Don't Bargain with the Devil (33 page)

 

“I wish to go with you as well,” Gaspar put in. “The Spanish will be more likely to allow you into the country if a Spaniard is with you to plead your case.”

 

The colonel paused to give him a cool appraisal. “If you come, I’ll expect you to tell me everything you know about Don Carlos and his plans. And everything I need to know to stop your master from furthering them.”

 

“I realize that.”

 

“Come along, then. I can use your help with the Marqués de Parama. He won’t get away with stealing my daughter.”

 

 

 

ďťż

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-two

 

 

 

 

Dear Charlotte,

 

I can learn nothing of Seńor Montalvo’s past, but I do not have the same access to foreign affairs as I do to London gossip. If I were to believe the papers, then he is at once brilliant and foolish, generous and despicable, a great man and a small one. Which is why I never rely solely on the press for information.

 

Your cousin,

 

Michael

 

 

T
he day after her discussion with Diego, Lucy stood with Nettie at the rail on deck, staring pensively out to sea. “I don’t understand men.”

 

“What is there to understand?” Nettie said. “If you feed ’em regular-like and give ’em a bit of ‘sugar’ now and then, they’re easy enough. And if they don’t behave, you just toss ’em out on their arses. That’s what I always say.”

 

Lucy smiled despite her misery.

 

“Ah, it’s good to see you smile, duckie.” Nettie patted her hand. “You can’t be going on so over that Don Diego. Give one man too much hold on your feelings, and you’re headed for trouble, you are.”

 

“Then I’m headed for trouble.”

 

In the heat of her disappointment yesterday, Lucy had told Nettie everything. She’d expected Nettie to call her a fool for not accepting Diego’s marriage proposal, but the tavern maid had surprised her by taking Lucy’s side.

 

If a man can’t at least pretend to be in love with a woman long enough to propose all proper-like,
she’d said,
he’ll never last a whole lifetime with her.

 

That was what she loved about Nettie—her practical approach to life. It was a shame she couldn’t be so practical herself, at least when it came to Diego. She didn’t want him to
pretend
to care about her. That wouldn’t be nearly enough.

 

Lucy turned her face to the wind. “I still can’t believe he had the gall to suggest that we should remain lovers for the next few weeks.”

 

“I still can’t believe you said no.”

 

“Nettie!”

 

The woman shrugged. “Sometimes the way to a man’s heart is through his tallywhacker.”

 

“His
what?
”

 

“You know.” Nettie made a vaguely obscene motion. “Ain’t you never heard a man’s privates called that?”

 

Lucy choked down a gasp. “Nettie, I have never heard any woman call a man’s privates anything whatsoever, much less a tallywhacker.”

 

“You fine ladies lead boring lives, seems to me,” Nettie said with a shake of her head. “Though I can see as how it wouldn’t be proper for a respectable female like you to have him leapin’ under your sheets every night, if he don’t mean to marry you.”

 

“Not in the least proper,” Lucy said firmly.

 

“But more fun.”

 

Lucy burst into laughter. “You’re very wicked, do you know that?”

 

“Aye. That’s why you hired me away from Don Diego.” Suddenly she leaned close to murmur, “Speak of the devil. He’s coming toward us.”

 

As Nettie began to sidle away, Lucy shot her a quelling glance. “Don’t you dare leave me alone with—”

 

Too late. Nettie had disappeared around the fo’c’sle, and Lucy could see Diego approaching from the corner of her eye.

 

Jerking her gaze to the ocean, Lucy tried futilely to summon up her righteous indignation. But it was no use. After spending yesterday apart from him, her tender feelings remained as hardy and inconvenient as dandelions, blooming ever hopeful when he halted beside her.

 

Until the chill in his manner wilted them. “I came by the cabin yesterday evening,” Diego said stiffly. “But Nettie told me you were sleeping.”

 

“Yes, I retired early.” Though she’d only tossed and turned. She kept remembering the last time she’d lain in that bed—and with whom.

 

He cleared his throat. “In any case, I thought you might like something to keep your boredom at bay for the remainder of our trip.”

 

He extended a box of charcoals. “You said you had no implements for drawing, so I hunted through the crew until I found a sailor with an artistic bent. Fortunately, he was willing to sell me these.”

 

She took the box, her heart leaping into her throat. “Thank you.” She struggled to hide just how much the small gesture meant to her. “It is most kind of you, Die—Don Diego.”

 

A scowl knit his brow. “
Por Dios,
you did not speak to me as if I were a count even before we were intimate. I do not see why you must do so now.”

 

“I want to get accustomed to it before I meet my grandfather.” She was terrified she would give away how much Diego meant to her. What good would refusing him do if he ended up losing everything he’d fought for anyway?

 

She managed a smile. “Haven’t you learned I’m not good at governing my tongue? If I slip up and call you Diego, he might guess the worst.”

 

“Yes, and we dare not risk
that
.” His voice was snide, but his eyes seemed to eat her up. “It would be the end to your precious freedom.”

 

“And yours,” she pointed out, annoyed. She was doing this for him, after all.

 

Of course, he didn’t know that. Must
never
know that. So how could she blame him for his anger? She’d deliberately pricked his pride and put an end to his half-hearted decision to marry her.

 

Yet it still hurt that he’d acquiesced, that he’d wanted her for nothing more than a bed partner. That would always hurt. After their night together, she couldn’t imagine herself marrying any other man.

 

Apparently, he had no such problem. He seemed perfectly content to hand her over to her grandfather.

 

“Thank you again for the charcoal, sir. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I promised Nettie I’d show her how to play piquet.”

 

She fled, managing to suppress her tears until she was in the companionway stairs. Bother it all, she had to stop this! Nettie was right—she had to stop mooning over a man who only wanted her to shore up his honor. She couldn’t
let him ruin his future because of some injury to his pride. She couldn’t do that to the man she loved.

 

Loved?

 

The truth walloped her as suddenly as the swinging boom of a sail, making her halt in the stairwell.

 

Good Lord—she loved him. With all her heart.

 

Oh, no, how could she have gone and fallen in love
again?
And this time with a man twice as wonderful—and twice as inaccessible—as Peter. Although, honestly, Peter had been a mere infatuation, the foolish object of her girlish fancies.

 

Diego, on the other hand…How brave he must have been to endure what the soldiers had done to his family. How strong to have tried, even futilely, to save his family’s estate. And at twelve, for a boy of such privilege to be forced to learn a new way of life and yet succeed! It showed astonishing determination.

 

That same determination had driven him to find her and steal her. That same determination would serve him well in his plan to restore his family’s estate, to redeem their name. She might be Spanish only by blood, but she knew enough of the people to know how much honor mattered.

 

It certainly mattered more than some foolish Englishwoman’s hopeless love for a man who could not love her back.

 

Tears stinging her eyes again, she hurried down to the cabin before she could run back on deck and beg him to marry her, no matter how little he wanted it. She had to get control of this mad need for him, before he guessed she wasn’t as immune to him as he thought. Before they ended up right back where they had started.

 

As she hurried into the cabin, Nettie glanced up. “Are you all right?”

 

She sighed, tired of examining the state of her heart. She’d have to learn to stay away from men. They were not good for a woman’s constitution.

 

“I’m fine,” Lucy lied. “Nothing that a brisk game of piquet won’t cure.”

 

But over the next week, after becoming insanely proficient at piquet, Lucy found herself far from cured. Apparently, playing piquet did absolutely nothing to assuage the pains of the lovesick.

 

Diego was no help, either. At first, he spent his time on deck, smoking cigarillos and glaring at her whenever she entered his sight. Then one day, after she mentioned to Rafael that she wished to improve her Spanish, Diego brought her a Spanish dictionary.

 

“Here,” he said without preamble, dropping it onto the table in the wardroom where she and Nettie were finishing supper. “Tomorrow morning, you and I begin lessons. Living in your grandfather’s household will be hard enough without the added difficulties of needing him to translate all the time.”

 

She blinked at him. Diego meant to teach her himself? Because he worried about her alone in her grandfather’s household? That was enough to give a woman the wrong idea. And Lord knew she already had plenty of wrong ideas about Diego.

 

“One more thing.” He glanced at Nettie. “Your maid needs suitable clothes.”

 

Nettie blinked. “Here now, ain’t nothing wrong with my gown. This is what all the tavern maids wear.”

 

When a pained expression crossed Diego’s face, Lucy
bit back a smile. “That’s the problem, Nettie. Don Diego doesn’t want anyone guessing that he hired my ‘chaperone’ from a tavern. It might not sit well with my rich relations.”

 

“Just make her something more appropriate, will you?” Diego snapped.

 

Make her something? Lucy laughed. “Shall I weave it from seaweed, sir?” she said, unable to resist teasing him.

 

“I thought you were taught to sew,” he shot back. “Or do they not include that instruction in your English schools, along with those lessons in propriety?”

 

“We’re taught to do needlework, yes. But sewing of gowns is generally left to seamstresses.”

 

“I can make a gown,” Nettie put in, surprising Lucy. “But I’ll need cloth.”

 

“I will see that Rafael gives you some. He must have something among the goods in his hold.” He shot Lucy a furtive glance. “He might have something for you, too, although I imagine your grandfather will wish to provide you with gowns himself.”

 

Lucy merely nodded as he stalked off. She didn’t intend to stay in San Roque long enough to make good use of those gowns. As soon as they landed, she’d have Nettie post a letter to Papa to tell him to come fetch her. Even if Diego was right about Papa’s role in taking her from her real parents, he deserved the chance to explain himself. She couldn’t have him worrying himself sick over her back in England.

 

Of course, after Papa came for her, she’d have to return to England and face her ruin. That wasn’t an appealing prospect, even with her family standing by her. But neither was the idea of marrying a Spanish grandee of her grandfather’s choosing.

 

That was why she would accept Diego’s Spanish lessons gladly. She didn’t know how long she might have to live in her grandfather’s household, and the thought of being helpless because she couldn’t speak the language worried her even more than the prospect of being in Diego’s company daily.

 

In the days that followed, she was surprised to find more of her Spanish coming back to her. It helped that Diego only spoke to her in Spanish, though she took care to keep their topics of conversation innocuous.

 

That proved easier than expected, since she had much to learn about Spain. She was discovering that living in the country as a foreigner would differ vastly from living there as a native. In the regiments, she’d been cocooned in English habits and manners. That wouldn’t be the case now.

 

Fortunately, Diego understood that even better than she. And since he seemed equally eager to avoid any subject that might tempt them into their former intimacy, her lessons proceeded without incident.

 

Until one evening after they’d been traveling down the coast of Spain for several days. At dinner, Rafael informed them that the ship would pass through the Straits of Gibraltar during the night. He expected to weigh anchor in Algeciras Bay by the next morning.

 

His announcement hit Lucy like a roaring typhoon. She’d grown accustomed to the lazy pattern of life at sea—morning lessons with Diego, afternoons spent drawing or sewing with Nettie, evening dinners listening to Diego and Rafael regale the company with tales of their exploits in the regimental camps. If not for the painful fact that she’d fallen more deeply in love with Diego each day, the time had been almost magical. Now it was coming to an end.

 

As soon as dinner was over, she hurried to the bow, the only place on deck where she could be relatively private. She’d taken to coming here whenever she felt low, sitting sandwiched between the fo’c’sle wall and the capstan as she watched the ship plunge through the waves.

 

She was so sunk in her misery that when Diego appeared suddenly before her, she uttered a cry.

 

“What is it?” he asked as he dropped down beside her, his face tight with alarm. “What is wrong?”

 

He could ask that? When tomorrow they would part forever? The thought was almost more than she could bear.

 

But he was taking it in stride, so she must, too. She’d done well so far, never once hinting at what she knew of his past. Now she merely had to survive until she reached her grandfather’s.

 

“You startled me, that’s all,” she said.