When Angels Fall (26 page)

The first bad omen occurred when Mrs. Myers’s instructions on how to find the marquis’s apartments went askew. Powerscourt was a huge castle, and Lissa knew she should have listened more attentively to the directions. More than once she found herself in a corridor that seemed to lead only to dark oblivion.

Finally she did find the massive double doors with the Powerscourt coat of arms emblazoned on it. She set the tray on the floor and tentatively knocked on the door.

The second omen occurred when there was no answer. She stood there for several moments contemplating what she should do next. She couldn’t leave the tray where it was for he would never know it was there. Yet to enter Ivan’s chambers unannounced most certainly gave her pause. He could be napping—or worse, bathing. He could be doing any number of private things.

She frowned. In indecision, she fingered the ancient splintering oak of the doors. When she could procrastinate no longer, she knocked loudly, then cracked open the door. She fetched the tray and pushed against the door to pass through, yet suddenly it flew open and she nearly dropped the tray at Ivan’s feet.

“What are you doing out in the passage?”

Lissa barely heard the question for she was too busy trying to steady her tray. When the milk pitcher was no
longer wobbling, she looked up at him and was again startled, this time by his appearance. He wore nothing but black trousers.

His feet were bare upon the huge Turkish Kelim rug. His upper half was bare also, and though she’d seen him shirtless many times when he’d worked in the stables, now her eyes seemed to find every supple muscle, every crisp hair, that covered his chest. When she finally dragged her gaze from the play of muscle at his torso, she looked up and saw he was still wiping the soap from his partially shaven jaw. She almost smiled. Of course, Ivan the Terrible, with his distrust of mankind, wouldn’t have his valet shave him. God save the poor soul who dared take a razor to that throat, no matter how innocent the circumstances.

“Have you nothing better to do than gawk?” he demanded.

Taken completely aback, she stuttered, “I—I am not gawking, I assure you.”

He laughed the moment her cheeks flamed. Then he rubbed his chest, taunting her to look further. His brazen attitude about his nakedness shocked her even more, and she wished only to make her excuses and be gone. She saw a Nonsuch chest against one wall so she quickly put the tray down on it.

“I’ve brought you your breakfast,” she said.

“Why didn’t you take the servants’ stair?”

“Mrs. Myers suggested that I not use it for fear I might end up in the wrong room.” She met his eye and could only surmise by his expression that he wouldn’t have minded her ending up in the wrong room, especially if that room was his bedroom.

He began walking to a chamber beyond, and she was relieved that this encounter seemed to be over so soon. She was premature in her thinking, however, when he commanded, “Set up my meal on the table. I shall be back in a moment.
Do not leave.
”

She watched him go, suddenly feeling every bit like a lamb being led to the slaughter.

The only table in the anteroom was a huge marble tripod that appeared as if it had been taken from the ruins of Pompeii. Just out of spite, she found the most uncomfortable chair—one with a triangular seat and a back made entirely of spindles that looked like the quintessential medieval torture device—and dragged it to the table. She set out his linen and the prerequisite twelve pieces of silver flatware he would need in order to eat. When her tray was empty, she took it up like a shield and surveyed her surroundings.

In all the castle, these chambers seemed to be the only ones in their original condition. None of the furnishings looked to be newer than the sixteenth century. There were several trestle-form stools with Romayne medallions; a great oak settle with linen-fold panels; and a huge ambry that, no doubt, used to store the castle’s weapons. Every coffer and desk was decorated with turnings, and Gothic tracery was carved into all the stone ceilings and walls. The place was like a museum, only more magnificent for its provenance. The passions of Ivan’s ancestors lay buried there, and Lissa could well understand a reluctance to disturb them. But somehow, she doubted Ivan had left the rooms alone because of a reverence for his ancestors. He hated them. Most likely, he had kept the chambers intact for fear that change might rid them of their ghosts. And he wanted them there, so he could shake them up and make them wail. After all, the ghosts were all that was left of his family to torture.

Lissa clutched the tray in her delicate hands. Her eyes surveyed the dank, dark chamber once more. She wasn’t looking for ghosts—ghosts didn’t frighten her—but she was looking for reassurance. She soon found something familiar resting on an upholstered Farthingale chair. It was an ancient balalaika.

She put down the tray and went to it, her mind flood
ing with memories. As if it were yesterday, she could hear it being played in the night, softly from the stables. It seemed she had always fallen asleep in the summertime with “Meadowland” or some other Russian folk tune floating into her open window. The notes were the saddest sound in the world, doubly so because the ancient balalaika was the only remembrance Ivan had of his mother.

Drawn to the instrument, she picked it up and ran her hands over the Cyrillic script that covered the triangular body. She easily recalled what Ivan had told her it said:

Tears of sorrow touch these strings

Tears of joy shall I then bring

It was signed by someone named only Ivanovich, St. Petersburg 1702. The original owner had long since departed when Ivan’s mother had come upon it, yet it had obviously been the gypsy girl’s most prized possession, for she had named her only son Ivan and, as rumor had it, died with it in her arms.

In a moment of sadness, Lissa strummed the three strings. She wondered if she let a tear fall upon it, would her dreams really come true? She wished that Evvie would marry soon, and she wished Great-aunt Sophie’s solicitor would suddenly discover some misplaced funds so that she could pay for George’s education. But more than that, she wished she could return to the past—not forever, but just for one night. As she had for years, she again wished for the opportunity to do things differently. She wanted desperately to right all the wrongs—as desperately as she wanted to reverse those tragedies that kept her in spinsterhood.

She put the balalaika down. It was hard to admit to herself how brutally she had once wanted Ivan’s love. When she’d been sixteen Ivan had been all she had daydreamed about. She had been so lonely back then; his gruff, insolent attention was all she had. But because it was
all she had she craved it like a drug. For Ivan she would have lived over her own stables, defied her own father, or run from the only home she’d ever known. For Ivan she would have done anything.

But now that seemed a lifetime ago. She was still lonely, but she was no longer a child and she knew only too well how cruel people could be. She had once thought she had wanted his love, but now she wondered how she had ever dared to desire such a thing. Ivan was no longer her stableboy, but a dark, forbidding man who possessed a great deal of power, more than enough with which to be cruel. And he was a man who for all ostensible reasons had every right to exact revenge.

She would never win his love now, she knew that all too clearly. And the irony was that it hadn’t been her wealth that had cast him off, nor had it been her father’s disapproval. The horror of it was that it had been her own wretched, spoiled self that had forced him from her, and now she would never have him. Ever.

“Do you want me to play it, Lissa?” Ivan’s voice came up behind her.

Her cheeks drained of color. All she could think of at that moment was how desperately she still wanted him and how completely he would ruin her if he knew it. Trembling, she turned and her gaze locked with his. “No,” she answered.

“Then why did you pick it up?” He was so close to her she could see just how beautiful and blue his eyes were.

“I had forgotten about it.”

“So let me remind you.” He took the balalaika in his hands.

“Please, no,” she implored him.

“Why not?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Because it’s too melancholy, don’t you see?” A sob caught in her throat. Her eyes glistened.

He stared at her, studying every emotion that crossed her face. His voice grew husky and he gripped the balalaika
in his hands. “Shall you cry on this, Lissa, and see all your wishes come true . . . ?”

She shook her head.

“. . . or shall you shed your tears in vain and fall victim to its promises . . . as others have . . . as my mother did?”

“Neither.”

He placed the balalaika on the chair. “Then what will fulfill your deepest wish?” His strong index finger slid beneath her chin and tipped her head up.

“My deepest wish can never be.”

“How do you know that? Tell me what it is, and perhaps I can help.”

She turned away from him. “You cannot.”

“Why is that, Lissa? Is it because I am what you wish for?”

She started. He was hitting dangerously close to the truth. “If I were to wish for a man, I would wish for his love first above all else.”

“Then is it my love you wish for? Do you love me?” He pulled her into his arms. Her hands pressed against his warm, muscular chest, but that didn’t deter him. “Answer me, damn you.”

“No,” she whispered, refusing to meet his eye.

“Say it. Say you love me, Lissa.” He shook her. “Say it!”

“Say it and be cursed forever? I think not!” she cried.

“Say it and have all the glory that’s within my power to give.” He cupped her chin. “Don’t say it and have more depression put upon that little soul.”

“
You
depress my soul! Now release me!” She struggled to pull her arms out of his grasp. Her breath was coming fast and furious as his arm went possessively around her waist. She almost moaned for despite her rebellion his touch felt so right.

“But I don’t, do I, Lissa?” The soberness of his voice quieted her. She looked up at him, terrified. He took her
wrists in a shacklelike grasp. “It’s what you deny that depresses you, isn’t it?”

“N-n-no,” she stammered, but they both knew it was a lie. Her guilt choked her. Still, she wasn’t about to martyr herself for him. She felt his fingers at her throat and the first jet button of her gown give way. She raised her hands to stop him, but he caught them.

“So don’t deny any longer, Lissa.” He undid another button. “Say that you love me,” he whispered, “and come to my bed.”

“I will not,” she snapped. She felt another button come free and her anger exploded. He wasn’t going to take her. Ever. She would never be that foolish. She twisted from his hold and covered her bodice with her hands. Backing away, she said, “My coming to your bed will not change the past, and I’ll see myself forever damned before I’ll seek your forgiveness there.”

“Damnation is more penance than I want.” He stepped toward her and his fingers caught the opening of her bodice. She violently tipped his hand away but several buttons went with it. She looked down in dismay and found her corset cover peeking out from the rent.

She was frantic to get away from him now. His candor and proximity scared her. When he came for her again, her eyes desperately sought escape. But there was none. She was pushed against the wall. Her hands made an effort to hold him back, yet his intentions were too strong. Her fingers tugged on his black locks to try to pull him away. Yet he ignored her protest. He parted her bodice, stating at the tops of her lush breasts, and then let his tongue burn into the silken hollows of her throat.

She kept telling herself that she was ice and that he could not melt her. But as his hand slipped beneath her bodice and caressed the swell of flesh that rose above her lace-edged corset cover, she knew she was wrong. Fatally wrong. She was fire and only Ivan could make her burn.

Inch by painful inch, she found him winning. He
caressed and kissed her merely to torture her, to humiliate her; she could find no other reasons for it. But though she desperately wanted to fight him, it was difficult when his lips took hers in a brutally possessive kiss. His mouth muffled her protest as it moved frantically over hers and his hands moved up to hold her face for the onslaught.

She wanted escape, and there were a million things she could think of to do to get him to stop. She could slap and scratch and kick, but deep down, a part of her wanted him to continue—the part of her that had once wanted his love; the part of her that was lonely and begging of forgiveness—so she did none of those things. Instead, when his tongue finally sought hers in a wickedly fierce manner, she moaned and let him in, hating herself but hating him more. He would never love her, yet while her mind told her she was playing the fool, his passion seemed to whisper something else altogether, something she wanted with all her heart.

Almost in a daze, she felt him pick her up and take her into the next room. Everything was moving too fast. She struggled to be free of his arms but he tossed her upon a heavy Genoa silk counterpane and pulled her beneath him. With him on top of her, she was completely restrained. A warning sounded in her head as she realized they were on his bed, but when he took her mouth in a long, hot kiss, she couldn’t think clearly anymore.

His hands parted her bodice, and when he stopped kissing her she stared up at him. He looked like a man obsessed. The creamy skin of her throat seemed to fascinate him and he studied it for a long time, almost as if in wonder. He buried his face in the hollows of her neck and seemed to revel in the scent he found there, as if he had dreamed about it for a very long time, and now, at last, it was his. Next his strong white teeth nipped at her breasts above her corset, and her taste seemed to please him beyond reason. When her chignon fell, his hands stroked her tresses as if they were some sort of lost treasure now
found. Then he kissed her so deeply his spirit seemed to meet with hers.