When Angels Fall

by Meagan Mckinney

  She would never win his love now, she knew that all too clearly. And the irony was that it hadn’t been her wealth that had cast him off, nor had it been her father’s disapproval. The horror of it was that it had been her own wretched, spoiled self that had forced him from her, and now she would never have him. Ever.

  “Do you want me to play it, Lissa?” Ivan’s voice came up behind her.

  Her cheeks drained of color. All she could think of at that moment was how desperately she still wanted him and how completely he would ruin her if he knew it. Trembling, she turned and her gaze locked with his. “No,” she answered.

  “Then why did you pick it up?” He was so close to her she could see just how beautiful and blue his eyes were.

  “I had forgotten about it.”

  “So let me remind you.” He took the balalaika in his hands.

  “Please, no,” she implored him.

  “Why not?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Because it’s too melancholy, don’t you see?” A sob caught in her throat. Her eyes glistened.

  He stared at her, studying every emotion that crossed her face. His voice grew husky and he gripped the balalaika in his hands. “Shall you cry on this, Lissa, and see all your wishes come true . . . ?”

  She shook her head.

  “. . . or shall you shed your tears in vain and fall victim to its promises . . . as others have . . . as my mother did?”

  “Neither.”

  He placed the balalaika on the chair. “Then what will fulfill your deepest wish?” His strong index finger slid beneath her chin and tipped her head up.

  “My deepest wish can never be.”

  “How do you know that? Tell me what it is, and perhaps I can help.”

  She turned away from him. “You cannot.”

  “Why is that, Lissa? Is it because I am what you wish for?”

  She started. He was hitting dangerously close to the truth. “If I were to wish for a man, I would wish for his love first above all else.”

  “Then is it my love you wish for? Do you love me?” He pulled her into his arms. Her hands pressed against his warm, muscular chest, but that didn’t deter him. “Answer me, damn you.”

  “No,” she whispered, refusing to meet his eye.

  “Say it. Say you love me, Lissa.” He shook her. “Say it!”

  “Say it and be cursed forever? I think not!” she cried.

  “Say it and have all the glory that’s within my power to give.” He cupped her chin. “Don’t say it and have more depression put upon that little soul.”

  “Youdepress my soul! Now release me!” She struggled to pull her arms out of his grasp. Her breath was coming fast and furious as his arm went possessively around her waist. She almost moaned for despite her rebellion his touch felt so right.

  “But I don’t, do I, Lissa?” The soberness of his voice quieted her. She looked up at him, terrified. He took her wrists in a shacklelike grasp. “It’s what you deny that depresses you, isn’t it?”

  “N-n-no,” she stammered, but they both knew it was a lie. Her guilt choked her. Still, she wasn’t about to martyr herself for him. She felt his fingers at her throat and the first jet button of her gown give way. She raised her hands to stop him, but he caught them.

  “So don’t deny any longer, Lissa.” He undid another button. “Say that you love me,” he whispered, “and come to my bed.”

  “I will not,” she snapped. She felt another button come free and her anger exploded. He wasn’t going to take her. Ever. She would never be that foolish. She twisted from his hold and covered her bodice with her hands. Backing away, she said, “My coming to your bed will not change the past, and I’ll see myself forever damned before I’ll seek your forgiveness there.”

  “Damnation is more penance than I want.” He stepped toward her and his fingers caught the opening of her bodice. She violently tipped his hand away but several buttons went with it. She looked down in dismay and found her corset cover peeking out from the rent.

  She was frantic to get away from him now. His candor and proximity scared her. When he came for her again, her eyes desperately sought escape. But there was none. She was pushed against the wall. Her hands made an effort to hold him back, yet his intentions were too strong. Her fingers tugged on his black locks to try to pull him away. Yet he ignored her protest. He parted her bodice, stating at the tops of her lush breasts, and then let his tongue burn into the silken hollows of her throat.

  She kept telling herself that she was ice and that he could not melt her. But as his hand slipped beneath her bodice and caressed the swell of flesh that rose above her lace-edged corset cover, she knew she was wrong. Fatally wrong. She was fire and only Ivan could make her burn.

  Inch by painful inch, she found him winning. He caressed and kissed her merely to torture her, to humiliate her; she could find no other reasons for it. But though she desperately wanted to fight him, it was difficult when his lips took hers in a brutally possessive kiss. His mouth muffled her protest as it moved frantically over hers and his hands moved up to hold her face for the onslaught.

  She wanted escape, and there were a million things she could think of to do to get him to stop. She could slap and scratch and kick, but deep down, a part of her wanted him to continue—the part of her that had once wanted his love; the part of her that was lonely and begging of forgiveness—so she did none of those things. Instead, when his tongue finally sought hers in a wickedly fierce manner, she moaned and let him in, hating herself but hating him more. He would never love her, yet while her mind told her she was playing the fool, his passion seemed to whisper something else altogether, something she wanted with all her heart.

  Almost in a daze, she felt him pick her up and take her into the next room. Everything was moving too fast. She struggled to be free of his arms but he tossed her upon a heavy Genoa silk counterpane and pulled her beneath him. With him on top of her, she was completely restrained. A warning sounded in her head as she realized they were on his bed, but when he took her mouth in a long, hot kiss, she couldn’t think clearly anymore.

  His hands parted her bodice, and when he stopped kissing her she stared up at him. He looked like a man obsessed. The creamy skin of her throat seemed to fascinate him and he studied it for a long time, almost as if in wonder. He buried his face in the hollows of her neck and seemed to revel in the scent he found there, as if he had dreamed about it for a very long time, and now, at last, it was his. Next his strong white teeth nipped at her breasts above her corset, and her taste seemed to please him beyond reason. When her chignon fell, his hands stroked her tresses as if they were some sort of lost treasure now found. Then he kissed her so deeply his spirit seemed to meet with hers.

  “Lissa, tell me you love me,” he whispered. “Say the words and be mine completely.”

  Panting and bewildered, she met his gaze. Her eyes became a smoldering azure. All she had to do was nod and she would finally be his. He could touch her as he had just done and she could revel in it as eagerly he seemed to. She could melt beneath his hands and lose herself in his kiss. Her longing for him would then be satiated; her desperation quieted.

  “Lissa,” he said, his breath coming just as fast and heavy as hers, “you know it was to end up like this. Come, say the words.”

  “I won’t,” she said, struggling to sit up, trying to cover her open bodice with her hands.

  “You want me. I know it.” Again he forced her down upon the bed.

  Pushing hard against his naked chest, she said, “Ivan, I know what kind of hurt you have planned for me.”

  His fingers stroked her cheek. “You shall have only pleasure.”

  “But there are other hurts besides physical ones. And I won’t let you hurt me now.” Her eyes, glittering with defiance, met his.

  He suddenly turned grim. “Lissa, you’re mine. You’ve always been mine. You’ll always be mine.”

  “I’m your servant,” she protested, “and that is all
I’ll ever be. Because I work for you doesn’t mean you own me or will ever own me. In the eyes of the law I don’t belong to anyone until I marry.”

  Her challenge seemed to anger him beyond reason. He rolled off of her and said, “The law be damned! Can the law make one person love another? Can the law bring back the dead?” He turned to her, black fury on his face. “Can the law truly take a man out of bastardy?”

  “Ivan—” she began, but he interrupted her. His hands went to her arms and he pulled her onto his lap. “Did you know I’m not a bastard any longer?”

  He seemed to be speaking in circles, and she could hardly follow him. Slowly she shook her head. Her confusion made him laugh. It was a terrible sound.

  “Hasn’t anyone wondered how a man who isnulliusfilius can inherit such wealth? Becausemy father, ” he spat the words out like a curse, “requested in his will that an act of Parliament make me legitimate. Powerscourt was to go to his only issue, even if that issue was despised above all others. Yet what has all that changed? Did he marry my mother? Can that even help me find her grave so that I may put her in the family vault?”

  Lissa watched him, the pain on her face surely mirroring what he must feel. She felt a draft. Her gown was off her shoulders and she absentmindedly tried to pull it up. But he wouldn’t let her.

  “The law can’t change much,alainn. ”

  She stiffened at his endearment.Alainn was Irish for beautiful. He’d told her once that it had been his mother’s name, yet she doubted it. Somehow, it seemed more logical that the tenth marquis had used it as a pet name for his gypsy girl, and Ivan’s mother, tragically, had kept using it, hoping against hope that someday she would again be the former marquis’salainn.

  She looked down at the muscular arm possessively locked around her waist. Was that all she was to be? His darling? Another girl to go mad with grief over the Marquis of Powerscourt? Her fingers pried at his arm. It didn’t budge. She felt his hand at her nape. He pulled her to his mouth for another kiss, but this time she could not be persuaded. She sat stiff and pale in his lap, refusing his touch.

  Annoyance was darkening his eyes. “You were meant to come to me, Lissa, don’t fight it.”

  “I won’t listen to this.” She pulled again at his steely arm. It was useless.

  “You would have come to me no matter what. We were fated to be together.”

  “No! That’s not true. I won’t let you hurt me.”

  “There are things that can overshadow the pain.”

  “But only for a moment.”

  “We’ve all had our pain to bear. You of all people should know that.”

  “No!” she cried as she began struggling for release, but he anticipated her every move, refusing to relinquish his hold. Finally, exhausted, she let out a moan of frustration. “Why must you make it like this?”

  “I don’t make it like this,alainn. ” He roughly nuzzled her throat. “You would have come to me eventually.”

  “I wouldn’t have.”

  He let out a sarcastic laugh. “You could have married old Billingsworth, and still you would have come to me.”

  “No!” she refuted hotly.

  “We were fated to be together. And even if it drove Billingsworth to your father’s recourse, you would have found your way to my bed.”

  Unable to take any more, she raised her right hand and struck him across his cheek.

  It took her a moment to realize what she had done. She had slapped him across his scarred cheek. Already she could see the scar changing color to an angry white. And in his eyes she found all that he thought of her reconfirmed.

  “I’m not your whipping boy,Miss Alcester ,” he said through clenched teeth. He snatched her guilty hand and forced it behind her back. “You’d do well to remember that.”

  “Perhaps if you didn’t act like such a bastard then maybe I could.” When all that met her was his cold, dispassionate gaze, she no longer even felt his iron hold. She was too numb and horrified at what she had done . . . again.

  “If you think I’m a bastard now,” he whispered cruelly, “let me show you what a bastard I can truly be.” Roughly he forced her down on the bed again and jerked away her bodice. His palm reached for her breast and she struggled to keep him from touching her, but he suppressed her rebellion by pulling her arms up over her head and holding them there with one strong hand.

  She thought that he would reach for her bosom again, but this time his approach was more subtle. He eased himself down upon her, his unyielding chest meeting with her full, half-bared breasts. She writhed beneath him, trying desperately to make him stop, but it was useless.

  His lips burned across the delicate veil of her eyelids, then slowly moved downward. She moaned against him and tried to shove him away with her body, but then his tongue trailed down her smooth temple. He paused ever so briefly at her cheek, then his diabolical lips took hers in an unwilling kiss.

  She told herself to be cold and unresponsive, but it was difficult. Desire, hate, sweetness, and fury swirled in her breast and she longed for peace. His lips seemed to promise her just that, but they lied. She knew too well his aching, burning kisses filled her, then left her hungering for more. They terrified her and exhilarated her. They captured her; they set her free. But they never promised anything more than the moment. And they were not such liars that they ever promised love.

  “No more.” She sobbed when he broke from her and moved downward. His mouth trailed down her throat while his free hand pushed up her petticoats. Shuddering, she felt him grasp her thigh; his touch scorched her through her pantalets. She knew exactly what he was going to do and she couldn’t bear it. She struggled like a cat to be free of him, but she only used up her remaining strength. His was the worst sort of seduction, but now she could no longer stop him. Crying tears of anguish and frustration, she turned her head away and wept against his arm as she felt him caress her through the slit in her lacy drawers.

  Yet somehow her tears seemed to reach him whereas her struggle had not. He paused and looked down at her tearstained face. Then he closed his eyes and swore beneath his breath.

  “Not like this—” she begged.

  His expression hardened and slowly he released her.

  When her sobbing subsided, she finally looked up at him, unable to hide the hurt and distrust deep in her eyes. But before she could speak another word, he was off the bed, taking a shirt that was laid out on a chair and walking out of the room. He shut the door to his apartments behind him with a heart-wrenching thud.

  A black feeling of doom overwhelmed her. “What cruel God ever brought us together?” she whispered at the ancient door. But there was no one to hear her. Without the hope of a response, she fell to the counterpane and cried as if her entire world had come to an end. Now there seemed nothing left but tears and remembrance.

  PART TWO

  They say the angels markeach deed

  And exercise below,

  And out of inward pleasure feed

  On what they viewing know.

  BEN JONSON,

  “Musicall Strife:

  in a Pastorall Dialogue”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The spring of 1850 was remembered not only for the tragedies that occurred then but also for the perfect beauty that the season had provided.

  The rains had come early and May debuted like a young girl at her first ball. Tall, supple stems of irises rose to the cloudless sky while trumpets of lilies heralded another brilliant day. Pearl-pink roses trailed over the arbor and even the hyacinths, long past their time, burst with new blooms. There was an irrepressible vitality to the air that spring, and no one was more susceptible to it than a sixteen-year-old girl.

  The winter had been a long one for the Alcester children. Their parents had been absent since Christmas, and the servants whispered of their mother’s scandalous behavior in London. But the servants always whispered about Rebecca Alcester, and Lissa, the eldest, was the first to ignore them. Besides, she had
more important things on her mind this May than the gossip of addle-brained servants.

  In the one precious letter Lissa had received from her mother all winter, Rebecca had mentioned returning to Alcester House sometime in June to bring her daughter out into society. Already the dresses had arrived from London—great trunkloads of them made from every fabric imaginable, from tarlatan togros de Naples.

  A part of Lissa was thrilled. She’d pictured her ball a thousand times. Her father would look dashing in a black cutaway. He would lead her to the dance floor for her first waltz and her beautiful mother would look on, pride shining in her azure eyes for her lovely daughter. Sometimes it was all so glorious, Lissa could hardly stand it.

  But in the midst of all her excitement, she experienced moments of dread. If she were to have a debut, suitors were sure to follow. No doubt her parents would fill the Alcester ballroom with dozens of them, each one richer and more handsome than the other. Yet the one she most wanted to be there would never show. She would dance the night away in another man’s arms, and with every step her world would move even farther away from Ivan’s.

  But the worst part wasn’t that she would be swept away by suitors she had no desire for, nor was it the fact that the ball might spoil her for anything less. The worst part was that she would be courted by a dozen magnificent men and Ivan would never even notice.

  Sitting outside on the great marble steps of Alcester House, Lissa stared morosely at the stables in the distance. She was attired in her best riding habit—a midnight-blue velvet with a coordinating white cashmere vest. Her cravat was black, as was her felt hat with the long net veil that swirled around her pale ringlets like a mist. One gloved hand sported a riding crop, which she occasionally tapped on the stone. The other hand was gloveless. She spent several painful moments staring at the stables and chewing on a nail.

  He was never going to notice her. Short of brazenly confessing her feelings for him and making a complete fool of herself, he would never know she was alive.