When Angels Fall

by Meagan Mckinney

  “You’ve thought about it for revenge and only revenge. I’m not so foolish—”

  “Foolish! Foolish!” he snapped. “It’s I who has played the fool! I’ve been through this torment so many times, I can’t see straight any more. Let’s be done with it, Lissa. Tonight I’ll rid you from my soul and you can do likewise!” With that, he lifted her into his arms and onto his saddle. She gasped her protests and tried to dismount, but he stopped her. He mounted also and soon they were heading back to the castle.

  The snow was falling more heavily now, but somehow Ivan seemed to know just where to go. They arrived in Powerscourt’s bailey within minutes. The steed and the pony were promptly taken to the stables by the grooms, and though Lissa pleaded with him to take her back to the ball, he refused.

  He pulled her across the snowy bailey and ducked them into a covered servants’ door just as another crowd was leaving in their sleighs. Unseen by the guests, Ivan pulled her to his chest and cupped her face with his hands. His palms were callused, yet their rough texture was almost pleasing. When she next looked up, his expression took her breath away. Intense and impatient, he then kissed her, devouring her with his mouth, and she knew without a doubt there was no turning back. He was not to be denied now. From the look on his face, an army of men couldn’t stop him.

  Before she could catch her breath they’d gone through the servants’ door and were in the keep. There wasn’t a soul around as he took her by the hand and forced her through the back maze of passages that led to the lord’s apartments. She tried to comprehend what they were about to do but her emotions clouded her ability to think. She was afraid yet exhilarated. Deep down inside, she knew she wanted him, but what would tomorrow bring? Nothing but heartache. He would once more begin his notorious pursuit of other women and she would be left behind, forgotten like an old toy.

  Terrified, she stood still on the stone floor of the passage. She had to stop him. If she didn’t, then what Letitia had said about her might become all too true.

  “Ivan, no—” she began, but he was in no mood for words. Seeing her reluctance, he lifted her up like a bag of horse feed and carried her to his apartments. When they were finally in his bedchamber, he laid her trembling body down before the great fire that burned in the hearth. Before her stood Ivan’s stately Elizabethan bed, massively carved in oak, heavily draped in Bargello needlework. Above her the pinnacled ceiling and ogee arches glimmered in the firelight. The room was dark and masculine, redolent with Romanticism and medieval Gothic. Though it had been Ivan’s father’s room and his father’s before that, it was only another irony that it suited the present lord perfectly.

  She started when she felt his hands upon her. He slid her wet mantle off her shoulders and it landed heavily behind her. She was cold. Whatever hair wasn’t in her snood now hung in damp tendrils about her face and neck, and her hem was frigid with clinging, melting snow. But she shivered even more as she watched Ivan move about the room, a wicked expression on his face. He went to a massive bog oak chest and poured something amber from a decanter. He brought a glass to her and put it in her chilled hand.

  “Drink this,alainn. ”

  Alainn,she thought, and took the liquor in one fiery gulp. The name reminded her of all that was terrible in their relationship.

  “More?”

  She shook her head. Mutely she allowed him to take the glass from her hand.

  He eased himself down on the hearth next to her. She looked at the unnatural light in his eyes, and suddenly she knew without a doubt that the only way to stop him now was to kill him. He had her and he was not about to let her go. She trembled. He was so close she could smell his breath laced with the essence of brandy. His jaw bore the shadow of a beard, and when he bent to kiss her cheek, her nose, her throat, she felt his rough skin. She inhaled and he filled her to bursting. If colors were fragrance, his scent would be a dark, sparkling burgundy, warm and rich. Soon a shiver ran down her spine as she felt his fingers on the back of her bodice. Instinctively she drew away, but there was nowhere to go. It was another exquisite torture, but one by one the silk lacings holding her gown together were undone.

  His gaze never wavered from her own. He stared at her for a long time, taking in all of her appearance. The gown, or rather how she looked in it, seemed to captivate him. The way the gleaming rose satin hung from her shoulders, barely on, yet barely off, lit a possessive spark in his eyes. The snood pleased him also, but, unexpectedly, it was the next thing to go. He tore it off her hair and the crystals dropped to the stone floor like hail. Her tresses fell free in a silver-gilt cascade, and that seemed to be what pleased him most of all. He picked up a silky curl from her shoulder and rubbed it between his fingers. The color seemed to fascinate him beyond reason. Finally he murmured, “I’ll never be rid of you, Lissa. You’ll haunt me forever.”

  His words offered her no solace. The scar on his face, that cruel, white scar, was cast in the firelight. Suddenly his statement seemed absurd. Of course, Ivan would never be rid of her. Not as long as he could look into a mirror.

  He wrapped his hand in her hair and pulled her to him for another kiss. He wouldn’t accept any holding back, and all too quickly her tongue met traitorously, deliciously with his. She felt him work at the ribbons on her corset cover and she was jerked by the force of his pull. Still his lips wouldn’t release her.

  The task was done in an astoundingly short amount of time and she was dragged to his bed. There, he left her holding her loosened dress and corset to her bosom while he walked to the fire. His cutaway came off first, then his waistcoat. He dispensed with his collar and bowtie. Finally he ripped off his shirt, revealing a magnificent, well-muscled chest.

  She trembled for she knew it well. Hardly a summer day had gone by when she hadn’t watched him from her room while he toiled shirtless in the Alcester stable yard. Now as she looked at him though, she felt a great jolt of emotion that had barely stirred within her years before. Desire coursed through her veins like an opiate. It made her belly tighten and her legs grow weak. Her palms curled around the heavy Genoa silk of the counterpane as she watched him walk to the bed.

  “Take off your gown,” he told her in a rich, low voice.

  Hesitating, she grasped the gown even tighter to her chest. All her instincts told her that she was doing something dangerous. Anything she wanted this badly had to be.

  “Ivan, you must listen—”

  “Lissa, give me the pleasure of watching you undress.”

  She put her hand out in a futile effort to stop him. “No, you must listen. Those names I’ve been called. They’re not true. You must know that I’ve never . . .” She was so pitifully naive she didn’t even know how to delicately explain what she had never done.

  His mouth curved in a strange little smile. He walked to her and trailed his finger down her bare shoulder.

  “Are you telling me that, contrary to what I’ve heard, you’ve never lain with a man?”

  She couldn’t look at him. Uneasily she nodded, and a grim smile came to her lips. “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not the hardened character everyone believes me to be. And I’m not the girl for you now.”

  She tried to rise from the bed. His hand stopped her. He tipped her head up and he stared at her as if he could look into her soul.

  Finally he whispered, “Lissa, you take my breath away. You’re an angel fallen from heaven and I want you so, I’ll go mad if I can’t have you.”

  A shadow passed over her eyes. Bitterly she reached her hand out and traced his scar. “I’m no angel,” she whispered.

  He grabbed her hand and stopped her movement.

  “Perhaps you are. Perhaps it’s you who might save me.” With that, he bent his head and his lips trailed down her neck until he met with the hollow of her throat. He left a scorching kiss in its sensitive recess, then his hands impatiently pushed her gown down from her bosom. His teeth grazed the swell of her breasts and he desperately tore at the buttons of her chem
ise. Her petticoats were expertly untied; her garters unclasped. Soon her dress joined the ornate pile of discarded garments, along with her ruined slippers and her drawers edged with Brussels lace. She was left with only her strapless corset and chemise to retain her modesty, and that was fleeting, for without warning, he grabbed her laces and wickedly ripped her corset in two.

  She gasped, shocked by the violence of his actions. But he wasn’t through with his onslaught. As if she were naked, his hand slid over her full breast, making the fire in her belly only burn brighter. She was still in her chemise, yet the fine dotted muslin was like a transparent sheath. Ivan seemed to find her quite tantalizing in it, and her nipples soon ached from the savagery of his caress.

  Too quickly, he wanted more. Again she was shocked by his methods; he dispensed with her chemise in the same manner with which he had her corset. With her last garment in tatters at her feet, she was suddenly overcome by terror. Naked, she tried to pull back from him, tried to put her hands over her breasts, but he wouldn’t let her. He forced her arms to her sides, then cupped her chin so that she would look at him. When her frightened gaze locked with his, he inexplicably confessed, “My beauty, you take my breath away. So don’t pull back now.”

  His words were too ferocious for her to tell him nay. She moaned in protest, but before she knew what was happening to her, his mouth had covered one dusky pink nipple and she shook from the pleasure he gave her. Time seemed to stand still as his warm palm slid between her legs. He caressed the inner satin of her thighs, and when he finally felt her response, he groaned, unable to wait any longer. He stepped from the bed and removed the last of his clothing.

  She watched him in the firelight, her eyelids heavy with desire. He was so beautiful, more beautiful than she had ever imagined in her simple girlish dreams. Now she would dream of him as a woman should—picturing him in minute detail. She would remember the broad chest well covered with crisp, black hair; his long, powerful legs perfectly formed to handle the most willful Thoroughbred; the buttocks hewn of pure, rock-hard muscle. He was ardently well endowed with manhood, and a tremor of excitement and fear ran through her as he came back to the bed. Her arms again wrapped protectively across her chest and she tensed when his weight came down on the mattress.

  But soon she was enveloped in such warmth she wondered if she could ever feel cold again. He rolled on top of her and kissed her as if he had never kissed her before. When he seemed as if he couldn’t hold back any longer, he filled his hands completely with her ample breasts, and he whispered against her pale hair, “I’ve waited so long for this. An eternity. But no more.”

  But no more.The words made her eyes fill with bittersweet tears. He had wanted to have her. Tomorrow, when his lust was satiated, his interest in her would surely wane. He’d made it all too clear that she was a demon he wanted to exorcise from his soul. When he had done that, perhaps he would even move back to London. And leave her behind in horrid little Nodding Knoll, never to be thought of again.

  A tear escaped her eye. This night was probably destined to be and its outcome was perhaps also as preordained. It was her terrible secret that she loved this distant, despicable man, and her pride was ultimately the price she would pay for it. She stared up at him and studied his hard, handsome features in the firelight. She had every reason in the world to avoid him, but somehow he had caught her—with his heated touch, his passionate words. Suddenly she knew she couldn’t fight him any more. Her only choice now was to grab her happiness with both hands, because tomorrow it would all be gone.

  Impulsively she pulled his dark head to hers and kissed him with all the fire in her soul. Understanding as no other could, he returned her kiss, then eased between her supple thighs.

  She had never felt so complete as that first moment when he entered her. His thrust was strong and sure. Though there should have been pain, the pain in her heart dimmed any other she might have felt. Her hands clung to his muscular arms and she lost herself in the power of the moment.

  Ivan took her with ferocious glory, and beneath him, Lissa began to understand her mother’s insatiable desires. Yet now she almost wanted to laugh. To think she had ever feared that she would turn into Rebecca, when it was far worse than that. Her mother’s affliction had been to want too many men, but now Lissa knew the truest hell was to want only one man, the one she could never really have.

  Her fingers dug into the muscle of Ivan’s forearms. He groaned her name and she almost wept. His rhythm was hard and unbreakable; she soon began to quiver from excitement. Her pleasure was building until she wanted to beg him to stop. But she didn’t beg him, and he didn’t stop. His breath came quick and furious as if he were holding back. The scar on his face was as white as she had ever seen it, and she couldn’t stop herself from touching it. But then she could bear no more. She moaned his name and in her delirium, her nails raked down his cheek. She flung her head back, taking her fulfillment in long, exquisite waves. Above her, she heard him gasp “Lissa . . .my Lissa” before he groaned and found a pleasure as long and exquisite as her own.

  If ever there was a night as black as this one, she had yet to live through it. In the flickering, dying light of the hearth, Lissa watched Ivan sleep. His knee rode intimately between her thighs and his arm rested possessively at her waist. Her hair was spread over his chest like a mass of sunlit threads, in startling contrast to the coal black curls behind it. As she lay near him, she felt his breath coming even and deep. Unable to stop herself, she rested her hand lightly against his chest. Beneath her palm lay warm skin and hard muscle; deeper still, his heart beat strong and sure. She looked at him and her eyes filled with tears of grief and love. In slumber, Ivan Tramore looked more like the angel Gabriel than the notorious bastard eleventh marquis.

  And now she would have to leave him.

  She closed her eyes and fought back her tears. She tried to summon the courage to go, but her courage failed her once more and her mind drifted to more pleasant hours. He had made love to her three more times, and with each moment, his need for her only grew more desperate. The sheets bore testament to her truthfulness, and the fact she’d been a virgin had seemed to please him immensely. He had kissed her so deeply then she wondered if it were possible for them to meld into one.

  Yet now she would have to leave him.

  Numbly she sat up. It was time to go. If she lingered in his warm bed, he might awaken. He would surely take her again, and though a part of her heated at the thought, another part of her wept. It was all too clear that they had no future. She had found no forgiveness or love in his bed. There was no more between them now to build a future on than there had ever been before. The only thing she left behind were the remnants of a torrid, hateful past —a past he would never let go. Even Letitia’s mother knew that; Arabella knew it too; and most of Nodding Knoll. And when he opened his eyes in the light of dawn, she would see he knew it too. The rejection would be there, unmistakable, undeniable. It would shred her heart into a thousand bits and leave her incapable of going on. He had wanted retribution for their past, and now that he’d got it, there was nothing left for her, except to leave, so she wouldn’t see what was in his eyes.

  Carefully she disentangled herself from his embrace. Not making a sound, she slid to the other side of the bed and in dismay looked around for her clothes. They were scattered throughout the great chamber. In the waning firelight, the crystals in her snood still shot a fiery sparkle, but she realized the beautiful headpiece was no more. Ivan had ripped it and now the crystals lay scattered about the floor like snowflakes.

  She was just about to rise from the bed in search of her chemise when a hand reached out and caught her arm.

  “Where are you going?” Ivan asked testily.

  Her whole body stiffened.

  “Answer me,” he demanded.

  Don’t look at his eyes,she told herself. Unwillingly a tear escaped and slid down her cheek.

  “Lissa—”

  “It’s late,
” she finally choked out. “And I must go.”

  “Turn around and face me.”

  She refused. Clutching the sheet to her bare bosom, she tried desperately to maintain her composure. Her eyes searched for her chemise and she finally found it on the stone floor, torn to shreds.

  “You’re not leaving,” he stated evenly, his hand tightening on her arm. “So come back to bed.”

  “Holland and Evvie will come looking for me if I don’t.”

  “Let them come,alainn. They have no power to make you leave.”

  She twisted her arm from his grasp. Discreetly she wiped her fallen tears. She then scooped her ragged chemise from the floor and used it to hide her nakedness. Without even glancing at him, she gathered her clothes and dressed in haste, desperately needing their protection.

  She tensed when she heard the bedstead creak. Before she could pull on her tattered slippers, Ivan embraced her around her waist and her back was thrust against his chest.

  “We’re not through,” he said angrily. “How dare you leave when we’re not through.”

  Another tear streamed down her face, but she dropped her head, vowing he’d never see it. “We are through. This should never have never happened. I was not raised to share the bed of my stableboy,” she lashed out.

  Her words were met with a cold rage. “You’ve shared the bed of a wealthy marquis. Don’t you ever forget that, Lissa. Don’t you ever forget who I am now.”

  “How could I?” she whispered vengefully. “But as I recall, sharing the bed of a marquis didn’t comfort your mother, nor has it offered you solace in bearing your ignoble birth.”

  He thrust her away from him. A terrible silence descended upon them. Finally he said, “My birth might have been ignoble, but if you hadn’t noticed, our stations have been reversed,Miss Alcester, and I now see no basis at all for your particularities. Stableboys or marquises, what difference should that make to the likes of you?”

  Her head snapped up and she met his furious gaze. All the rage in her heart spewed forth. “I hate you, Ivan, do you hear? Tonight shall be the curse of my existence and I’ll hate you forever for forcing it upon me. Forever!”