Don't Bargain with the Devil Read online

  “Mrs. Harris is my chaperone,” she said defensively.

  “And yet you are here alone with me.”

  “For all the good it does me.” She pulled free of his arms, hurt by his clear rejection. Peter wanted her only for her body, and Diego didn’t even want her for that. “Not only am I a reckless hoyden whom no honorable man would wish to marry, but I’m not even desirable enough to attract a man known for his dalliances.”

  “Por Dios, mi dulzura,” he said, catching her from behind to pull her against his chest. “You know I find you desirable.”

  “Do I?” Tears clogged her throat. “Peter would already have tried to . . . to touch me. But you . . . you probably think I am just a silly English fool. Compared to your . . . your Russian princesses and . . . o-opera singers, I am just—”

  “Sh, sh, cariño,” he murmured against her ear, his hands roaming up and down her waist. “You are twice the woman of any of them.”

  “But not enough to t-tempt you.”

  Turning her in his arms, he pressed her hand to his chest. “Can you not feel that? My heart pounds like thunder. I could not desire you any more than I do at this moment.”

  “Then show me,” she said softly. “Show me how you feel. I want to know what I’ve been avoiding all this time.”

  His face darkened, and he muttered a curse under his breath. “Very well. I will do as you wish. But I will not ruin you. Understand?”

  “Not really.”

  He led her to the settee, sat down upon it, then pulled her onto his lap. “I am going to give you pleasure, querida. When I am done, you will still be an innocent.” He flashed her a wry smile. “Or rather, you will still be chaste.”

  That relieved her, then intrigued her. A little thrill of excitement coursed along her spine. “But what about you?”

  “Me?” he choked out. “I will be in hell. But it is a hell I can stomach. Ruining you is a hell I cannot.”

  Clearly, marrying her was also a hell he could not. She pushed down her hurt. He’d always told her what to expect from him. At least she’d have something to remember after he was gone.

  His hand started raising her skirts.

  “D-Diego? What are you doing?” She was not so innocent that she didn’t know ruination began with a man lifting a woman’s skirts.

  “Dallying with you.” He bent her back over his arm, then began to kiss his way to her breasts. “Drinking my fill. Or as much of it as I dare.”

  His hand left her skirts just long enough to drag her bodice and corset down so he could plunder her bare breast with his mouth. She arched up as an exquisite sensation shot through her, making her clutch at his head to hold him fast.

  Meanwhile, his hand returned to her skirts, tugging and pulling until they were up around her thighs, exposing her drawers. With the deftness of long experience, he found the slit and slid his fingers inside to touch the part of her only she had dared to touch, the part that grew damp at night when she dreamed of him.

  Having him touch her there gave new meaning to the term “sleight of hand.” It was so astonishing that it made her sigh aloud and press herself against his fingers.

  “You like that, do you, querida?” He rubbed the cleft with a stroke that made her gasp. He raised his head to stare at her with a slumberous glance. “You are so wet, so hot and wet. Will you let me taste your nectar?”

  “M-my nectar?” Ohh, the dampness. He knew about that?

  Of course he did. He had done this with many women.

  Time enough to be jealous of them later. For now, he was hers.

  “You can taste whatever you want,” she whispered, wondering if he meant “taste” literally. Surely he would not . . .

  But as he stretched her back to lie on the settee, then slid far enough down to stare at her private place with decided hunger, she realized he would. He actually intended to put his lips . . .

  He did exactly that. Good Lord.

  She shuddered deliciously at the amazing sensation of his mouth covering her there. It was . . . amazing. Downright inspiring. Even magical.

  The sight of his dark head between her legs sent such excitement soaring through her that she could not tear her eyes from it. Did English men and women ever do this? Or was it just a Spanish custom?

  No, the harem tales had mentioned it, too. But she and the other girls had decided it was too ridiculous to believe. What man would want to lick someone down there?

  Clearly Diego would, for his tongue stroked her in shocking ways, lapping at her, toying with her. And it was every bit as talented as his hands, one of which still teased and fondled her breast. He roused her above, he roused her below, until she was so aroused that she ached with her need.

  “Please . . . Diego . . . please,” she begged, sensing that something more lay just beyond her reach.

  “Patience, mi dulzura,” he murmured against her flesh. “Close your eyes. Relax. It will come.”

  Closing her eyes would mean losing control, which made her nervous, especially when she saw him untie her drawers and slide them off. Yet when he returned to arousing her with his mouth, and she did close her eyes, the pleasure intensified to an almost unbearable degree.

  Now one of his fingers was thrusting inside her, making her arch up to meet it. And to meet his tongue, which continued its dance, until a most peculiar heat began in her toes, flashing higher, searing her blood, until it seemed to gather right at the spot his tongue was strafing.

  She exploded. The most exquisite explosion of pleasure rocked her, making her utter a small cry as she clasped his head against her.

  For a moment, she lay there relishing it. No one had ever told her about this. In the harem tales, a woman’s pleasure, when there was any, was couched in lofty terms she hadn’t understood.

  She understood now.

  And she understood something else, too. He had not been given the same pleasure. The harem tales had been quite clear about what constituted pleasure for a man.

  That was confirmed when she opened her eyes to find him staring at her thighs with a look akin to desperation. Actually, staring at just one thigh. She could almost swear he was looking at her birthmark.

  No, that was silly. It was barely light enough in here to see it.

  “Diego,” she whispered, and his gaze jerked to her face. He wore the guilty look of a man who’d just done something very wrong. It was rather endearing. “That was incredible.” She sat up, covering herself with inexplicable modesty, given what she’d just been doing. “But can’t I give you pleasure?”

  “Lucy, I do not think—”

  Remembering what she’d read, she reached for his breeches buttons. “Surely I could do something.”

  “God help me,” he muttered. “I shall burn in hell for certain.”

  “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 im
agine 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 Señor 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.

  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 Señor 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.