care. In fact, I was planning to sweep you off your feet when I came back from New York.’

  ‘And you have!’ she told him lovingly.

  But Luke was still clearly troubled by what had happened to the beautiful girl lying in his arms.

  ‘I should have thrown that letter away, of course.’ He sighed heavily. ‘But it was the only letter I’d ever had from you, and so I put it away in my desk, at my apartment. And it seems I made the classic error in not demanding my keys back from Eleanor when I terminated our relationship. Because I can only assume that she must have gone to my apartment, found the letter, and used it to torture you. Believe me, boiling that wicked woman in oil would be much too good for her!’

  ‘Oh, darling, can’t we put all that behind us now?’ she begged.

  ‘You are a wonderfully generous girl, whom I love with every fibre of my being,’ he murmured, turning over to give her a long, heart-stopping kiss.

  ‘Wow!’ she laughed breathlessly, when he slowly and reluctantly raised his head.

  ‘Wow, indeed!’ he agreed with a laugh. ‘So, my lovely one, I hope that you are going to marry me just as soon as I can arrange a wedding?’

  ‘Hmm…yes, please!’ she murmured happily.

  ‘And I also hope that we’ll be able to live together in that weird house of ours, growing fat on dear Betty’s cooking, and surrounded by any number of children—preferably girls, looking exactly like thenmother!’

  ‘Well… I’d like some boys, hopefully the spitting image o
f their wonderful, arrogant, impossible father!’ she murmured, yawning as she snuggled up to Luke’s warm body.

  Kim had been quite right. Angelica knew that all her future happiness was bound up with this man, and that she wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her days with him, surrounded by children, in their lovely old house down by the river.

  How incredibly lucky she was! Angelica told herself as she closed her eyes, drifting slowly asleep within the security of Luke’s firm arms. It seemed almost unbelievable that so much love, passion and sheer happiness could have led from that first, shockingly unexpected but wonderfully exciting kiss!

  eISBN 978-14592-7620-8

  IT STARTED WITH A KISS

  First North American Publication 1996.

  Copyright © 1994 by Mary Lyons.

  All rights reserved. Except for use In any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any Information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the Imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly Inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks Indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and In other countries.

  Printed In U.S.A.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Excerpt

  About The Author

  Books by Mary Lyons

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Copyright