When Angels Fall by Meagan McKinney Read Free Book Online Page B

hidden, her hand then went to her throat. Dismally she felt the scratchy machine-made lace at her collar. How she’d wished she’d worn anything else this day! She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. There was nothing she could do about it. Resigning herself, she twisted the doorknob and entered her home with utmost trepidation.
    Evvie was on her feet the second she walked to the parlor door. Unable to breathe, Lissa dared not look around. Instead her gaze fixed on their mother’s pink and green tea service, which was laid out on a linen tea cloth Evvie had blessedly used to cover the scratches on their old rectory table. Feeling a bit more brave, she looked at Evvie, who was pale in spite of the glitter of hope in her eyes. Too terrified to move farther into the room, she simply looked at her sister and waited for her to speak.
    “Lissa, dear,” Evvie began nervously. “You’ll never guess who’s come to call.”
    But she knew, all right. Lissa suppressed the overwhelming desire to flee and just continued to stare at her sister. She was unable to let her eyes search the room for
him.
    “Come and have tea with us.” Evvie held her hand out in the direction of the parlor entrance. “Ivan . . . uh, I mean, of course,
Lord
Ivan, has just been telling me of his trip from London.”
    When Evvie mentioned his name, the man Lissa had dreaded seeing for five long years finally rose from his seat. His chair had been facing away from the parlor entrance, so the first glance she had of him was just the top of his dark head.
    When he finally faced her, Lissa turned fearful eyes upon him. As she dared to look at him fully, she almost gasped at how much he’d changed and yet how much he had not. He was taller than she remembered, his shoulders broader. Though she had never seen him so attired, hisfine masculine form looked quite at ease in the expensive marine-blue topcoat. His hair was still as dark as a raven’s wing, but now he wore it cropped in a fashionable style. His eyes were just as beautiful; gypsy eyes she had once called them, and though most believed Ivan Tramore’s eyes to be black, Lissa knew all too well that they were blue, as dark and mysterious as the sky at midnight.
    Her gaze swept his face, and she found it even more devastatingly handsome than the day he had left her. There was only one addition to it, however, and seeing it, her heart skipped a beat. She saw the scar on his left cheek, a white, angry scar. In morbid fascination, she stared at it, mesmerized.
    Deep in her thoughts, she barely heard Evvie clear her throat. It took all her effort to tear her gaze from the scar, but she was finally able to. She then turned to Evvie and said as graciously as she could, “Isn’t this an unexpected delight.” Yet even to her ears, the words sounded forced.
    Uncomfortable beneath Lord Ivan’s dark perusal, Lissa nervously made her way to the sofa. When she took her sister’s hand, Evvie released a little laugh, unable to bear much more of the tension. To Lissa’s horror, her sister blurted out to their guest, “Lord Ivan, your silence dismays me. Could it be that my sister is not as beautiful as I remember her to be?”
    Hardly believing that Evvie would ask such a thing, Lissa blushed furiously. With Tramore still scrutinizing her, she felt horribly self-conscious. Nervously she reached around and pulled on the waist of her spencer.
    “She’s more so.”
    With Powerscourt’s unexpected words, she was brought upright. Unwillingly she met his stare, and as her azure eyes locked with his, she saw the shadowy glimmer he held in them just for her. Feeling as if a knife had passed through her heart, she suddenly knew, without any doubt at all, that he’d come back for revenge.
    If she had been the type to faint, she would have fallen right then to the floor in a glorious heap of skirts and crinoline. But she was not the type to faint, so instead she took a deep breath, put on her iciest façade, and