Don't Bargain with the Devil

by Sabrina Jeffries

  Lucy smiled at Nettie’s sour expression in the mirror. “I know you don’t like him much. I know you think he should have searched for me sooner, and so do I. But he’s my only connection to my real family. And he dotes on me.”

  It was rather sweet. It reminded her of how Papa had doted on her before he’d married.

  She swallowed. She missed Papa, too, in spite of everything. “That’s enough hair brushing, Nettie. I’m tired. I believe I’ll retire.”

  “I’ll be off to the kitchen then.” Nettie grinned. “Your grandfather’s handsome cook has been eyeing me for the past three days. Might just see what he’s got on his mind.”

  As she sashayed from the room, Lucy shook her head. The woman really was an incorrigible flirt.

  Lucy went to find her sketch pad. Gazing at her drawing of Diego was the only thing that settled her enough to sleep. She’d altered it on the trip to make it a better likeness, and now she wished she’d had him sit for others. But then she’d have had to explain why she wanted them, and that would have meant revealing her feelings.

  The door opened behind her, and she shut the sketch pad swiftly, not wanting Nettie to see her pathetic nighttime habit. But when she turned, it wasn’t Nettie standing inside her door. It was Diego.

  Lucy froze. Good Lord, had she dragged him out of the sketch and into flesh and blood? Or was she simply so obsessed that she imagined him everywhere?

  Then he came toward her, and she knew he was real. “Diego! Are you insane? What are you doing here? If my grandfather finds you—”

  “I can handle your grandfather.” He devoured her with his eyes. Then he seemed to catch himself and turned to scanning the room. “We must leave—now. Rafael says he can be ready to sail at dawn. But we have to escape while the household is still asleep, and the duke hasn’t yet discovered that I took his key.” He strode to her closet and began tossing clothes into a pile on the bed.

  “The duke? His key? You’re making no sense.” She was torn between throwing her arms around Diego to lock him to her forever and tossing him out before someone caught him here. “What has the duke to do with this?”

  He held up a key. “I stole this from the duke. He had a copy made of the key to the house so he could sneak in and ‘seduce’ you—though I greatly suspect he was not terribly concerned about your opinion in the matter.” He paused, his brow knitting. “You didn’t want him, did you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  His face cleared. “That is why I am here. He wants your fortune, and he means to get it at any cost. I mean to prevent him.”

  “By spiriting me back to England?” she said tartly.

  “By marrying you. That will put an end to this nonsense once and for all.” He tossed a gown at her. “Now, get dressed.”

  “What? No! You can’t just march in here and announce that you’re marrying me!” Even if it did thrill her to her very soul. She tossed down the gown. “Besides, I’m just now getting to know my grandfather. I’m not ready to leave.” Nor was she about to get back on a ship when Papa would soon be on his way here, assuming he’d received the letter Nettie had posted.

  “You do not understand.” He strode up to grab her by the shoulders. “That ass Don Felipe will not stop pursuing you merely because you refuse him—or even because your grandfather does. He will take you by force if he has to.”

  “But you have his key now.”

  “And he will have another made. There is only one way to solve this, Lucy. I will marry you. I will not be responsible for your disastrous marriage to that ass.”

  Once again, he was only considering marriage to her because it offended his sense of honor. “I can take care of this myself.”

  Anger flared in his face. “Some things a man has to do.”

  Has to do? Must she always be an obligation to him? “Yes, and my grandfather will be the one to do it. I will tell him—”

  “You will tell him nothing!” Diego looked as if he wanted to toss her over his shoulder and carry her off, an intriguing notion, even if rather problematic. “For all I know, he has engineered this!”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I will not risk it.”

  “Diego—”

  “You are coming with me.”

  “But you have to give me at least a chance to—”

  “Damn it, Lucy, I will not watch yet another woman dear to me destroyed because a man takes her by force! Not now that I am old enough to stop it!”

  She gaped at him, something Rafael had said about the soldiers in Villafranca niggling at the back of her mind. They ignored him, bullying Diego and his mother, though Diego says little of that.

  A cold chill raced down her back. “Oh, my Lord. Your mother was the one taken by force.”

  He blinked, caught off guard by her blunt statement, though he didn’t deny it.

  “The soldiers—it wasn’t just Arboleda they destroyed,” she went on, her heart twisting. “They—they hurt your mother, too.”

  “Yes! And I will not let it happen again!” Then his expression changed, and his hands dug more firmly into her shoulders. “How did you know about the soldiers at Arboleda, Lucy?”

  It took her a second to realize how much she’d just revealed. “I . . . I . . .”

  “I never told you that.” He shook her. “Dios mio, how did you know?”

  Her breath felt harsh and raw in her throat. “Rafael told me.”

  Diego thrust her away with a look of shock. “That day in the wardroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much did he tell you?” he bit out.

  There seemed little point in keeping it from him now. “Everything he knew. What the soldiers did to Arboleda and your father. What you vowed.” She blinked back tears. “But he never told me about your mother. He didn’t know, did he?”

  Diego curled his fingers into fists. “When I get my hands on him—”

  “I asked him to tell me!” she cried. “You should have told me. I would never have tried to seduce you if I’d known any of this about you.”

  “And that is why you refused me,” he said, comprehension dawning. His eyes were dark pools of pain in the candlelight. “Because you did not want to be the cause of my losing Arboleda and breaking my vow to Papá.”

  “Not just because of that,” she said hoarsely. “I knew you would eventually come to resent me for ruining your plans. For making you break your vow.” She dropped her gaze from his. “I knew you would only be marrying me to assuage your guilt over taking my innocence. And I couldn’t let you do that.”

  “That was not the only reason I offered marriage,” he protested.

  “No? I gave you the chance to give me another reason. You didn’t.”

  “Oh, God, I have been such a fool.” He caught her in his arms, drawing her close. “I swear to you, I was not just offering marriage to assuage my guilt.” Cupping her cheek, he urged her to look at him. “I did not make myself very clear.”

  “You made yourself clear enough,” she whispered. “You were furious about being trapped into marriage.”

  “No, no—”

  “Diego, you said, ‘Taking a woman’s innocence levies certain obligations on any decent man, and I always honor my obligations.’ ” She tried to push herself from his arms. “You’d always said you couldn’t marry. And I didn’t want to be any man’s ‘obligation.’ I still don’t.”

  He flinched but refused to let her out of his embrace. “Dios mio, I bungled that proposal even more than I realized, mi corazón bello.”

  My beautiful heart. Did he mean those lovely words? “You spoke your true feelings. I wouldn’t have wanted anything else.”

  “But they were not my true feelings!” When she arched an eyebrow at him, he frowned. “Well, perhaps they were then. I spoke in anger—not at you but at myself. And perhaps you are right—at that moment, I was not eager for marriage.”

  He clasped her head between his hands. “But I have had time to reconside
r, Lucy. Time to realize I cannot go on like this, yearning for you, not having you. Going mad at the idea of you being hurt by some other man.”

  The way his mother had been. That was the key to understanding him. “Tell me about your mother, Diego. Tell me what happened the day the soldiers came.”

  As the blood drained from his face, he released her. “Do not ask that of me.”

  “How can I be your wife if you can’t talk to me of the things in your heart? That night on the ship, you asked me not to hide from you. And I didn’t—not then, not ever.” She caught his hands and lifted them to her lips, kissing each one. “Don’t hide from me now, my darling. Please.”

  His eyes darkened at the word “darling.” “Cariño, I cannot.”

  “You can.” She drew him to the bed and urged him to sit on it beside her.

  “It is an ugly tale.”

  “Tales of war often are,” she said gently. “Tell me.”

  A shuddering breath wracked him, but then he began to speak in a low voice. “They came at night. Fifteen soldiers, desperate for whatever they could find. When they discovered our wine stores, they went mad, drinking and carousing and filling their bellies with our food. My father did not even attempt to fight. He kept saying, ‘They are only hungry and tired, but they are on our side.’ ”

  Diego’s voice cracked a little. “He was so sure of it. Until, when they started getting out of hand, my mother cursed them for their destructive ways. That brought her too fully to their notice.”

  Lucy reached for his hand, and he gripped it so tightly she thought he might break it. “The one who understood Spanish got angry. He forced her into the storeroom, and then he . . . he . . .” He trailed off, his eyes haunted.

  Tears welled in Lucy’s eyes. So much tragedy for him to endure, and so young. How had her poor love borne this horror inside him all these years?

  “Papa could do nothing,” he went on in a bleak voice, “because a soldier held a pistol to his head. When I struck out at the others in fury, they laughed, calling me a little Spanish dog and locking me in the root cellar. It shared a wall with the storeroom, so I had to sit there listening while Mamá begged . . .”

  Lucy hugged him tightly, tears pouring down her cheeks. He shook violently in her arms, transformed into the boy he must have been, the count’s son who’d never witnessed such cruelties until then.

  How had he stood it? She couldn’t imagine having to witness such an awful thing being done to a person she loved.

  She soothed him as best she could, rubbing his back, cradling him close, fighting not to let him see her own weeping. Her poor, dear love. This was at the root of all his honor and dignity, this dark secret that tortured his soul. His mother had lost her dignity and honor, and he’d spent a lifetime trying to reclaim it for her. For his father. For his family. Trying to blot out what had happened.

  That was why he held his profession in contempt. He didn’t see it as she did—an offering to other people who’d suffered, a way to help them forget the pain. He had a fine gift, but it didn’t fit his image of what a gift should be, so he spurned it.

  And that was why he always made snide remarks about her countrymen, why he’d never toured England with his conjuring act. With such memories festering inside him, how could he?

  How could he ever bear to be married to her when she was English in her heart, even if not in her blood? She held him tighter, the pain of that realization threatening to overwhelm her. How could she ask him to give up so much when she had so little to offer?

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Dear Charlotte,

  Have you so little faith in me, after everything we have meant to each other the past few years? Can you really think I would betray you for a few pounds in rent? You wound me to the heart with such an accusation. And what do you mean by putting “cousin” in quotes?

  Your equally outraged cousin,

  Michael

  S lowly, Diego became aware of where he was, of Lucy’s arms holding him, her tears dampening his coat. He and his mother had never spoken of that night—not when it had happened and not when she had lain on her deathbed. He had never spoken of it to anyone else, either, not even Gaspar. He had spent half his life trying not to think of it. Until Lucy had forced him to.

  And now that he had told her . . . he felt different. The pain was still there, but it felt less of a goad and more like something simply there. Part of him. Always part of him, making him who he was.

  “Now I know why you hate the English so much,” Lucy said in a small voice against his coat.

  That made him start, made him realize something. Lucy was half English! How astonishing that nowhere during his frantic state in the past few hours had that occurred to him. After the duke had made his revelation, Diego had only cared about getting here to her. Saving her. Being with her.

  “I do not hate all the English.” Turning in her embrace, he enfolded her in his arms. “I certainly do not hate you.”

  “Only because you don’t think of me as English, since I have Spanish blood. But Diego, I’m still English in every other way.”

  “I know, querida. And I do not care.” He sought her mouth, brushing a kiss to her lips, giddy with the hope that had begun to swell in him. For the first time in his adult life, his virulent hatred of the English was gone. He still despised the soldiers, could never forgive those men for what they had done. But he hated them as he would hate any man with no honor—not as representatives of the entire English nation.

  After all, she was English, too, and she was all that was good in the world. Later he would tell her of her real past, of her grandfather and her father and the other things that might hurt her.

  But first he wanted to hold her and cherish her. He wanted to revel in the woman who would be his forever, the woman who had his heart.

  She pushed him gently away, her beautiful eyes clouded by tears. Tears for him, for what he had suffered. The gift of her sympathy humbled him.

  Her troubled gaze played over his face. “You say you don’t care if I remind you of the English, but you will care later.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I will not.” He knew it with a certainty as solid as Gibraltar. “English or Spanish, I don’t care, as long as you are my wife.”

  Her breath caught. “How can I marry you, if it means watching you lose everything that matters to you—your estate, your future, your hopes?”

  “Arboleda is not the only thing that matters to me anymore, Lucy. You are the only thing that matters to me. You said not to hide myself from you. Well, here I am, cariño. I need you. I cannot do it without you, any of it.”

  “But Rafael said—”

  “To hell with Rafael.”

  He kissed her, to blot out whatever his well-meaning friend had told her. Now he understood why she had refused him the first time. She had probably been right to do so, given how he had bungled it. But he would be damned if he let her go again.

  She tore her mouth from his. “My grandfather—”

  “To hell with your grandfather, too.” This time his kiss was more heated. Happiness and hope bled into his desire seamlessly as he plundered her mouth, especially when she opened to the kiss as sweetly as a rose opening to the sun. He wanted to touch her, to taste her, to remind himself of everything that was alive and beautiful.

  Opening her nightdress, he swept his mouth down to kiss her breast, then suck it and lavish it with all the tender care he possessed. He had to make her understand what she meant to him.

  “Oh, Diego . . .” she rasped as she realized what he was about. “This will not solve anything.”

  He nuzzled her nipple, then pressed a kiss to her other breast. “It will solve everything.” It will show you that there is nothing to solve. Not now.

  “I don’t see . . . how . . .”

  She trailed off as he tongued her nipple to a hard little point. In a fever to be with her, he shucked off his coat and unbuttoned his waistcoat.

&nb
sp; With a gasp, she closed her hands in his hair. “Good Lord, Diego . . . you mustn’t . . . oh . . . my . . . word . . .”

  For once, he was grateful for the profession that had taught him how to manage several actions at once. While he kept her focused on his mouth caressing her lovely breasts, he shed his waistcoat and unfastened his trousers and his drawers.

  By the time she thought to push him away, it only remained to slip off his trousers and drawers, then drag her astride his lap. Fortunately, she wore no drawers underneath her nightshirt.

  “Diego!” she cried as she gazed down at his cock, jutting hard against her bare belly. He could see the fascination on her face, warring with what appeared to be her righteous determination to talk herself out of this. “What do you think you are doing?”

  “Trying to seduce you, querida.” Time to appeal to the hoyden in her, the budding seductress who had tempted him so gloriously on board ship. When she tensed, he grabbed her waist with both hands and settled her more firmly against him. Then he used his cock to strafe her dewy center.

  Her lovely eyes slid closed, and she clutched at his shoulders. “That is very wicked,” she chided, yet she arched her back and gave in to the motion.

  Ah, he loved how she responded to his caresses, with passion and eagerness and a sweet, fervent enjoyment. “Yes,” he teased, “you only like me when I play the devil.”

  Her eyes shot open. “That’s not true!” she said petulantly, then let out a heartfelt groan as he used his fingers to thumb her where it would rouse her most. “Dios mio, Diego!”

  He laughed, damned near delirious with the pleasure of making her his. “You sound more Spanish by the day, mi amor.” Grinning, he filled his hands with her breasts.

  He had not even realized what he had said until she drew back to stare at him in shock. “You called me your love.”

  His love?

  The words rang in his heart. Why had he not accepted it before? Yes, she was his love. He loved her. Oh, God, how he loved her! “Is that not what a man calls the woman he loves?”

  She swallowed. “You said love is an illusion.”