When Angels Fall Read Free

you all your life and I remember when your mother died. And I’ve seen how tough and silent a little boy becomes when he finds he has no other home but the streets.” When she was finished, she watched for the marquis’s reaction.
    “I see,” Tramore uttered with difficulty.
    The housekeeper finally looked chastised. “Forgiveme, my lord,” she whispered. She then looked around the room to see if he needed anything. “Would you like the girl to bring more coal for the fire, or will that be all?”
    “No, you may go.” He shot her one last disapproving look, then turned away.
    “Thank you, sir.” Mrs. Myers made her way to the door, but before she exited, she paused and looked as if she wanted to speak.
    “Is there something you’ve forgotten?” Tramore acknowledged her.
    “Aye, my lord. ’Tis not been my place to say such things . . . but if I may, you’re not a bad man. That’s what I tell everyone. You’re not a bad man and I hope someday you’ll find a ladylove who can convince you of that.” Suddenly, as if she remembered what such an outburst could cost her, she brought herself upright and said, “I beg your pardon, my lord.”
    “Don’t be absurd.” The marquis’s face was so tight from unexpressed emotion it looked as if it were hewn from marble.
    “If I may be excused?”
    “Of course.”
    The silence in the room was leaden and Mrs. Myers’s brow cleared considerably when she was finally able to close the door behind her.
    But in the library, the marquis’s brow furrowed more deeply. Something was on his mind. He ran his knuckles down his scar, but only twice. Then he stood and strode out the door himself.
    He went up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time. He passed the second floor where the chambermaids were already setting his apartments to rights for the evening. He passed the third floor where most of the house servants had their rooms. Yet he didn’t stop until he was in the enormous fourth-floor attic. He discreetly pulled the attic door closed behind him.
    Tramore looked around, his only light from a candlehe had picked up from the servants’ landing. It didn’t take him long to find the path he sought. Through a maze created of tattered French chairs, rotting Elizabethan chests, and fractured gilt mirrors—an entire history of the old owner—he followed his own previous footprints in the dust to reach the article he wanted. It was a huge canvas; the top rail of its frame easily met with Tramore’s chin. A great linen lay over it, and when he snatched it off, a cloud of dust sent the candlelight shimmering over the portrait of an exquisitely beautiful woman.
    She was young, but not so young as to be unaware of her effect upon people, particularly those of the opposite sex. Her eyes were eloquently expressive. They were crystalline blue and heavily lashed, but it was not coyness they held, never that, for her expression was much too artless. Rather it seemed as if they held a promise, or a secret that even she had yet to discover fully, much less practice upon the world around her. But someday when she did understand this secret she would bring men to their knees.
    But not the eleventh marquis.
    He stood before her, his features taut in the sputtering candlelight. The inscrutable expression on his face was as close to hate as it was to love, as close to joy as it was to pain.
    Slowly he reached out his forefinger and began tracing the girl’s firm, sweetly curved jawline. His finger moved higher to her nose, which was slightly haughty yet also gamine. His thumb brushed her flaxen-haired temple and he traced one silvery blond curl to the level of her lips, where his forefinger once more took up its quest. His last touch was upon the rose-petal curve of her lower lip, and as if this were almost too much for him, he closed his eyes.
    “Lissa,” he uttered in a tight voice. His eyes flew open but he was held captive, marveling at the girl’s femininity. For she was as