Don't Bargain with the Devil (9 page)

 

Lucy caught her breath at his wistful tone. Why build his pleasure garden in England when he so clearly missed Spain?

 

Perhaps it had to do with being Galician. “What makes Galicians different from Spaniards?”

 

“We are descended from the Celts. Our ancient
pallozas
are much like the Celtic roundhouses in old Britain, and we play the
gaita,
which is exactly like the bagpipes your countrymen play.”

 

Lucy stopped drawing. “What do you mean, my countrymen?”

 

His gaze bored into her. “You are Scottish, are you not?”

 

“But how—”

 

“Your accent. I hear the burr of Scottish r’s in it.”

 

A little shiver coursed along her flesh. Amazing that he should have heard it buried beneath the layers of her years abroad in an English regiment. “Not too much of a burr, I should think. But yes, Papa is Scottish.”

 

“Even without the accent, I would have guessed you were Scottish.” He paused. “Or perhaps even Spanish.”

 

A tingle of wariness vibrated along her spine. How did he know about her Spanish blood?

 

He couldn’t possibly. Unless he’d been talking to people about her. But why would he? And why did the calculated look in his eyes make her think of medieval renditions of Lucifer enticing an innocent?

 

Lucy shook herself. Now she was just being silly. “Why on earth would you guess I’m Spanish?” she said lightly as she forced herself to continue drawing.

 

“You have their fiery temperament.”

 

She sighed. Was “hot-blooded hoyden” branded on her brow, for pity’s sake? “Fiery temperaments are said to abound among the Irish and the Moors, too. You can’t guess a person’s lineage from her temperament.”

 

“It was only an observation.”

 

“An unjust one,” she shot back, unnerved by his perception. She couldn’t believe he’d just guessed at her lineage and gotten it right. “Is this another of your conjuring talents, to be able to detect a person’s origins?”

 

“Actually, it is.”

 

“Can you guess where
I’m
from?” piped up Miss Pierce.

 

“Wales, possibly,” he answered. “And Miss Dalton is certainly from the south of England, though I cannot narrow it more than that.”

 

He was right on both counts. Perhaps he
could
guess lineage. If so, she shouldn’t blame him for using his ability.

 

Diego relaxed as he saw the suspicion subside on Lucy’s face. He had nearly given himself away with that comment about the Spanish. Her startled expression had made it clear that she not only knew of her Spanish blood but was surprised a stranger should be aware of it. Certainly no one in Edinburgh had mentioned it when he and Gaspar had asked about her and her “father.”

 

Then again, no one in Edinburgh had been all that eager to speak to them. The Scottish were suspicious of everyone.

 

“How did you guess I’m from Wales?” Miss Pierce exclaimed, bringing his attention back to his audience.

 

“He’s a magician, you ninny,” said another girl. “They can divine people’s thoughts.”

 

“No, we cannot,” he said dryly. “And any magician who claims otherwise is only lying to get your money. I merely have a good ear for accents. When I was young and entertaining the regiments in Spain and Portugal, I met men from all over. I trained myself to notice how their speech reflected their origins. It has proved a useful talent for a conjurer.”

 

“When lying to get people’s money, you mean?” Lucy said archly.

 

Curse the woman—she knew exactly how to try his temper. “I am neither a cardsharp nor a thief, Miss Seton.” Though he had briefly been both.

 

“Forgive me,” she said without sincerity. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were.”

 

No, she had meant to imply that he was the devil. His role as villain already began to pall. He had always considered himself honorable, even while doing things to survive that he had not been proud of. He was not the sort of man to open a pleasure garden next to a girls’ school, even one belonging to the hated English.

 

It gnawed at him that he must pretend to do so.

 

The girls let out a loud cry.

 

“What?” he asked, startled from his ill humor.

 

“You’re to hold still, which includes your expression,” Lucy reminded him. “No frowning. Or smiling, for that matter.”

 

“Ah. Beg pardon,” he bit out, resisting the impulse to point out that
she’d
been the one to provoke him into a frown.

 

She seemed to provoke him into many unwise things. Such as talking about Villafranca. He hadn’t meant to chatter on about the town of his birth like some old man reminiscing about his youth.

 

He had only fallen in with her questions about Spain so he could determine if she had indeed been on the road to La Coruńa with the Forty-second Regiment, as the
marqués
had speculated. When Diego and Gaspar had first begun to fix on her as their quarry, they had been perplexed to discover that the colonel had retired from the
Seventy-third Regiment, not the Forty-second. They had finally decided that he must have purposely changed regiments to cover his tracks.

 

Until she had spoken of the retreat to La Coruńa, however, it had not occurred to him what it meant that she had been there at age four. How strong a little girl she must have been to survive deprivations that had killed sturdy members of the British army.

 

He could tell that the memories pained her. If she did prove to be the
marqués
’s granddaughter, Diego might have to take a horsewhip to that colonel for having dragged her through such horrors, when she should have been at home being coddled by her true parents.

 

Leave it to the British to think themselves impervious to cold and hunger, to count on being able to take what they wanted from whoever dared to—

 

He gritted his teeth against the memories. He could not change what had happened to his family, but at least he could set to rights what the damnable British had done to her. A pity that Dońa Catalina and her husband, Don Álvaro, had both died a few years after their daughter’s abduction. But if Lucy did prove to be
Dońa
Lucinda, she would at least be reunited with her grandfather, who would make her the sparkling jewel of society that she deserved to be.

 

Diego started to change position, then remembered it was not allowed. This modeling was none too comfortable. His left leg had gone to sleep, and his back throbbed. He tried shifting his leg, but the girls howled a protest.
Dios Santo.

 

Lucy began to look smug. No wonder she had agreed to his proposal so readily. She did like to torture him.

 

“Ladies,” she said primly, “since Seńor Montalvo grows restless, we ought to entertain him. Why don’t you tell him about our school? That is why he’s here, after all. Each one of you can say why your parents wanted to enroll you and what you like best about it.”

 

Diego groaned. Lucy had leaped into saving her precious school with the fierceness of a mountain lynx. Clearly, she meant him to endure many lectures.

 

As one young lady extolled the school’s virtues, Lucy closed her sketch pad and rose to stroll about, commenting on the students’ work. He tried not to watch her but couldn’t help himself. Even with that utilitarian smock thrown over her poppy-colored gown, she had a way of moving that reminded him of fine wine swirled in a glass.

 

He would give much for a taste of that wine.

 

Hostias,
that did not bear thinking on. Already his body was reacting to the lovely temptation she presented as she swept from one student to the next, but if he began to imagine
tasting
her…

 

He fought back his arousal; his pose displayed only too well the part of him he struggled to control.

 

Gaspar was right. He had indeed been too long without a woman if his body could be roused with such ease at the mere sight of Lucy prancing about. And with giggling girls watching, too!
Dios mio,
he would rot in hell for such behavior.

 

Better to concentrate on what she said to her pupils. That would surely put his randy self to sleep.

 

But it was difficult to notice her words when she kept flashing her ready smile to all and sundry—except him, of course. He found himself envying her pupils with astonishing virulence. She was quite a good teacher for someone
new to it. She put the girls at ease without coddling them, critiquing their work without destroying their confidence. He marveled at such delicacy of feeling.

 

Gaspar would think it too gentle an instruction. He had been the sort to bark commands and slap Diego’s hands whenever Diego dropped a card or picked up the wrong handkerchief. After a coddled childhood as the only son of a nobleman, it had been quite a shock. But being Gaspar’s assistant had been safer—and more profitable—than thieving or cardsharping.

 

“Ladies, it’s time to wash up,” Lucy suddenly said.

 

Diego gaped at her. They were finished?

 

As he straightened and the girls hurried to wipe their smudged hands on damp towels, Lucy walked up to him. “Thank you, sir,” she said very prettily. “You were quite helpful.”

 

He rose, wincing as the feeling returned to his limbs. “Remind me to be more appreciative of artists’ models in the future,” he grumbled.

 

Amusement shone on her face. “I did warn you.”

 

“You warned me I would be bored.” He limped forward, his muscles cramping. “Not crippled.”

 

This time a laugh spilled out of her. “You were a good sport about it, I must say. Most models are much grumpier their first time.”

 

A girl asked her a question, and she returned her attention to the class, sending them off to dancing lessons. While she was distracted with cleaning her own hands, he wandered over to where she’d left her sketch pad, curious to see how she had drawn him.

 

But as he flipped through her surprisingly accomplished drawings of Scotland’s heather-clad mountains
and Richmond’s cobblestone streets, it was the images of the people in her life that sparked his curiosity.

 

He turned a page, blinked, then let out a laugh, unable to believe his eyes.

 

When she whirled at the sound, he held up to her the picture of a handsome young gentleman with horns and a tail. “And who is this interesting fellow?”

 

An enchanting flush filled her face. “Oh, Lord,” she muttered.

 

The other girls had filed off through the woods, leaving them alone on the landing. Since Mrs. Harris had told him this was her only class for today, he had her to himself at last.

 

And he meant to take full advantage. “How reassuring to see I am not the only person you deem the devil. Is that a common theme in your work?”

 

“Give me that, Seńor Montalvo!” she snapped as she strode up to him.

 

Grinning, he held it behind his back. “I thought you were going to call me Diego in private.”

 

“Fine.” Two spots of color rose high in her cheeks. “Give me that, Diego, you unconscionable scoundrel.”

 

“Not until you tell me who he is.” He enjoyed watching her bristling with heat, her eyes ready to slay him. It made him wonder what she would be like in his bed, writhing beneath him in equal passion.

 

“Good Lord,” she complained, “you are so…so…”

 

“Charming? Witty? Irresistible?”

 

“Annoying!”

 

“And persistent.” He held the sketch pad high and gazed up at it. “Of course, your Mrs. Harris would probably be able to tell me.”

 

“You wouldn’t dare!” When he arched an eyebrow at her, she blew out a frustrated breath. “Very well, he’s just…that is…”

 

“A fiancé perhaps?” he prodded. “Or more likely, a
former
fiancé, given the horns.”

 

That thought instantly dampened his fun. Until this moment he had not considered that she might have a serious suitor. Such a person would almost certainly try to interfere with his plans.

 

“He’s neither.” Turning from him, she gazed out across the river. “At one time, I had hoped…Never mind, it doesn’t matter. He’s nobody to me now.”

 

“Not nobody, judging from your blush.” He was inexplicably annoyed that any pasty-faced Englishman could so affect her. “What is his name?”

 

“Why do you care?”

 

Because he needed to know who else might influence her decisions. Or so he told himself.

 

“I am curious to learn what sort of fellow earned horns from you. We both know you do not use that insult lightly.”

 

“Very funny.” She started off toward the path through the woods.

 

Tucking the sketch pad under his arm, he followed. “What did he do? Break your rules of propriety? Insult your pupils? Try to buy the property on the
other
side of the school to build a brothel?”

 

“He dallied with me,” she shot back. Even as a rush of blood filled his ears, she stopped short just inside the trees to add in a more subdued tone, “No, that’s not true. I-I didn’t mean that how it sounds.”

 

He steadied his anger at the unnamed stranger. “How
did
you mean it?”

 

“Peter…that is, Lord Hunforth and I grew up together in the regiment. I thought he meant to…I always assumed that he and I…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I was wrong.”

 

And it had obviously hurt her badly. She started to walk off, but he stayed her. “You thought this Englishman meant to marry you.”

 

She nodded. “But once he ascended to his title, he decided he required a more proper wife.”

 

“Ah,” he said, the light dawning. “That is why you are so eager for the proprieties now.” And that was why she would make the perfect wife for some high-ranking Spanish noble once she learned of her true lineage.

 

The thought rankled.

 

She glared at him. “I’ll have you know I have always been eager…” When he arched an eyebrow, she pulled away. “Oh, why am I even telling you this? You already think me every bit the hoyden that Peter does.”

 

“