When Angels Fall (27 page)

“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 is
nullius
filius
can inherit such wealth? Because
my 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’s
alainn.

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 cru
elly, “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.

They say the angels mark
each deed

And exercise below,

And out of inward pleasure feed

On what they viewing know.

BEN JONSON,

“Musicall Strife:

in a Pastorall Dialogue”

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 to
gros 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.

Her sky-blue eyes clouded. But he had to notice her before her ball, before she was thrust into the world. She didn’t really want society balls and satin dresses and wealthy young suitors. All she wanted was Ivan.

Of course, she knew what was said about him, that he was the bastard of the Marquis of Powerscourt. She also knew he possessed no last name. He was only Ivan, a man born on the wrong side of the covers, without kin of any kind.

Yet he was the reason she rose in the morning. To see his handsome face even fleetingly was the entire meaning of her day. To her, he was like the stars in a midnight sky,
beautiful and elusive. He was the very portrait of male virtue, the exact model Michelangelo had been seeking for
David.

And he was never going to notice her.

In disgust, she pulled on her other glove and swept the excess of her long velvet skirts onto her arm. The riding crop tapped even harder on the marble. She was going to have to do something very soon or her dreams of her stableboy would never come true.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over!” Evvie came up behind her dressed in a similar habit, this one of burgundy velvet. Her slightly developed fourteen-year-old figure was quite fetching, and she looked gamine with her sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks.

“I suppose the ponies should be ready by now.” Lissa looked furtively toward the stables.

“Of course. Come along. I shall race you!” Evvie took her hand and pulled her down the steps. Their skirts tripped them up and Lissa couldn’t help but laugh. Evvie was not about to let her pause though. She took Lissa’s hand and pulled her all the way down the brick road.