Don't Bargain with the Devil (42 page)

 

With an arch smile, he held out his hand. “I
did.
”

 

She looked at the key, then at Nettie. “You said you locked the door!”

 

Nettie winced. “Weren’t no key in the lock when I went to do it, miss. And I didn’t think you’d be too happy to hear that at the time.”

 

Lucy turned back to Diego with widening eyes. “You mean you could have gone in anytime and just carried me out if you’d wanted?”

 

“
If
I had wanted. But I figured you’d had enough of being carried off against your will. I decided to let something other than my head dictate my behavior for a change.”

 

“Oh?” she said, taking his hands in hers. “And what was that?”

 

“My heart.”

 

And as she beamed up at him, he realized what he should have known from the first. A man could never go astray if he followed his heart.

 

 

 

ďťż

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epilogue

 

 

 

 

Dear Charlotte,

 

Then perhaps it is time I remove myself from your life. I have only ever asked one thing of you—that you accept my condition of anonymity. If you cannot grant me that, I fear there is no hope for us continuing our correspondence.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Michael

 

 

L
ater that year, Lucy watched from across the drawing room of the Seton town house in London as her husband made a card disappear from Lord Stoneville’s hand. She smiled. Diego would be doing a charity performance for the Newgate Children’s Fund at the Athenaeum Theater in two hours, yet here he was entertaining guests at the reception her parents had thrown for them. He never could stay still.

 

He fanned out the cards, caught her watching him, and winked. There came that quiver in her belly again. Five months married, yet he could still turn her into mush with just a wink.

 

“Do you know how he does it?” murmured a familiar voice beside her.

 

“Mrs. Harris!” she cried as she turned to greet her old friend and schoolmistress. “I thought you didn’t expect to make it for the reception.”

 

“And miss seeing you?” She kissed Lucy’s cheek. “Never, my dear.”

 

“How have you been?” Lucy asked.

 

Mrs. Harris flashed her a wan smile. “As well as can be expected.”

 

She didn’t look particularly well; her features were pale, her eyes sad. She’d been enduring the scandal of Lady Kirkwood’s suicide ever since Lucy’s abduction, as even more information came out about Silly Sarah’s indiscretions.

 

Her death had gone hard for the school. Mrs. Harris’s lesser competitors had dredged up older scandals of past elopements, along with Lucy’s. People were saying Mrs. Harris could no longer be trusted to control her girls. Never mind that the elopements had resulted in happy marriages; society cared nothing about
that
.

 

And there were other problems. “Is it true that Mr. Pritchard has found a buyer for Rockhurst?” Lucy asked.

 

Mrs. Harris sighed. “I know as little about it as you do, I’m afraid. Right now, it’s all rumors.”

 

“What does Cousin Michael say?”

 

A frown touched the pretty widow’s brow. “Nothing. We quarreled and are no longer corresponding.”

 

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Not over me and Diego, I hope. I know you blame Cousin Michael for pressing you into letting me meet with Diego that day.”

 

“That had nothing to do with it, dear. We fought over something else.” She changed the subject. “But your husband’s lovely performances on behalf of our charities are sure to counteract any bad press. It’s very good of him.”

 

“He’s happy to do it. He enjoys what he does.”

 

Astonishingly, that had become true. He’d begun to recognize how amazing it was to be able to entertain people so effortlessly. Though this would be his one and only tour of England, he’d clearly been having fun.

 

“So,
do
you know how his tricks work?” Mrs. Harris asked again.

 

“Are you mad?” Diego answered from behind her. He strolled up to gaze at Lucy with eyes gleaming. “Have you not noticed that my wife’s tongue often runs away with her? The whole world would know how I do my tricks if I told
her.
”

 

“That is not true!” Lucy protested, though it was.

 

“Fortunately,” he went on, “I shall soon be curtailing my performing quite a bit. Then my tricks will not have to be such a state secret.”

 

“You are planning to run Arboleda full-time?” Mrs. Harris asked.

 

Lucy laughed.

 

“It’s not funny,
carińo.
” But the corners of Diego’s mouth were twitching.

 

“Oh, I believe it’s quite amusing.” Lucy leaned toward Mrs. Harris. “It took my husband only one long month in the remote mountains of León to realize that running a vineyard, far from any society, wasn’t for him. You should have seen his expression when he learned that his favorite brandy could not be had within a day’s ride, for love or money.”

 

Diego sighed. “Nor my favorite newspaper, coffee, cigarillos…”

 

With a grin, Lucy tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “Who could have guessed he was so particular about his creature comforts? And so grumpy without them, too.”

 

“That is not why I sold the place,” Diego protested. “I did not want you to give birth out there, with only an old midwife of dubious credentials to attend you.”

 

“I know, darling, I know.” She cast Mrs. Harris a sober glance. “I’m afraid Villafranca isn’t fully recovered from the damage the British and French inflicted fifteen years ago. Raising a child there would be difficult, to say the least.”

 

“You’re expecting a child?” Mrs. Harris asked.

 

Lucy glanced at Diego, who beamed at her with adoring pride. “Yes. Sometime next spring.”

 

“Congratulations, my dear!” Mrs. Harris said warmly. Then she looked perplexed. “But if I may be so bold as to ask, with your husband performing less and Arboleda sold, how do you intend to live?”

 

As Diego burst into laughter, Lucy explained. “Diego has bought a pleasure garden in Cádiz with the money he got from the sale of Arboleda.”

 

“A pleasure garden!” Mrs. Harris exclaimed. “You’re bamming me!”

 

“It’s a joint venture with my grandfather, of all people,” Lucy said. “It keeps us close to him while he’s ailing, and we anticipate its being quite a success.”

 

“And if it’s not, we’ll come back here and move in with you at the school,” Diego quipped. “Have you any positions for teachers of the conjuring arts?”

 

“I somehow think that’s not a skill for young ladies,” Mrs. Harris said dryly.

 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lucy said. “It might be useful to know how to make an unwanted suitor disappear.”

 

“Unfortunately,” Diego put in, “at this moment
I
must disappear. Gaspar awaits me at the theater,
mi dulzura.
”

 

Gaspar was married to his cook now, and he and Diego
had repaired the rift in their friendship. Thank God. The more Lucy knew the man, the more she realized how he’d become a father to Diego over the years.

 

“You can come with me if you like,” Diego told Lucy, “unless you’d rather stay here.”

 

“And miss my chance to see how you do your tricks? Not on your life!”

 

They said their good-byes to her parents, who were planning to attend the performance later. Though Papa had reluctantly resigned himself to having a conjurer for a son-in-law, he’d been noticeably more friendly since he’d learned he was to be a grandfather.

 

As soon as they were in the carriage and off, Diego drew her into his arms and kissed her until her toes tingled. When at last he pulled back, his eyes were smoldering. “I am so glad you decided not to stay.”

 

“Oh?” she teased. “I thought you didn’t like me hanging about when you’re preparing for a performance.”

 

“That depends on the theater.” He closed the curtains. “And on the performance.” Drawing down the shoulder of her gown, he pressed a kiss to the upper swell of her breast. “And most definitely, it depends on the audience.”

 

She knew her husband’s appetites only too well. She reached for the buttons of his trousers. “So it’s to be
that
kind of performance, is it?”

 

“If madam approves.” He moaned as she swept her hand along his already stiffening “tallywhacker.”

 

“Madam most definitely approves. As long as you don’t rip anything. Nettie gave me quite a lecture the last time we had a…performance in the carriage.”

 

“Nettie has turned into a prude since she became lady’s
maid to a
condesa.
” He drew up her skirts with a devilish smile.

 

“And I have turned into a hot-blooded hoyden.” Her blood was already hot, and her heart racing with anticipation.

 

“No,
mi amor.
You are every inch a
condesa.
” He grinned. “Except in the bedchamber.”

 

“And the carriage,” she added.

 

Then she showed him exactly how much of a hot-blooded hoyden she could be.

 

 

 

ďťż

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author’s Note

 

 

 

Thanks to Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe series, I have a fascination for the Peninsular Wars, with all their drama and pain. Everything that happened at Villafranca is true, except for the rape, which I took from similar incidents with the British army at Badajoz. The French were even more brutal, and the Spanish retaliated with equal brutality, so no one came out of that war entirely pristine, which makes for plenty of fodder for personal tragedy and triumph.

 

To create Diego’s conjuring persona, I used Giuseppe Pinetti, a very popular eighteenth-century Italian magician. He extinguished and ignited candles with a pistol shot, he made eggs dance down a cane and cards dance in a closed glass container, and he removed a man’s shirt without removing his coat. But more than his tricks, Pinetti was known for his panache onstage. So I put him in my magic hat, added a touch of David Copperfield, a dollop of Philip Astley (who invented the bullet catch), and the looks of actor Rodrigo Santoro, covered the whole thing with a handkerchief…and abracadabra! A guy Lucy could fall madly in love with jumped out.