Once Upon a Kiss

by Nora Roberts

  Miss Golunka was waiting for him beneath the portrait in the hall. All the former reserve between the attorney and the secretary vanished. She smiled up at him.

  “Well, Alfred, what do you think?”

  “My dear Sophie, she is perfect. A true lady, just as Miss Culpepper promised.”

  “And very pretty! Oh, Alfred, I think we may just pull this off.”

  The grinning porter joined them bearing a silver tray with three cut-crystal glasses of brandy. He took one himself.

  “To the queen!”

  “To the queen!” They each took a sip, then lifted a toast toward the portrait in a salute. “To Miss Culpepper,” the porter said.

  “To Miss Culpepper!” the others agreed.

  They downed the brandy, well-pleased with their day’s work. “Bring the carriage around, Frederick,” Mr. Plunkett said.

  “You mean the automobile,” Miss Golunka corrected.

  “Ah, yes. Thank you, Sophie. I miss the horses, you know,” he confided, “but I find automobiles a much more satisfactory method of travel.”

  “And the radio and CD player,” Miss Golunka added. “What marvelous inventions!” She was particularly fond of Broadway show tunes. “I’ll bring the score to ‘Once Upon A Mattress’ along today.”

  She wandered off singing a tune from the musical about the rarity of genuine princesses. Her voice was slightly hoarse, and the last refrain ended in a bit of a croak.

  Mr. Plunkett stood alone in the cool dimness of the hall, beaming up at the portrait. He cleared his throat.

  “Well done, Agatha!” he murmured. “Oh, very well done indeed!”

  4

  KATE CHECKED HER watch. “So far, so good.”

  She was feeling pretty cocky. Another quarter hour or so and she’d be at her destination. Once she’d gotten used to the steering wheel being on the wrong side of the car, her solo journey had been a snap—sunshine and a straight shot along the A21 from London, southeast across the rolling green Sussex Downs.

  One of the first things she intended to do, after unpacking, was to look for those journals written by generations of female Culpeppers. There should be a lot of interest in them at the major publishing houses. Historians would be ecstatic but Kate hoped she could make them fascinating for everyone.

  I’ll sit out in the garden and read through the journals. If I’m lucky there might be enough for more than one book.

  The scenery kept distracting her thoughts. Every house and shop and village she passed was awash in flowers, from pots of geraniums, painted window boxes, and handkerchief gardens in front of row houses to sprawling borders spilling along brick paths and lining the drives of private estates.

  The farther she got from London the fewer houses she saw. From time to time she caught glimpses of the sea, like a soft smudge of pale blue watercolors in the distance.

  Twenty minutes flew past before she realized that something was wrong. The turnoff should have taken her past the village of Battle, where William the Conqueror had defeated King Harold in 1066 and changed the course of history.

  Instead she saw nothing but the undulating downs, a few ancient stands of trees that had escaped the iron foundries a hundred years earlier, and a lone cottage with a thatched roof. There wasn’t even another car on the road.

  Gray clouds scudded in, smattering the windshield with fat droplets. Within minutes it turned into a deluge. Kate pulled over in the shelter of a ridge and groaned. She was hungry and jet-lagged.

  And very possibly lost.

  She had two choices: to press on and hope she would come to a village where she could get something to eat, or turn around and go back the way she had come.

  “There must be something nearby.” She tried to turn on the map light. There was a faint click, but no illumination. She swore again and opened the glove box. No flashlight, but she could just make out the lines on her map in the dim glow of the small light.

  Her finger traced the route she’d taken. There should have been a country lane branching off to the valley below, leading eventually down toward the sea and the village of Frogsmere.

  “Damn!” That rutted “cattle track” she’d passed a half hour ago was probably the lane where she should have made a right turn.

  She frowned at the map. There was a hamlet just a few miles ahead. The thought of hot food spurred her on. She put the car in gear and started up the hill. She was almost at the crest when headlights pierced the gloom.

  They were headed straight at her.

  Kate wrenched the wheel as far as she could toward the hedgerow. Twigs popped and cracked, their broken ends screeching along the fender, scrabbling at her side window like leafy claws.

  She gripped the wheel, heart pounding louder in her ears than the sound of the driving rain upon the roof. The car fishtailed in the muck as she slammed on the brakes, and then broke through an opening in the wall of green. It careened to the right and bumped over something solid while she wrestled for control. A tremendous jolt threw her forward as the car lurched sideways. Despite the seat belt, her chin hit the steering wheel.

  The headlight beams shone upward at an odd angle, illuminating the top of a stone wall. She was vaguely aware that the engine had stalled.

  The passenger door jerked open. A man leaned in, his face all angles and shadows in the faint green glow from the dashboard. “Are you injured?”

  “N…no.”

  “Good.” All the concern vanished from his voice. “Then perhaps you might tell me what in hell you thought you were doing?”

  His anger shocked Kate out of the strange calm that had come over her. “I was trying to avoid being run down by you! You were on the wrong side of the road.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “I beg to differ. This is England. Unlike you Yanks, we drive on the left here. Something you would be wise to keep in mind—if your auto still runs once it’s winched out of the drainage ditch!”

  “Oh, God.” Kate felt all the color drain from her face. She leaned back against the seat. In the disorientation of the rain and her fatigue, she’d automatically pulled off to the right, as she would have in the States.

  “I am so sorry! I hope you didn’t suffer any injury to yourself…or damage your car.”

  He shrugged. “A few more dents will make little difference to me—and none at all to the Land Rover. Give me your hand. I’ll help you out.”

  She realized the car was canted at a steep angle. “I’d be grateful.”

  Snagging her purse with one hand, she reached the other out to him. A reassuringly firm grip closed over her fingers, and she was hauled up toward the passenger side. His arm curved around her waist, surprisingly hard and strong, as he lifted her out of the car. He set her down on the road, and Kate stood in a daze with wind and rain lashing at her skin and whipping her short hair against her cheekbones.

  “This way. Careful now!”

  He steadied Kate and led her across the muddy road to a battered Land Rover parked on the verge with its hazard lights blinking.

  As he helped her clamber in, she had her first good look at him. A strong face with good cheekbones, firm mouth, and lean jaw. His skin was deeply tanned, his blond hair dark with rain, and his eyes the deep, shadowy green of a forest.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Do I pass inspection?”

  She flushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. I think I’m still in shock.”

  “It’s my turn to apologize. I should have realized that.” He frowned suddenly. “You’ve cut your chin,” he said, turning on the dome light. “You’re bleeding.”

  Kate raised her hand to her face. “I thought it was just rain.”

  He turned her face toward the light, then dabbed at it gently with a folded handkerchief. “Nothing serious. Let’s get you somewhere warm before you catch your death of cold.”

  He turned the key in the ignition, and Kate felt a welcome blast of warm air from the heater. “I’m sorry I was so rough with you,
” he said. “I was afraid for a moment that you’d done yourself a serious injury.”

  “I understand. When I was twelve I went to the park with some friends, but decided to stop at the library on my way home, without telling anyone. When I finally got home my parents were in an uproar. They were so happy to see me safe and sound that they blistered my ears and grounded me for a month.”

  He smiled at her story. “I seem to recall a similar incident in my own youth. Where are you headed?”

  “To Frogsmere,” she said.

  He sent her a surprised glance. “The village that time and tourists have forgotten? It’s very much off the beaten track.”

  “I’m not exactly a tourist. I’ll be staying at Frogsmere Manor for a bit.”

  Lightning danced between the clouds, illuminating the countryside with a great blue-white flare. A look of guarded curiosity flickered over his face.

  “You’re the mysterious American to whom Agatha Culpepper left her estate? We’re neighbors, then. I’m Michael Bellamy, of King’s Meadow.”

  “Kate Singleton,” she said, offering her hand.

  He took it, enfolding her slender fingers in his, and felt a tingle race like a current between them.

  She wasn’t at all what he’d expected. Her voice and manners had the cheerful openness he associated with Americans, but none of the airs that seemed to imply that a country which produced fast food, video games, and air-conditioning was vastly superior to the one that had produced the Magna Carta.

  No ring, he noticed. That boded well. A single woman would be less inclined to consider staying on at Frogsmere.

  And despite the fact that he found her violet eyes and sense of humor attractive—or perhaps because of it—he hoped she would return to the States soon.

  He smiled and released her hand. “My business in Battle can wait. I’ll take you to the manor. Normally it’s a fifteen-minute drive, but the bridge is out for repair. There’s no telling how long the detour around it will be in this weather.”

  “That’s very nice of you—especially after I almost caused a wreck.”

  “Always happy to rescue an heiress in distress,” he said coolly, and put the Land Rover in gear.

  He drove with the skill and ease of someone totally familiar with both his vehicle and the road it traveled. Between the roar of the engine and the howling storm it was impossible to carry on a conversation, so Kate settled back and listened to the sigh of the wipers and the clatter of the hard rain pinging on the roof as they drove through the storm.

  I’ll just close my eyes for a minute, she thought.

  The next thing she knew, the car was jouncing through a pair of high wrought-iron gates. Bellamy muttered something she didn’t quite catch.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Sorry. I thought you were still asleep.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping.”

  In the light from the dash she saw amusement flicker over his face. “You dozed off a good half hour ago.”

  God. Kate brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. He was right. The rain was gone, and ribbons of blue threaded the scattering clouds. I must have really been out.

  “I hope I didn’t drool.”

  “Do you usually?”

  She hadn’t realized she’d made the comment out loud. Her face burned with a hot rush of embarrassment. “No one’s complained so far.”

  “Good. Beautiful heiresses should never drool in their sleep. Or any other time, come to think of it.”

  “I’ll make a note of that,” she said, “for future reference.”

  Now they were driving along a cliff road with a wide view of the English Channel and the Straits of Dover. The clearing sky melded with the steel sea, without any line of demarcation between them.

  “Look. You can see the village from here.”

  She peered out and down to the toy village below. There were a few tile-roofed buildings of local sandstone, some with half-timbering, leaning against one another shoulder to shoulder. They marched down one side of the river valley to the narrow strip of beach, where several fishing boats were pulled up on the strand. The streets looked completely deserted.

  “I see why you called it the village that time forgot.”

  “It hasn’t changed much since it was built five hundred years ago. Descendants of the original families still live in the old houses, although there are fewer and fewer of them every year. Not enough work or excitement to keep the younger generation here.”

  Although he intended his voice to seem casual, Kate was aware that they were strung like beads on a thin wire of tension. She thought she understood why. King’s Meadow was listed in all the best guidebooks, along with the notation that it was still in the hands of the Bellamy family after almost a thousand years.

  “You’d like to see the old ways preserved.”

  “Yes. Selfish of me, I know. But once they’re abandoned they’re gone forever.”

  Kate considered. “The best of the past should be preserved and the worst of it remembered so we don’t repeat it. All the same, I’m glad to live in the present time. The world is an exciting place these days.”

  “And growing smaller by the minute, what with E-mail and faxes and cell phones.”

  “I suppose that’s why I’m so delighted about inheriting Frogsmere. I can work there and still keep in contact with home.”

  “Then you intend to keep Frogsmere?” he asked abruptly. The moment the words were out he regretted them.

  “I hope so. Does that surprise you?”

  “I imagine it would be difficult to keep the place open, unless you mean to hire it out?”

  Kate turned to look at him. His gloved hands were tense upon the wheel. She realized he wasn’t making small talk: her answer mattered to him. She had a flash of intuition.

  “Are you interested in the property yourself?”

  Michael kept his eyes on the road. “Naturally. My lands adjoin it.”

  She didn’t know why, but she suspected he wasn’t being completely truthful with her.

  The Land Rover’s rear end fishtailed in a spray of mud, but Michael kept control. “Agatha Culpepper knew how to guard Frogsmere,” he murmured. “These ruts are better than a bloody moat for keeping people out.”

  “I understand that she was a very private person.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. I don’t believe that she allowed anyone but the housekeeper, the handyman, and myself inside the house these past ten or fifteen years.”

  Kate’s stomach sank. Ah! There’s the catch!

  She wished now that she’d had a room reserved at the village inn. “Should I prepare myself for rooms filled from floor to rafters with boxes of old clothes, empty cookie tins, and stacks of yellowing newspapers? And dozens of emaciated feral cats, all yowling for their supper?”

  His laughter was warm and rich. “Miss Culpepper was a most particular woman. I believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

  He slowed for a curve around a stand of hardwoods. “There’s the house. You can just see it through the trees.”

  Frogsmere revealed itself in dappled sunshine. Surprise was Kate’s first reaction. Somehow she’d formed a picture of a formal facade with turrets and a multitude of brick chimneys rising above the roofline.

  The only thing she’d gotten right was the chimneys.

  Frogsmere was amazing—a giant’s version of a typical English cottage. Sandstone walls with great half-timbered gables and square window bays, and topped by a tiled roof speckled with moss. Leaded-glass windows sparkled in the sunlight, their diamond-shaped panes reflecting blue sky and scudding clouds.

  The Land Rover pulled around the end of the house and into a cobbled courtyard formed by two wings of the structure. Michael came around to open her door and help her down.

  “Go on in. I’ll fetch your luggage.”

  Taking her purse and laptop case from the seat beside her, Kate went up the brick walk that wound through a lush perennial border. The
door was of thick oak, heavily carved, beneath a tiny peaked gable.

  A single marmalade cat lay sunning itself on a wooden bench beside the door. It stared at Kate, then stretched and vanished amid the tangle of greenery.

  As Kate approached, the door swung open of its own accord, as if in greeting. She took it for a good omen.

  She stepped into an immaculately clean hall with a stone-flagged floor and a ceiling of ornamental plasterwork between huge beams. An ancient refectory table, mellow and black with age, stood in the center surrounded by high-backed chairs covered in faded tapestry. There was nothing of the museum about it. This was a living, breathing house. It’s energy was unmistakable.

  The air smelled of baking pie crust—cinnamon and apples?—and the same old-fashioned furniture polish she remembered from her grandmother’s house.

  It was like coming home.

  Michael followed her in with the suitcases and set them down on the stone floor. “Here are your bags, Miss Singleton. Shall I carry them upstairs for you?”

  “Thank you, but I have no idea where Mrs. Bean has put me.”

  He glanced at the watch on his tanned wrist, where fine golden hairs caught the sunlight through the open door. “I’d best be on my way. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay at Frogsmere, Miss Singleton.”

  “You sound rather doubtful.”

  “Life here follows the old, slow country rhythms. I imagine you’ll find the pace a bit slow.”

  Kate lifted her chin. “I’m not that easily bored, Mr. Bellamy.”

  “I hope not, for your sake.” His smile was pleasant but didn’t quite reach his green eyes. “Good-bye, Miss Singleton.”

  She watched him walk away to his Land Rover, thinking how still and peaceful the countryside was in the afternoon sunlight. The only sounds were the engine starting up and the crunch of wheels on gravel as he drove off.

  Kate shut the door and turned back to the hall. “And now the adventure begins!”

  5

  “MRS. BEAN?”

  There was no answer.

  And there were no cats or piles of newspapers. Everything was neat and clean and so perfectly preserved it seemed as if at any moment the lord and lady of the manor might come strolling through, she in a gown of cut velvet, with a ruff of white lace framing her face, he in doublet and tights, a short cape swinging jauntily from his shoulder.