When Angels Fall (22 page)

“Yes, I know all about that. She’s quite a witch, isn’t she?” He sank into a nearby sofa.

“Well . . .” She looked at him, uncertain. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful.

He only chuckled at her expression. “My sentiments exactly. What say we replace her?”

“We?”

“Of course. I shouldn’t like to oust employees on my own account. Much better we both agree she’s no good.”

“But I couldn’t have that on my conscience,” she said. “Perhaps she has a family to support? Perhaps Mrs. Lofts has some sickly mother in need of care?”

“She is a spinster and at her age, I doubt sincerely she has any living parents. Besides, the woman hasn’t posted a note in a century. How could she be sending her wages to anyone?”

“Then I suppose she isn’t,” she answered in a small voice. It unsettled her that a woman’s entire livelihood depended on this man’s whim. She had no love of Mrs. Lofts. On the contrary, that very morning she had seen the housekeeper viciously cuff one of the sculleries. The poor girl was so hurt, she’d left the kitchen in tears. Having watched the entire display, Lissa hadn’t been able to contain her anger any more. She’d demanded to know what on earth could be so terrible that the housekeeper felt it necessary to strike young girls. It had been the wrong thing to say, indeed, for the imperious Mrs. Lofts exited without saying a word. Only later did Lissa find out from the butler that she’d been given the chore of polishing the silver. She’d been forced to do that all morning, and now her hands were blistered and raw.

But even so, she wanted to give the old woman the benefit of doubt. Perhaps Mrs. Lofts was simply having a bad time of it. That was no reason to dismiss a servant who’d obviously been doing good work for years.

“She adored my father, you know.” Ivan’s voice brought her out of her thoughts. She turned to him. With a slight smile, he said, “In fact, I think she was quite in love with him.”

“Then you surely mustn’t be so cruel as to throw her out on the streets.”

“You mean you don’t want me to? Is there a warm heart beneath all that ice and acrimony?” He looked at her in mock horror.

“She’s been with your family a long time. I don’t see any need for haste.”

The speculation on his face deepened. “She hates me. So tell me, Lissa, how does one go about tolerating a servant so vile?”

“She seems nothing but dutiful to me. How can you say such things?”

“Because it’s in her eyes. And because she spent so much time with my father.”

Her eyes met his. There was something she wanted to say, but she had difficulty forming the words. “Your father —Ivan—you must forget him—he’s like a poison.”

She half expected a rage to follow, but none did. Ivan grew solemn, then gave her a dark, distrustful look. After that, he promptly changed the subject.

“Here, let me look at you in that silly frumpish garb.” He motioned with his head. “Go ahead, turn around so I can see all of it.”

Haltingly she turned for him. She felt foolish doing so, but anything was better than tempting his ire. When she faced him once more, she was blushing.

“Fetching, fetching indeed,” he murmured as he looked at her black dress. She hated the silk twill gown, for its color made her dreadfully pale. The only relief to the uniform’s severity was the pristine white collar and cuffs, and the little white cap of ribbons that fell down her back like a wedding veil, but it wasn’t enough to put color in her cheeks nor a spark to her eyes. It seemed only he could do that, and he always did it brilliantly.

“Lissa, come sit here beside me and tell me of your duties.”

She glanced at him uneasily. “I really cannot. Mrs. Lofts will not like it.”

“What are we, two truant children hiding from their
nanny? Damn the woman! Come and sit beside me.” Suddenly he grabbed her hand and pulled her down to the sofa, yet her hand was still blistered from all the polishing and she winced.

“What is this?” he asked as he pulled open her palm. He scrutinized its raw appearance, then, as if in apology, he kissed its center. The burn of his lips made her pull back, but her palm curled into itself anyway as if to hold the pleasure of his touch.

“No, Ivan, don’t,” she said as he tried to take it again. He turned angry, but for once his anger was not directed toward her.

“Where did you acquire such blisters?” he demanded. “My household or yours?”

“Mine,” she lied.

“And how did you get them?”

“I—I was polishing some of my mother’s silver.” That was closer to the truth, and she at once felt much more comfortable.

“Your mother must have left you a fortune in silver then, considering the condition of your hands.” He suddenly tried to grab one again, but this time she anticipated it and stood up. Before he could rise from the sofa she was halfway across the room. He seemed to think her a coquette for suddenly he laughed, but she only tensed. Behind her in the passage she could hear footsteps. The thought that they might belong to Mrs. Lofts sent a chill down her spine.

As if he’d read her thoughts, he said, “She’s not your employer, I am. You need answer only to me.”

Her worried azure gaze darted to the door. But how very miserable Mrs. Lofts could make her life in Ivan’s absence. With that thought, she searched for the servants’ exit. She found the baize-covered door and opened it silently. It closed just the same way.

At her swift departure, Ivan’s expression darkened. A gleam lit his eyes when he caught a last fleeting glimpse of
her ankle surrounded by the confection of petticoat ruffles. He was sufficiently tantalized to pursue her but just as he stepped toward the door, Mrs. Lofts entered the drawing room.

“You have a visitor, my lord,” she announced in her perfunctory manner. Seeing the gasolier down, she dutifully went to raise it.

“Who is it?” he asked, an annoyed expression on his face.

“She says her name is Mrs. Kovel. Mrs. Antonia Kovel. She said you would know who she was.”

Suddenly the annoyance left Ivan’s face and it was replaced with bemusement. “Send her in,” he said, then as an afterthought added, “And make us some luncheon, will you? Just bring it in here.”

“Will that be all, my lord?” Mrs. Lofts inquired, the slightest hint of a smirk on her face as she used his title.

“Yes, that will be all.” His eyes narrowed as if he’d caught her disdain. “For now.”

“Very good, my lord.”

When Antonia Kovel entered the room, Ivan was gazing out the great expanse of windows that overlooked the South Lawn. His hands were clasped behind his back and his feet were apart; he looked like a captain viewing his fleet. Seeing him, the beautiful black-haired woman smiled softly. Her green eyes sparkled with emotion. They seemed glazed by tears of sadness and delight. She picked up the skirts of her black velvet riding habit and walked into the room.

“Ivan. I’m here,” she whispered.

Immediately he turned around. Antonia giggled like a girl, though it was clear by the etching of lines on her lovely face she hadn’t seen girlhood in at least twenty years. His arms went out and she rushed into them.

“How grand you’ve become, Ivan, I hardly recognize you.” She brushed a fallen tear from her cheek, then gig
gled again. “Oh, old Powerscourt must be turning in his grave with you roaming these halls.”

“He’s beginning to accept it, I think. I haven’t seen his specter here since two weeks past.”

Antonia started, then softly slapped his chest. “You rogue, to trick an old woman.” She looked up at him fully and for the first time noticed his scar. She raised her hand to stroke it, but then, for some reason, thought better of it. With her hand back at her side, she said, “So I see the past seven years have not been completely kind.”

He ruefully touched the scar. “I’m beginning to think it’s not the past I should be worried about.”

“As well you should not,” she agreed. She broke from him and sauntered around the drawing room. Her hand caressed the cream satin tufting on a ladies’ chair, then she swept across to the conservatory entrance to give the jungle of glass and fragrant greenery an appreciative inspection. When she’d seen enough, she went back to his side and said, “Your Powerscourt is magnificent, Ivan. It’s everything you could have wanted.”

“Not everything,” he stated enigmatically.

“Ah, of course.” She smiled a secret smile. “There is a certain blonde, I understand, who, despite her hardships, has grown into an exquisite young woman. Am I close?”

“Perhaps.” He seemed anxious to change the subject. “You look exquisite yourself, Antonia. You haven’t changed a bit.”

She threw back her shoulders proudly. “But I have! I’ve aged seven years and I don’t mind telling you I look every bit of it!”

“Has it been that long?”

“Yes, indeed. You forget, my darling, it wasn’t because of me you left town. Your interest in Nodding Knoll’s reclusive Widow Antonia waned years before that.”

He patted her velvet-clad bottom affectionately. “My interest in a beautiful woman never wanes.”

She tried not to smile but she couldn’t help herself.
“You shameless flatterer. But you must know, lover, some men are not so young and handsome as you, and when they tell me I’m beautiful, I believe it.”

He chuckled. “Kovel?”

“After five years of marriage, he still thinks me quite a prize. Imagine.”

“You are quite a prize.” He caressed her cheek. “You know I would have married you.”

“You never would have.” She tweaked his cravat.

“You were my first, Antonia. I was completely besotted.”

She smiled and her face took on a bittersweet expression. “I couldn’t have been your first. You taught me more than I could have ever taught you.”

“I was only seventeen. Quite callow.”

“Pooh. You were born old, Ivan. You were never seventeen. And you were never callow. I vividly remember that day when I first saw you in the stableyard. You brought me that stallion I’d bought from Alcester. That very moment when I first glanced at you I thought you were a man. Later that evening in the stables when I went to check on how you were doing with the stallion, I can remember all too well how you proved to me you were.”

Ivan’s mouth twisted in a wry grin. “I still hold to the theory that it was you who corrupted me.”

Antonia laughed. “Well, it must be true—because look at you! You’re a confirmed rake and hellbent on staying that way I hear. What have I done?”

“You could have reformed me while there was still a chance.”

“You know as well as I do we could have never married. People would have called you all sorts of nasty names, ‘fortune hunter’ to begin with. And you would have never been faithful. Not once Lissa Alcester shed her adolescence.”

He didn’t seem to know how to respond to that remark. The relief on his face seemed extraordinary when
Mrs. Lofts suddenly entered the drawing room with the tea cart.

“Refreshments?” Antonia shot Ivan a coquettish look, then she walked over to the cart, looking over the meats and cakes and scones.

“I take it it was a long ride from Cullenbury?” he stated dryly, dismissing the housekeeper with a nod.

Antonia looked up, a petit-four already in her mouth. Her eyes crinkled with laughter. She swallowed and said, “It was. Dreadfully long. But I just woke up this morning and said to Kovel, ‘Ivan is back. I must ride out to Nodding Knoll today and see him.’ ”

“Kovel is a generous husband to let his wife ride across the countryside to see her old lover.”

“Kovel is a dear who has nothing to be jealous of. He makes me laugh, Ivan, and that will see me into my dotage. I am happy at last.”

“I know. I see it.”

Antonia’s eyes locked with his. There was a sadness between them and she seemed unable to bear it. Finally she said softly, “You must find your happiness too, Ivan. I couldn’t find it in castles, and riches, and supple younger lovers, nor will you.”

“I know that.”

She filled his plate to overflowing. When she handed it to him she said, “Then you, my love, are a very wise man.” She kissed him briefly on the lips and went back to pour out their tea.

They sat in the drawing room for hours, reminiscing about days long past. When Antonia was ready to leave it was near twilight, and Ivan insisted she take his coach back to Cullenbury. Their parting was bittersweet for though they were no longer lovers, they each seemed to find a deep satisfaction in their friendship. Ivan promised to call on her and her husband soon and, with that, he said his farewells. He watched the carriage wind down the castle
road, then he returned to the drawing room deep in thought.

Lissa had just brought Mrs. Lofts her evening linens when she spied the carriage pull away from the castle. She was in the servants’ north stairwell, and it was so cold in there that her breath came in little white puffs. But she stopped midflight, nonetheless, to look out the little window at the departing carriage.

Assuming Ivan had gone out for the evening, she was eager to get to the drawing room and finish cleaning the chimneys. She’d spent the entire day performing the worst kind of drudgery and longed for it to end. After she’d fled the drawing room, Mrs. Lofts instructed her to go to the pantry and finish her polishing. Thinking she’d had that task completed, Lissa had gone to the pantry only to find even more tarnished hollowware stacked on the table as if put there by a sorcerer’s apprentice. She’d spent the rest of the day huddled in the pantry while all around her the house had buzzed with news of a visitor. Now, at dusk, Lissa had thought she was finally through, only to realize she hadn’t finished in the drawing room.

Walking at a brisk pace, sure she’d be done in less than a half hour, she burst into the drawing room from the baize door and, in her haste, didn’t see the two feet that were stretched out in her path. To her surprise, she tripped and fell right into the arms of the marquis, who was sitting in the chair next to the servants’ door. She was so shocked to find him there, it took her a moment or two before she could even struggle to a sitting position.

“But—but I thought you’d gone out,” she said incredulously, looking at Ivan as if he were a ghost. “I saw your carriage leave—”