It Only Takes a Kiss Read online

  Best friends since their schooldays, Henrietta, Harriet, and Hero are wise and witty young ladies, embarking on the sometimes bumpy road to happily-ever-after, each in her own brilliant way . . .

  Hero Whitby has harbored long-buried fears since a devastating attack by two young men of the privileged class. Now, while her peers aspire to husband-hunting, Hero pursues her passion to be a doctor, working alongside her father, a respected Devonshire physician. But when a badly beaten stranger is carried in to his practice, Hero is stunned by her reaction. Over three days of tending to the man, along with her instinct to heal, she finds herself intensely drawn to him . . .

  Robbed and left for dead by highwaymen, Alexander Sterne has no memory of his past as a soldier in Wellington’s army—or as a carousing playboy. But as he becomes aware of his surroundings and the plight of the locals, Alex realizes only he can break the corrupt hold of an evil land steward. And when Hero’s tender kiss awakens him from sleep—and restores his identity—he knows that he must regain not only his strength but a newfound compassion . . . which can only be ignited by Hero and a meeting of hearts that may heal them both . . .

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  IT ONLY TAKES A KISS

  She lifted her head to gaze into Adam’s eyes—those blue eyes that never failed to mesmerize her. There was a long pause, then he lowered his mouth to hers in what she later supposed had been meant as a casual congratulatory kiss.

  It quickly turned into something else.

  Her arms slipped up around his neck and she pressed her body against his, needing to be closer, ever closer. For the minutest fraction of a second, some analytical part of her brain told her this was not real, that it was happening merely as an aftermath of the tension she had felt earlier. She ignored that and gave herself up to the sheer passion of the moment…

  Books by Wilma Counts

  An Earl Like No Other

  The Memory of Your Kiss

  My Fair Lord

  It Only Takes A Kiss

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  It Only Takes a Kiss

  Wilma Counts

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Copyright

  Lyrical Press books are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by J. Wilma Counts

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  Lyrical Press and the L logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  First Electronic Edition: October 2018

  eISBN-13: 978-1-60183-909-1

  eISBN-10: 1-60183-909-X

  First Print Edition: October 2018

  ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-910-7

  ISBN-10: 1-60183-910-3

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  IT ONLY TAKES A KISS

  Books by Wilma Counts

  It Only Takes a Kiss

  Copyright

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Meet the Author

  Dedication

  For Marty Hutton

  who loves Cornwall

  and managed to do her job

  despite my babbling

  about my characters

  Prologue

  The Duchess of Thornleigh was worried about one of her sons—she had three, as well as two daughters, and she worried about all of them from time to time, but she had convinced herself that this time her concern was more than justified. Never one to suffer in silence, she unloaded her worries on her husband.

  “I vow, Alfred, ever since his return from the Continent, Alex has seemed out of sorts,” she said as she swept from her dressing room into the master bedchamber of Thornleigh House, the duke’s London residence. She sank onto a couch beside the duke, who had been calmly reading a travel book as he waited for her. She had not bothered to tie the sashes of a maroon silk robe that she wore over a pink nightgown, also silk.

  Her husband was not at all surprised that his energetic wife had started in the middle of a conversation. “What is it this time?” He put his book aside and draped an arm over her shoulder.

  “No one thing in particular,” she said with a sigh. “It is just that I often catch him sort of staring into space. He is out every night. He is gambling too much and drinking too much. And there are women too. Not a woman. Women—plural, and of a certain sort. I know I am not supposed to know these things, but they are common knowledge below stairs—”

  “The man is thirty years old,” her husband admonished. “He is entitled to live as he pleases.”

  “He is thirty-one,” she corrected. “But the point is, he is behaving as he did when he was a twenty-year-old.”

  “Well, not exactly as he did then, but—”

  She rushed on. “And I have it on good authority that he rides that black beast of his like a madman, returning it to the stables in a high degree of lather.”

  “Now, now, my dear.” He squeezed her shoulder. “You must not put yourself into a lather too. Our son returned to us. Wellington lost thousands at Waterloo, you know.”

  “I do know. And my heart grieves for those other mothers. But Baxter tells me—”

  “Servants’ gossip, my love,” he chided.

  She waved a dismissive hand. “Baxter tells me the servants talk about terrible nightmares in which he seems to relive horrifying scenes of battle.”

  “I know. Jasper told me.”

  “And you accuse me of listening to servants?” She reached to brush a lock of silvery gray hair off his brow. “Your valet and my maid are caring people. Besides, they have known Alex since he was in short coats.”

  “I know,
my dear. I am worried about him too. He needs purpose—something to absorb all that pent-up energy. I can hardly buy him another commission, can I? Or threaten to cut off his allowance—when his income exceeds anything I might give him.”

  “If my brother were not already dead, I should be sorely tempted to kill him for making Alex his heir,” she muttered.

  “Alex needs to take more interest in his inheritance.”

  “He needs a wife,” she said vehemently, “but he refuses most invitations to affairs of polite society where he might meet eligible ladies. Instead, he prefers to spend much of his time at his club with other returned soldiers.”

  “I will speak to him—again. But he has been home only a few months. Ten years and more is a long time to be away.”

  “He was never like this when he had occasional leaves during those years. Then, he had changed a little—matured—but not truly changed. Not like this.”

  “He always knew he was going back to it. He is not going back this time.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “The point is, my love, he needs time to work into this new life.”

  “Alfred! He has had seven months already.”

  He kissed her cheek. “Stop fretting, Elizabeth. I will speak to him. But he is his own man now. There is not much more I can do. I keep hoping he will turn his attention to that neglected property in Cornwall, but…” His voice trailed off, then brightened. “Now—let’s talk about something else—like our trip.”

  She laid her head on his shoulder. “I am not even sure we should go—not with Alex in such straits.”

  He gave her a shake. “Oh, no, my dear! You are not changing your mind at this late date! You have nagged at me for years about wanting to see Rome and Florence and go the opera at La Scala. Now that the Corsican monster is firmly ensconced on St. Helena, we are going. Period. End of discussion.”

  “I do not nag. But Alex—”

  “Is a big boy. He can take care of himself. He has managed to do so for over a decade with little help from us. But—just in case—I have asked Finneston to look in on him now and then.” The Marquis of Finneston was the duke’s heir, and Alex’s older brother.

  He pulled her close and said, “When we get to Florence, I don’t want you to go comparing my attributes to those of Michelangelo’s David. Remember, David was a young man in his prime.”

  She snuggled even closer. “I’ve no quarrel with your ‘attributes,’ my darling.”

  Chapter 1

  May 1816

  The persistent pounding finally filtered through the fog of sleep. No, it was not a ship’s carpenter pounding on the deck of a pirate’s galleon—though just why Miss Hero Whitby, daughter of a country doctor, would ever be a captive on a pirate ship, watching a handsome pirate captain swashbuckle his way through formidable enemies, was quite beyond her. Must have been something in her younger brother’s last missive from school. Jonathan had always loved pirate stories. Either that, or the letter she’d received recently from Lady Henrietta Parker—no, Lady Bodwyn now.

  Hero smiled at recalling how her friend Retta sang the praises of her new husband and of the married state in general. She was amused because the so-called “Three H’s” at Miss Pringle’s school—Henrietta, Harriet, and Hero—had long considered themselves firmly “on the shelf.” Such romantic effusions were distinctly out of character for any of the H’s. Hero knew that a woman in her midtwenties was expected to be dismayed by her unmarried state, but it was a fact of her own life that Hero regretted not at all, handsome pirate captains notwithstanding.

  Reluctantly giving up the comfort of dreamland and pleasant musings, she tossed aside the covers and forced herself fully awake.

  “I’m coming,” she muttered, pulling an old woolen robe over her flannel nightgown, her feet seeking fleece-lined slippers. She turned up the wick on the oil lamp next to her bed and glanced at the clock. Five o’clock in the morning! She carried the lamp into the hall, where she heard her father’s door open.

  “I’ll see to it, Papa. You need your rest—and stay off that gouty foot.”

  “Hmpf!” he grunted in response. “’Twas not I who spent all day and much of the evening yesterday seeing Mrs. Humphrey through the birth of her seventh child—or was it the eighth?”

  “Her eighth—another boy,” Hero called over her shoulder as she started down the stairs.

  “Don’t know why that woman can’t figure out where all those babies come from,” Dr. Whitby growled in an undertone, then raised his voice to call, “I’ll be there shortly.”

  The knocking was louder as she reached the entrance hall; it was now accompanied by a gruff male voice yelling, “Hey, Doc!”

  Stewart, the Whitbys’ handyman who served variously as butler, gardener, and coachman, was already opening the door.

  “Need the doc,” the voice said.

  “What is it, Mr. Jacobs?” Hero asked. She had recognized him immediately as a local fisherman.

  “Got a man hurt bad, Miss Hero. Me ʼn’ my boy was jus’ going to the boat ʼn’ we saw him a-layin’ on the side o’ the road. Got him in the back of the wagon.”

  “But he is alive?” she asked.

  “Oh, ya. Moanin’ like the devil he is, but don’t say nothin’ that makes sense.”

  “Stewart, get the litter and help Mr. Jacobs and his son bring the man into the surgery. I will meet you there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Before going to the surgery herself, she approached the door of Mrs. Hutchins, who had a bed-sitting room on the ground floor just off the kitchen in the rear of the building. Mrs. Hutchins had served the Whitby family as housekeeper and cook since before Hero was born. The door opened even as Hero raised her hand to knock. Mrs. Hutchins, several inches shorter than Hero and some four stone heavier, was tying the sash of her robe.

  “I heard the commotion, Miss Hero. I’ll get hot water goin’ right away. Should still be some warm in the tank on the cooker.”

  Hero hurried to the surgery, saying a brief prayer of thanksgiving that a decade earlier, when her father had built his new surgery, he had also seen fit to install a fancy cast-iron cooker to replace the old-fashioned kitchen fireplace. Arriving at the surgery, she lighted a spill from the lamp she carried and lit the side lamps in the surgery and one hanging directly over a long rectangular table in the middle of the room. As she had on many previous occasions, she fleetingly marveled at the medical facility her father had designed for the community he served: Besides the surgical room, there was a room with two beds, an office, and an examination room for run-of-the-mill illnesses and mishaps. Visiting medical colleagues never failed to show approval—and envy—of the facility, however much they may have been surprised at finding Dr. Whitby had a female assistant.

  She lit the fire in the fireplace, then exchanged her wool robe for a lighter, apron-like garment that would allow freer movement. As she checked to see that everything was in order, she heard the three men grunting and muttering with their burden. The two Jacobs men lifted the litter even with the table as Stewart and Hero maneuvered the patient onto the table. He groaned and flailed his hands feebly, but he did not really fight them. Finally, he was in position to be examined.

  “He’s a big ʼun,” the elder Jacobs man said. “Don’t know how long he musta laid there in the cold afore we come along.”

  “Pa ʼn’ me think robbers spooked his horse ʼn’ made off with it ʼn’ any valuables,” said the son, a broad-shouldered lad in his late teens.

  “But they musta been interrupted,” his father noted. “Didn’t have time ta git his boots.”

  Hero glanced briefly at the man’s boots—shiny and black—but concentrated her attention on the rest of him. Mr. Jacobs was right: He was a big man. Hero estimated more than six feet and maybe thirteen or fourteen stone. Dark brown hair, matted with blood above one e
ar. Streaks of blood on his face, smeared where he had apparently swiped his face with his arm. A torn white linen shirt showing splotches of dirt and bloodstains, especially on one sleeve. No coat, which might have held a wallet and some means of identification. Well-fitted buckskin pantaloons. The pantaloons. Something wrong there. Blood had stained through the leather and there was a sharp angle in the right thigh just above the knee. Good God! Bone. She’d seen broken legs before, but not like this. She ran her hands along a firm torso. He flinched at her touch and moaned anew.

  “Broken ribs. Get his clothes off,” she ordered.

  “But, miss—” the older Jacobs man protested.

  “Do as she says,” her father said, limping into the room with his cane and taking in the situation at a glance.

  “Do it carefully,” Hero said. “Mrs. Hutchins will have a fit if we totally destroy his clothing.”

  Her father supervised the disrobing, ensuring that Stewart cut the garments along the seams, as Hero turned her attention to the man’s head wound. As usual, the head injury had bled profusely, but there was only a small laceration and a bump the size of large egg above his left ear. She ruthlessly destroyed the handiwork of some stylish hairdresser or valet and cut away the hair around the wound, which she then washed thoroughly. She also wiped away the streaks of blood on his face, glad to see no fresh flow of blood. “Hmm. Not too bad, I think. Do have a look, Papa.”

  Her father limped the few steps to where she stood. “He could have a concussion. No telling how long he’s been unconscious. Just put a loose bandage on that, then help me see to his leg. It’s a bad break and if gangrene sets in, he will lose the leg.”

  “We’ll jus’ be goin’ now,” the elder fisherman said. “Gotta catch the tide just right, ye know.”

  “Of course,” Hero said, tying the ends of the bandage around the patient’s head. “He will be all right now. You likely saved his life.”

  “We’ll check back wit’ ye later.”