When Angels Fall

by Meagan Mckinney

  She stumbled back. Tears welled up in her eyes and she vowed to run all the way back to Violet Croft before he could see them.

  “Lissa.”

  He stopped her. She wiped her cheeks with the back of her gloved hand. Still she didn’t face him.

  “Do you no longer want to live at Alcester House?” he asked gently.

  “I want to live with my husband. At his home,” she blurted out.

  “At Powerscourt?”

  She could hardly whisper her answer. “Yes,” she told him wretchedly.

  With a strong, unwavering hold, he turned her to face him. As if in disbelief, he asked, “How can you love me? How can you possibly loveme ?”

  She again wiped her tears. Her voice shook when she answered him. “I love you simply because no matter what I do, I cannot stop feeling this way.”

  Her words seemed to cause him pain. He didn’t move to her. Instead he turned away completely. His head lowered and he rasped, “Despite all attempts to make it otherwise, I am a bastard, Lissa. I was born a bastard. I am still treated like a bastard. I’ve spent most of my life shoveling dung and wearing rags.” His voice faltered. “What, in that, could possibly be worth your love?”

  She looked at his forbidding back and she felt completely helpless to make him turn around.

  Finally she whispered, “I loved you when you wore rags and I love you now. You’ve helped me protect my brother, you’ve been generous to my sister.” Despite herself, she began to cry again. “All for a girl who scarred you for life. Oh, my lord, how could I not love you? I weep every day that I ever caused you such harm.”

  When she finished, she felt him pull her into his arms. Unable to stop the flood of emotion, she began crying against his chest. He held her and stroked her hair. She heard his harsh voice trying to soothe her, but she could not be quieted. For five long years she had carried her guilt. Now it was time for it to end.

  At last, when her emotion was spent, she lifted her head. Their eyes met for a long soulful moment, and before she could stop herself, she reached up and touched his scar.

  “Oh, Ivan.” She sighed. “I must know. Did it hurt terribly?”

  Slowly he shook his head. “I didn’t feel a thing,” he whispered.

  “How shamelessly you lie then.”

  “But this is not a lie.” He caressed her cheek and turned grave. “I need you, Lissa. I’m empty inside without you. If you ever leave me again, I shall truly grow mad. I . . . love . . . you.”

  Astounded, she looked at him. “What did you say?” she gasped.

  “I love you,” he said, his voice filled with emotion. He then tipped her face and kissed away her anguish forever.

  When at last they parted, he still kept his arms possessively wrapped around her.I love you. In her mind she again heard his words, and her heart swelled with joy. Looking up at him in awe and disbelief, she knew then she had never known such utter bliss. He had finally told her how he felt and he had said just the words she had prayed she would hear. Antonia had been right and now she thanked God that she had listened to her.

  Gazing up at him, she studied every dear feature of his face. But suddenly, because her heart had never felt so light or because her spirit had never flown so high, she began to giggle.

  “What are you laughing at, baggage?” he demanded.

  “Oh, Ivan. Your face. You look positively dreadful. You look almost as battered as Holland.”

  He didn’t seem to find the amusement in this. Instead he scowled. “Jones is lucky to be alive.”

  “I’m sure he is,” she said, touching one particularly mean bruise on his temple. “In fact, I’m sure you both are!”

  “Holland got what he deserved, no more, no less.”

  “Yes, he’s become quite insufferable. In fact, he would be quite upset to find out I have seen you.”

  “And do you find his actions justified?”

  She paused. “Holland is trying to protect me. He found the flowers I wore in my hair. He feels you have taken advantage of me.” She finished slowly, “But as we both know, you have not.”

  “Snatching you away like that was unforgivable.”

  “He thinks you a villain.”

  “He’s right. I am a villain.”

  She stared up at him. All at once, she turned cold with fear that he was somehow not going to ask her to marry him. But then his finger lifted to touch her lips. As he did, she kissed his palm.

  “My beautiful girl,” he whispered. His hand dropped to his waistcoat. From a tiny pocket, he produced a ring. He slipped it on her finger. The ring was made up of tiny stones—lapis lazuli, opal, verde antique, epidote, moonstone, and emerald—which, as was custom, taking the gems’ first letters, spelled out a message. Ivan’s ring said “love me.” She was so stunned, for a moment she could hardly breathe.

  “I shall speak to Holland this afternoon about a wedding. Would that please you?”

  Almost drugged by her happiness, she nodded.

  “Is a week too long to wait?”

  Releasing a cry, her arms went around his neck. Joyously she whispered, “Yes, yes! Anytime is too long to wait!”

  “I can’t arrange it sooner,alainn, I have people to notify. It’s not every day the Marquis of Powerscourt takes a wife. So many will want to witness this.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand!” She kissed him tenderly, full on the lips. When they parted he seemed loathe to let her go from his arms.

  “Alainn,I want to make you happy.” He stumbled on his words. “Yet, I’m afraid—that—perhaps—you could do better.”

  “No better,” she told him. “There are no better men than you, my lord.”

  He held her against him as if needing the warmth of her body. “Then may God in His mercy keep you believing that forever,” he whispered.

  * * *

  Lissa rushed back to Violet Croft to tell Evvie the wonderful news. As she burst into the cottage, she found Holland there too and she couldn’t have been more glad to see him. Immediately she rushed into his arms and gave him a warm, sisterly kiss.

  “I’m to be wed! I’m to be wed!” she cried out, dancing around the parlor.

  Disconcerted, Holland watched her while Evvie laughed and clapped her hands.

  “Oh, sister, is it true? Ivan really asked you? When did you see him?”

  “Yes, yes! I saw him at the Great House. We were both walking there.” Lissa fell back onto the sofa. She immediately took off the ring and put it in Evvie’s palm. “He gave me this ring, then told me we must be wed in a week! He is to speak with Holland this very afternoon. Right before he leaves for London to make all the arrangements.”

  “Oh, Holland!” Evvie exclaimed. “Everything is to be all right now! Our darling Lissa is to become a marchioness. Ivan’s marchioness!”

  “Yes,” Holland said rather flatly. A worried frown furrowed his forehead, but Lissa didn’t notice it at all. She was too busy explaining which stones were in her ring and what it was set in.

  “Oh, dear!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Now I suppose I do have to go to town! I must tell Mrs. Bishop! She’s been so kind to us, it’s only right she be the next to know!”

  In a flurry, Lissa gathered up her cloak and gloves. Excitedly she checked her bonnet in the little hall mirror. She was pleased to see her cheeks had blossomed with color. Happiness did indeed suit her. She would never let it go again. With that thought in mind, she bid her farewells and flew out the door, unmindful of Holland’s worried stare.

  After spending a delightful teatime with the Bishops, Lissa returned home with excitement still beating in her breast. But her heart constricted a bit when she heard Evvie and Holland having a heated argument upstairs. In dismay, she paused in the parlor, not even taking off her cloak. She was completely unsure of what to do. Her instincts were to leave them alone, and yet, worried, she couldn’t shake the terrible dread that somehow, their quarrel concerned her. Feeling like a thief, she nervously ascended the stairs. Holl
and’s words to Evvie stopped her before she even got to the top.

  “My God, quit defending him! Tramore’s been ‘Aunt Sophie’ all along and he’s been manipulating your lives as if you were all pawns on a chessboard—just to keep his grasp on your sister!”

  Lissa’s jaw dropped and a frown appeared on her brow. Every limb of her body seemed to go numb from shock. She was so astounded by Holland’s words, she could hardly comprehend their meaning. What had he said? That their mysterious Great-aunt Sophie was really . . . ? She suddenly found herself choking on the name. Her hand went to her throat and she felt uncontrollably ill.

  “It’s a horrible revelation, Holland,” she heard Evvie interject, “but if Ivan did really invent our Great-aunt Sophie, the charade has done us more good than harm. I don’t know how we would have gotten along without his aid.”

  “He cut you off, remember? He did it just as he was coming to Powerscourt so that he could get Lissa completely in his grasp!”

  “His deception is reprehensible. But I can’t hate him. Surely he must be a good man deep inside, or why else would he have ever concerned himself with our destitute state?”

  “There’s more.”

  Hearing Holland’s words, Lissa suddenly felt faint. She closed her eyes and clutched the banister for support. She couldn’t believe what was going on. She couldn’t believe Ivan was Aunt Sophie. But, she thought as pain darkened her eyes, they had been cut off just before Ivan returned to town. And they had never met Aunt Sophie, never knew she’d existed, really, until they’d gotten that note from her London solicitors—Ivan’s solicitors.

  Horrified, she turned away from the stair. The deceptionwas reprehensible. And though she screamed to herself not to start, she suddenly began to doubt so many things Ivan had done and said. She even began to wonder if she’d known him at all. Now Holland had said there was more. And from the tone of his voice, it was terrible indeed. She didn’t know how she would endure hearing it. With a silent, heart-wrenching moan, she turned back to the stair and listened.

  Worried, Evvie soothed her husband. “My love, you feel so tense. How bad can it be? Already it seems the worst has been told—”

  “No,” Holland said, cutting her off. “No, the worst has not been told. What I fear is far worse.”

  “What—what do you fear?” Evvie whispered.

  Lissa grasped the banister until her knuckles were white.

  “I fear Tramore may be waiting with acoup de grâce. He’s lusted after revenge for more years than I know. Every day that scar has to remind him of his quest. I’m afraid that for him to forgive Lissa, he’d have to forgive everyone in this entire town who treated him callously. Could he do that? I just don’t know. When I saw that engagement ring, the terrible idea suddenly struck me that perhaps there was method in his madness. I mean, that ring could be his path to complete retribution. What if he’s asked Lissa to marry him . . . only to abandon her at the altar?”

  “It’s not true! It’s not true! I beg of you to tell me it’s not true!” Lissa suddenly cried out in anguish. She burst into the room and looked wildly around. Though she’d never felt closer to fainting in her whole life, she forced her legs to hold. Holland was speaking terrible lies and somehow she had to stop them. Ivan wouldn’t abandon her at the altar. He loved her! He had said it! Shaking with fear and fury, she confronted her brother-in-law. “Holland, this is a lie! You must take it all back! It’s a lie!” She stared into his face and found the anguish she had dreaded. All of a suddenly, she felt weak and drained. She could hardly look at him. “Tell me this is a lie,” she begged, her voice lowering to a whisper. “Tell me he’s not capable of such treachery!”

  Evvie found her way to her side and bade her sit down. Numbly Lissa did as she instructed. But suddenly the burden of this revelation became too much for her. She buried her head in her hands, but no tears would come. Now there was not even that as a release for her grief. Ivan and his despotic love had even taken that away.

  “Lissa.”

  She felt Holland pull down her hands.

  “As God is my witness, I didn’t want you to hear this.”

  She looked at him with beautiful, haunted eyes. “But now I have heard it. And damn you, I had a right to know. Why didn’t you tell me this before? Before you left for Italy?”

  “I wanted to, but there was no time. And . . . I thought you’d stay away from him.”

  “Oh, God, I wish I had.” She closed her eyes and began shaking. Already she could hear Ivan’s last few words. Their marriage preparations would take a week, because “so many will want to witness this.” All of Holland’s fears seemed about to come true. Ivan probably had no intention of marrying her, had never had any intention of marrying her. Knowing what she knew now, it made much more sense that he was still out for revenge. Her heart shattered into a thousand pieces just thinking that their whole relationship had been drummed up as an execution, not a marriage. He’d even told her he’d loved her. Had that too been another grand manipulation? Another lie?

  “God, what shall I do?” she whispered, feeling herself growing more mad by the second. She wished Ivan had thrust a knife into her heart instead of this. That would have been far less pain. And ever so much more private. Already she’d told Mrs. Bishop, and by now surely half the town knew that Ivan had asked her to be his wife. Already her humiliation had begun.

  “Lissa, you must be brave,” she heard Holland tell her.

  Suddenly she crumbled. She thought of how sweet her last meeting with Ivan had been and how utterly she had believed him.

  “But I can’t be! I can’t be any more!” She rose from the bench and ran, stumbling, to her room. She still did not cry.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Fifteen thousand pounds, Lissa thought morosely as she turned the snood over and over in her hands. The wedding was that afternoon. Even though Ivan had spent the week in London, somehow banns had been posted and guests of the marquis had been arriving for days. But she did not think of that. There was no point when she would not be at the wedding. Instead, she thought of her snood and the heavenly sum of money it had cost the Marquis of Powerscourt.

  She found out from Holland that it was made of diamonds and silver cord. The jeweler, Bronwyn and Schloss, was apparently the finest in all of London. Holland had even seen the ticket when the piece had been delivered. Ivan had paid fifteen thousand pounds to have it made.

  Fifteen thousand pounds.

  The unbelievable figure kept coursing through her mind. To achieve Ivan’s wicked goals, even fifteen thousands pounds had not stood in his way. It had probably amused him to no end to see her struggle with her poverty, while the means to its end were at her very fingertips. She remembered the night they had first made love, and how he had gathered up the diamonds and crushed them into her hand. He must have laughed heartily when she’d left her treasure behind, unaware of its worth. He’d probably had it repaired only so that he could torment her again.

  She clutched the snood in her hands. But she would no longer be tormented. He could not torment a soul that had long since died.

  She looked at the snood and again thought of its worth. Fifteen thousand pounds would secure her for life. Though she’d entertained thoughts of returning it to Ivan, of throwing the diamonds at his feet like so many worthless rocks, she now most definitely decided against it.

  Because she’d earned those diamonds, she thought coldly. She’d paid for them with her mind, body, and soul. And now that he had taken all three, she had nothing else left but this glittering piece of jewelry in her hands. She would never give it back.

  She put the piece in its black satin case and thought of Ivan’s other treacheries. In the days previous Holland had told her all that he knew. The revelations were painful. Even hearing that the marquis had bought her portrait from a London gallery and then kept it in the attic, because, as Holland had put it, “he could not bear to see it properly displayed,” broke her heart all over again. She w
as sickened by all the manipulations and lies, sickened beyond redemption. She had hardly left her room all week. Though Evvie tried to get her to eat or even cry, she couldn’t. Her pain was too great to even allow herself the luxury of feeling it. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever feel again.

  A knock came at the bedroom door. Her gaze lifted and she found Evvie in the doorway. Her arms were filled with the gold boxes sent from Powerscourt days ago. Her sister briskly brought them into the room.

  “Why are you bringing those in here?” Lissa asked rather flatly.

  “Because it’s your wedding gown.” Evvie ignored her sister’s apathy and presented her with a white silk box.

  “What is this?”

  “Ivan returned from London this morning. His note was quite explicit that you were to get this this morning. To be sure, Holland read it to me twice.”

  Taking a deep ragged breath, Lissa opened the box. She was rather startled by the contents. Though the jewels were no more than pearls, the clasp bore the Alcester coat of arms. It was Rebecca’s necklace.

  “What is it, sister?” Evvie asked softly.

  “Mother’s pearls,” Lissa confessed. “I lied to you that I did not sell them. Now Ivan has found them again and given them back to us.”

  “Toyou, ” Evvie reminded her.

  “No,” Lissa refused, putting on a most brittle façade. “These are meant for you. I want you to have them as your wedding gift. I felt quite awful not being able to give them to you then.”

  “Lissa, I cannot accept Ivan’s gift to you.”

  “But the pearls were ours and I wanted you to have them.”

  “But now they are Ivan’s. And he wants his bride to wear them on her wedding day.”

  “No wedding day!” Lissa cried out and leaped from the bed. She stared out her mullioned window, the crush of passing carriages only reminding her further of her anguish.