When Angels Fall (50 page)

He had come. Relief and joy swept her brow. All that he had said to her was true. There were no more lies. The past had been played out. Though she hardly dared to believe it, it seemed that finally their fates were to entwine as she had always prayed they would—in contentment and love.

She wiped her cheek and found it damp. She was crying, yet this time it was not from anguish. She had never felt so utterly happy as when she looked at her bridegroom. And when she saw how he looked at his bride.

Ivan’s eyes gleamed with admiration of her in her finery. But there was another emotion in them as well, one that she had seen before, yet had never quite understood —until this very moment. With tears streaming down her face, she glanced down at her engagement ring still on her hand. “Love me” it asked, as he was asking now. She smiled through her weeping and without doubt or fear, silently answered, “I will.” She looked up and saw that he held out his hand for her. When Holland began their walk down the aisle, it was all she could do not to run shamelessly into her love’s arms.

. . .
Oh my soul, so may thy
face be by me when I close my
life indeed; so may I, when re
alities are melting from me like
the shadows which I now dis
miss, still find thee near
me . . .

David Copperfield to Agnes,

Charles Dickens

MEAGAN MCKINNEY began writing fiction while studying for her degree in Biology at Columbia University. Her first historical romance, NO CHOICE BUT SURRENDER, won the 1987
Romantic Times
Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Historical Romance by a New Author. MY WICKED ENCHANTRESS, her second historical romance, was named a finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Medallion competition for Best Historical Romance of 1988. She lives in an old Victorian home in uptown New Orleans with her husband and numerous adopted stray animals, and is currently working on her next historical romance for Dell
.