Don't Bargain with the Devil (18 page)

 

“Then we’ll burn together,” she said, amused by his attack of conscience. He could be so oddly prudish sometimes. “Show me what to do.”

 

With a groan, he unbuttoned his breeches and his drawers in an almost feverish haste. Then he took her hand and led it inside both. “Touch me here,
querida.
” He closed her fingers around his flesh. “If I am to burn, it might as well be for something serious.”

 

Laughing, she let him show her how to tug on him, to fondle him. She couldn’t believe how firm a man’s privates grew. And how long. Why, it was longer than her hand, and grew longer still as she caressed him.

 

He threw his head back, his eyes sliding closed. “Ah, you are a witch. Yes, like that…stroke me like that. Firmly…yes…”

 

A noise outside the glass door to the terrace made her pause. Diego’s eyes shot open. They both caught their breath as voices filtered in. They hadn’t locked that door, and the lamp still burned, though the heavy curtains over the door would probably keep anyone from seeing inside.

 

Still…He drew her hand from beneath his drawers, buttoning them and his breeches swiftly.

 

“I have looked all over for her,” Mrs. Harris told someone. “I can’t imagine where she has gone.”

 

“What about the magician?” a muffled voice responded. “Have you seen him?”

 

Lucy recognized Mr. Godwin’s voice. Oh, dear. That was one person she most certainly did not want to learn what she and Diego were doing. Given his friendship with Mrs. Harris, she didn’t think he would publish anything about her, but he would certainly vilify Diego in the press for dallying with her.

 

“I asked his assistant,” Mrs. Harris replied. “He said he was certain the man had returned to Rockhurst. That he finds performing exhausting.”

 

Lucy glanced to Diego, who shot her a rueful smile. Clearly Gaspar had no qualms about lying for his master. Leaving the settee, she slid her drawers on and edged closer to the door.

 

“I wouldn’t trust that if I were you,” Mr. Godwin went on.

 

“Charles, I do hope you are not implying that Lucy would ever—”

 

“Perhaps not, but Montalvo has a shady past and a reputation with pretty females. You have no idea what he is capable of.”

 

“And you do? Oh, dear, what do you know? Why have you not said anything? I swear, if you knew he made a practice of ruining young women—”

 

“No, no,” Mr. Godwin said, even as Diego sat up stiffly, his expression full of outrage. “Nothing like that.”

 

“Then what?”

 

There was a long pause. Lucy held her breath. Diego sat there, his mouth set in a stony line.

 

“Actually,” Mr. Godwin went on, “it’s not what I’ve heard of him in the press. It’s…well, you know I served on the Peninsula.”

 

Diego tensed.

 

“Yes, what of it?” Mrs. Harris asked.

 

“I didn’t recognize his name when I first heard it, but when I saw his performance, I realized I’d seen bits before.”

 

Lucy relaxed. Diego had already told her he’d had his start performing for the regiments. That was nothing to be ashamed of.

 

“The thing is,” Mr. Godwin went on, “the word around the regimental camps was that he was a thief and a cheat. You have to admit he’s good with cards. I imagine he can deal from the bottom as well as any cardsharp.”

 

I am not a cardsharp or a thief,
he’d once said to her.

 

Her stomach sank. She glanced over to find his eyes fixed bleakly on her. He’d been lying that day on the river landing. She could see it in his face.

 

The blood rose in her as she remembered how pompously he’d said it, with that Continental air of the man of honor. It was the same way he said everything. Had his courtly behavior and impeccable manners been just a façade? And if so, what else had he lied about?

 

“You saw how much money he raised,” Mrs. Harris remarked. “And how much of his own he contributed. I hardly think those the actions of a thief.”

 

“You don’t consider it odd that he would give money to a cause that, if successful, will prevent him from doing what he came here to do?”

 

Lucy held her breath for Mrs. Harris’s answer, trying not to give in to the alarm rising in her chest.

 

“Perhaps he’d expected to have the money fall more evenly on
his
side.”

 

Mr. Godwin snorted. “Come now, Charlotte, you’re a clever woman. Why should he leave such a thing to chance? He still has not applied for a license, and he is only leasing the property from Pritchard. What if this is merely a scheme to get his hands on all of your friends’ money? I wonder if the notes
he
donated are genuine—I’d have them checked by a bank, if I were you.”

 

Diego leaped to his feet, his eyes alight with anger.

 

“His assistant doesn’t know where he is,” Mr. Godwin went on, “and Lucy is missing. And I heard from one of the footmen that Montalvo was last seen asking for Lucy in the duke’s study. Which, by the way, is where you ladies were tallying the donations, is it not? No one has seen him or her since, if I am to understand you correctly.”

 

He had been in the study after she’d left? Good Lord, what if he
had
switched out the money?

 

No, how could she believe that? He’d been nothing but honorable toward her.

 

Except when he was blackmailing her. Lying to her. What did she really know about him except what he’d told her?

 

When Diego started toward her with his mouth set in a grim line, she realized she had to do something before he reached her. She could not bear to be alone with him any longer. She had to sort out her conflicting thoughts and this new information. Hurrying to the door, she closed her hand about the handle.

 

“Lucy, wait, damn you,” Diego hissed beneath his breath. “We have to talk.”

 

She shook her head and opened the glass door just enough to let herself through. With her blood thundering in her ears and her mind still reeling from the doubts Mr. Godwin had raised, she stepped onto the terrace. “Mrs. Harris, you were looking for me?”

 

Pray God she was presentable; she’d had no time to check.

 

Mrs. Harris jumped and turned around, as did Mr. Godwin. “Lucy!” the schoolmistress exclaimed. “Where on earth have you been?”

 

Lucy gave an exaggerated yawn. “I’m sorry. It was all just too exhausting for me, and we did leave awfully early this morning. I went into the library, thinking to sit a moment alone in the quiet…and I fell asleep. Your voices roused me.” That at least would cover anything questionable in her appearance. “Was there something you needed?”

 

Looking suspicious, Mr. Godwin stepped to the library door and opened it to glance inside. Lucy held her breath.
Please, God, don’t let Diego ruin me. Let him have gone out the other door or hidden.

 

“You shouldn’t have left the lamp burning so high,” he muttered as he walked inside, turned it down, then came out.

 

Only then did Lucy release a breath. “Yes, thank you.”

 

Mrs. Harris looped her arm through Lucy’s. “Come along then. We need to find Seńor Montalvo. Mr. Godwin wants to ask him some questions.”

 

“I think he went home,” Lucy said vaguely.

 

Had she just made a narrow escape?

 

So he was a thief in his younger days,
her mind said.
Has he done anything to make you distrust him since then?

 

Aside from claiming he meant to build a pleasure garden when no one was sure he really did? If she took a good, hard look at his behavior—and things he’d said—these past few days, she had to admit there were several inconsistencies. There was the huge one of raising money to hurt his own cause. There was his sudden claim to be a count, which he’d only mentioned to annoy Peter.

 

There was his odd insistence on her being the one to show him the school. He’d scoffed at her suspicion that he’d only kissed her to try to soften her toward his aims, but what if his goal was even worse, a scheme to siphon money
from the school’s friends? To lull her into believing he was harmless before he closed the trap? A chill shook her.

 

You were the one to start this latest intimate encounter,
her conscience reminded her.
He protested.

 

Not for long, he hadn’t. Besides, she wasn’t the best judge of character, was she? Look at how she’d believed Peter. Perhaps she was making a cake of herself over Diego, too.

 

Only this was worse. He’d acted guilty when Mr. Godwin had spoken. Though it was hard to believe a man as famous as he could be a thief, he
was
an expert at creating illusions. And she seemed to be an expert at believing them.

 

Tears stung her eyes. She swiftly dashed them away, hoping Mrs. Harris wouldn’t see.

 

But she couldn’t stop her brain from going around and around, asking the same questions. Why had he made
her
his companion? What was his real plan for Rockhurst? Was he a count? Or a thief? What if everything tonight had been a lie?

 

There were too many unanswered questions about him, too many evasions. And she was too susceptible to him. She’d nearly
given
herself to him!

 

It was time she ended this dangerous association. At least until she found out what he was hiding.

 

 

 

ďťż

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twelve

 

 

 

 

Dear Cousin,

 

Very well, I’ll concede that you are probably right about Pritchard, but I can’t decide what to think about Seńor Montalvo. He came to our Venetian breakfast and raised an enormous amount of money for our fund, but I also heard rumors about him that give me pause. These days, I cannot tell the good men from the villains.

 

Your perplexed relation,

 

Charlotte

 

 

T
hree days after the charity breakfast, Diego stood in what passed for a study in his gloomy temporary abode, a cup of coffee in one hand and a tersely written note wrapped around a sealed envelope in the other.

 

With a howl of rage, he hurled his cup at the fireplace, where it shattered. Gaspar exploded into the room seconds later.
“Qué demonios!”

 

“Lucy will not even read my letters! She sends them back unread.” He waved her note in the air. “And this time, she told me not to send more, or she would toss them in the fire. Stubborn female!” He glanced to Gaspar in
desperation. “What does your friend the cook say about Lucy’s refusal to see me?”

 

“That Miss Seton has been busy giving drawing lessons. Sally isn’t privy to your Lucy’s secrets, you know.”

 

“She is not
my
Lucy,” Diego snapped. If anything demonstrated that, it was their last encounter.

 

“Well,” Gaspar said, “I suspect Miss Seton has caught on to my role in your household, because she’s not saying much. Sally still talks to me, but the other servants aren’t as forthcoming with their gossip as before.”

 

Of course not. Thanks to that damnable Godwin, Lucy saw him once more as the suspicious magician, the villain, the devil who wished to ruin her beloved school. As, no doubt, did her employer.

 

It probably did not help that he had been fool enough to satisfy Lucy’s curiosity about sensuality. And his own rampant need to see her, touch her, make her his, even if only imperfectly and temporarily.

 

He closed his eyes, seeing her lying beneath him, trusting, hopeful. He could still taste her—it tormented his nights. How could he have ignored who she was, letting his cock guide him? He should have known his lapse of judgment would come back to taunt him.

 

The minute he had seen her birthmark, he had known he was done for. Until then, he had prayed she would prove not to be the
marqués
’s granddaughter. Then she could be his, and he could still gain Arboleda.

 

That birthmark had mocked him. He could have Lucy, or he could have Arboleda. Not both.

 

Gaspar went to warm his hands by the low fire. “What happened at the breakfast between you and Lucy?”

 

“Nothing,” Diego said tersely.

 

“You’ve said that for three days, but
something
must have happened. When last I saw her, she was smiling fondly at you. Now she won’t even let you near.”

 

He groaned. It was time he told Gaspar what he had discovered. He had been hoping that once Mrs. Harris learned that the money he had donated was genuine, Lucy would realize she had no cause to be wary; then he need not reveal to Gaspar that he had overstepped his bounds. And that he had lost her trust through a trick of Fate.

 

Diego had recognized disaster the moment he had seen Lucy’s stricken expression as she heard about his past. She would not understand how a Spanish count could come to be a thief. She would assume he had lied about his upbringing, then wonder what other lies there were. And his not applying for a license for his pleasure garden or offering for the property made him look even more suspicious.

 

That was the trouble: he and Lucy had spent just enough time together for him to learn how she thought and what things troubled her. The thieving would most certainly trouble her, especially since that damned Godwin had not bothered to clarify that it had happened when Diego was barely thirteen.

 

Now she felt confused and wary of him. God only knew if she would ever let him near her again. Meanwhile, the days were passing, and Arboleda slipped farther from his grasp with every one.

 

Hostias,
had she learned nothing of his character by now? How could she still think him dishonorable, especially given his restraint in the library?

 

She probably saw that as another way he had tried to manipulate her.

 

With a curse, he crumpled the note and tossed it to the floor.

 

“Perhaps we should give up,” Gaspar said.