“But if the French killed his father, why does he rail so against my countrymen?”
“His family expected mistreatment from the French, but not from the English, their ‘saviors.’ Diego is convinced his father would never have foolishly confronted the French if not for what the English had done. He still doesn’t like either side. You may not realize this, but he’s never performed in France or in England.”
Until he’d come after her. Tears welled in Lucy’s eyes. “But he performed for the English regiments. For years.”
“He didn’t start out there. He and his mother tried to run the estate, but without the vineyard, it was impossible. Diego was too young and his mother too devastated to recoup their losses.” Rafael drank some coffee. “His father’s creditors took advantage of Diego’s youth to make demands he couldn’t meet, and he and his mother couldn’t satisfy the debts. They had no choice but to sell Arboleda.”
“To the marqués?”
“He’s the most recent owner. It changed hands often before him, but no one managed to revive the vineyards sufficiently to make a go of it.” Rafael planted his elbows on the table. “Anyway, after the estate was sold, Diego took his mother to live with a poor relation in Oporto. The regiments had returned there, so he became a camp follower, determined to wrest from them everything they’d taken from him and his family. He began stealing and cardsharping, partly out of anger, partly to pay for his mother’s medical treatments.”
“No one caught him?”
“Eventually, yes. Fortunately, it was Gaspar. He told Diego he could either learn to be a magician’s assistant or be handed over to the authorities. Gaspar was no fool. He recognized Diego’s dexterity and amazing skills at cards even then. And I suspect the man knew he couldn’t continue his profession much longer without someone younger to help him.”
Rafael gave her a wry smile. “He pointed out to Diego that there were more legitimate ways to fleece the English. I think it pleased Diego to make fools of the English soldiers at his performances, though he never let on he was mocking them behind their backs.”
She remembered only too well how Diego had humiliated Peter. He must have done that before, with other men he’d held in contempt. That was why he’d been so masterful at it. “He really despises the English, doesn’t he?”
“Not all the English. Just their soldiers.”
That explained why he was so ready to believe the worst of Papa. Why he’d thought he was doing her a great favor by abducting her.
It also explained why he’d been willing to come to England—to save her.
She stared down at her hands. Not just to save her. He’d come to regain Arboleda, willing to steal her to accomplish it. Even though it might hurt his future as a performer.
“I take it that fulfilling his promise to his father means more to him than even his profession,” she whispered. “Despite his fame and great talent—”
“Haven’t you realized how little he values that? He considers himself an entertaining trickster, a man of no worth and honor. He doesn’t care that he can hold an audience of five hundred rapt in the palm of his hand.” Rafael shook his head. “Why should he? His damned father drummed into him that he must continue the traditions of generations of Montalvos. He believes he failed his family by not holding on to Arboleda in the first place.”
“But he was only twelve! He expects too much of himself.”
“I know that, and you know that. He doesn’t. The hope of regaining Arboleda has been the impetus behind his success. If that’s taken from him . . .”
“It mustn’t be!” she said stoutly. “He should wait until he gains the estate from the marqués and then marry me. I wouldn’t care.”
“No, but that also wouldn’t help. Arboleda is in a shambles. He’ll have to revive the vineyard, then regain a market for the wine. If a man as powerful as the marqués decides to oppose Diego—because, say, Diego married his granddaughter behind his back—the project will come to naught. Diego has saved some money but not enough to combat the active resistance of your grandfather.”
Every word slammed a stake through her heart. “But Diego told me that the marqués was on the verge of death. Can’t he just wait him out?”
“Men have been known to outlast legions while on ‘the verge of death,’ and if I know him, Don Carlos will hang on just to spite Diego.”
That made her even more loath to meet the man. “You know my grandfather?”
“I’ve had dealings with him.” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t be fooled by his advanced age and courtly manner. Don Carlos is shrewd and ruthless. When Diego first approached him, hoping to negotiate a sale on credit, Don Carlos realized that my friend was perfect for fetching you back to Spain. Diego possessed a thorough command of English, the resolve and motivation to complete the task, and, most of all, an honorable character.”
“Yes, it was very honorable of Diego to abduct me,” she said dryly.
“That was a necessary part of completing the task. Don Carlos won’t mind that. But when he learns that Diego means to marry you, he’ll be livid. He wants something more than a poor magician with a run-down estate for his precious, long-lost granddaughter, and if Diego marries you in spite of him, he’ll retaliate by destroying all Diego’s plans and dreams for Arboleda.”
“And then Diego will resent me for it. Or worse.” Her heart ached at the awful choices before her. “Not only will he lose his estate, but he’ll lose it because of an Englishwoman. It’ll be like enduring the soldiers all over again.”
“Nonsense,” Rafael said kindly. “He thinks of you as Spanish, not English.”
She smiled sadly. “Only because he ignores the raised-by-the-English part. But he won’t ignore it for long. I still act and think like the English. I represent everything he despises. Add the fact that I’ve forced him into breaking his vow to his father, and our marriage is doomed. Eventually he’ll come to hate me.” Especially since he didn’t consider himself in love with her.
His brow furrowing, Rafael sat back. “What do you mean to do?”
“Tell him I can’t marry him, of course.” She tipped up her chin. “I already had a plan in place to preserve Diego’s aims before he came up with this hare-brained idea. I’ll simply return to it.”
“If he lets you.”
“I’ll leave him no choice. He’s not the only one with pride. I want a husband who cares for me, not one who simply has foolish notions about defending my honor.” She shot Rafael a beseeching glance. “And you mustn’t tell him what you revealed, or he’ll guess what I’m doing. Then it’ll all be for naught.”
Looking uneasy, Rafael didn’t answer.
She leaned forward to grab his hands. “Promise me you’ll keep my secrets, Rafael. You mustn’t let him know any of this—”
“Any of what?” said a terse voice from the door.
Her heart sinking, Lucy released Rafael’s hands and sat back, imploring him with her eyes to keep silent.
“Damn it, Rafael,” Diego demanded, “what are you two plotting?”
Rafael’s jaw stiffened, and she held her breath. But just as Lucy’s stomach twisted into a knot, he met Diego’s gaze. “You’ll have to ask Miss Seton.”
Relief flooded Lucy . . . until she saw the fury in Diego’s expression. Now there would be hell to pay.
“What were you discussing, Lucy?” Diego demanded.
She stood. “Let’s talk in private, shall we?” She swept past him to the door, her mind racing.
He followed her, but they’d gone only a few feet down the companionway when he pushed her inside a small cabin. When she saw the three hammocks, she realized that this cramped space was where he’d been staying.
That was all she registered before he shut the door and shoved her against it, bracketing her shoulders with his hands.
“What is it that you don’t want Rafael to tell me?” he gritted out as he loomed close. “And why the devil did it require your holding his hands?”<
br />
That was why he was angry? He’d seen her grab Rafael’s hands?
As she stared at him, speechless, his eyes darkened. “Perhaps I should remind you who you belong to now,” he growled.
Then he kissed her roughly, angrily, his body hard and unyielding against hers. His hands swept over her with proprietary intimacy, and for a moment, she responded, caught up in the sweet fury of his jealousy. Perhaps he did care. Perhaps more than just honor prompted his proposal.
No, his pride was only wounded. He was angry at the situation and taking it out on her, which he would continue to do if she let this madness go on.
She dragged her mouth from his. “It wasn’t you I was begging Rafael not to tell,” she lied, thinking quickly. “It was my grandfather. Since you clearly didn’t hide from Rafael what you and I did together last night, I was asking him to keep it quiet.”
Diego blinked. “What point is there to that, if we’re going to marry?”
She drew in a ragged breath. Time to do what would surely wound his pride, if nothing else.
But she had pride, too. Too much to marry a man who only wanted her in his bed. She forced her chin up, forced defiance into her face. “You didn’t give me the chance this morning to respond to your charming proposal of marriage. If you had, you would have heard me refuse you.”
A look of pure astonishment crossed his face. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. I do not wish to marry you.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Dear Cousin,
We expect the colonel any day now, and we hope he will have answers, for he knows his daughter’s mind best. Still, I beg you to learn everything you can about Señor Montalvo’s character beyond what we already know. If he proves a scoundrel, then she is ruined for certain.
Your anxious relation,
Charlotte
D iego’s first reaction to Lucy’s insane pronouncement was a blend of relief and disappointment, followed swiftly by outrage.
He stared at her impassive expression, sure that he had misheard her. “You do not have a choice. You must marry me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why? Because you say so?”
“Because I have taken your innocence!”
“No one need know that. You don’t wish to marry me, after all, and I certainly don’t wish to marry you. So why should we?”
I certainly don’t wish to marry you.
That stopped him cold. After he had spent the last few hours simmering with anger over what he had thrown away for one tempestuous night with her, she had the audacity to refuse him?
He shoved away from her. “I never said I did not wish to marry you.”
“But it was painfully clear.” When he opened his mouth to protest, she added, “And I understand, believe me. We both know that a marriage between us would never work.”
“Why is that?” he snapped.
“Because, for one thing, you don’t love me.”
Though that assertion sparked his temper, he could not deny it. All right, so he desired her past all reason, and he liked her a great deal. But he was not fool enough to confound that with an imaginary emotion drummed up by poets. “I do not believe in love,” he said, though the words rang a little hollow. “Love is an illusion.”
A hint of pain flickered in her eyes, gone so swiftly he was sure he had imagined it. “And it so happens that I do,” she said lightly. “So a marriage between us wouldn’t work.”
“Are you saying that you love me?” he asked.
She strolled over to the hammock, keeping her back to him. “I’m saying I only seduced you to give myself choices. I’m not about to relinquish them just because you have some notions about your honor.”
His blood pounded in his ears. Did she not recognize the sacrifice he made on her behalf? He had expected her to be pleased, even grateful, for his willingness to give up everything he had worked for in order to behave honorably. Certainly he had expected her to be more enthusiastic about the prospect.
Could she really have felt nothing for him when they made love? What had happened to his sweet Lucy, who gave herself to him so freely and ardently?
Or had that just been an illusion? She had set out very cold-bloodedly to seduce him. She had tried to make it swift and easy. Even at the time, he had thought it was because she was preserving her anger at him.
Perhaps he had been right. Perhaps when he had kidnapped her, he had killed any small affection she had felt for him in England. This might be her way of revenging herself on him. Could that have been her plan all along, to have him so desperate for her in his bed that he threw away everything? Then renege on her promise to keep the truth from the marqués?
It did not seem possible. But he had to know.
“What do you intend to tell your grandfather?” he asked.
She whirled to face him, her expression showing her surprise. “The same thing I planned to tell him before—that I lost my innocence to Peter. Why? Did you think I would tell him the truth?”
Belatedly, he realized how insulting that must sound. “I . . . that is—”
“You did!” Her pretty eyes filled with hurt. “You think I’m doing this out of spite. That I mean to ignore my end of our bargain.”
He reached for her, but she stepped away, and he dropped his hands to his sides. “I am merely trying to understand. I am willing to marry you, so I do not see why—”
“I should refuse your immensely flattering offer?” she said dryly. “Just be glad that I am. You’ll have your estate, and I’ll still have my freedom.”
Her freedom—damn her to hell for that. His only consolation in all this had been that he would have Lucy as his own. But she clearly did not want to be his own. “So last night really was only about ruining yourself to keep from being forced into marriage by your grandfather.”
“Of course. Not that I didn’t enjoy it immensely. You’re very talented, Diego, in bed and out.”
“Just not talented enough to be your husband.” He sounded like a sulky, smitten idiot, but he could not help it. He had finally resigned himself to being her husband, and she did not even care. It rubbed him raw.
With a heavy breath, she turned her back to him again to toy with the hammock strings. “If circumstances were different . . .”
His eyes narrowed. What circumstances?
He observed the stiffness of her back, the way she would not look at him. Could he be reading this entirely wrong? Could she finally have realized how much Arboleda meant to him and be trying to make sure he did not lose it? Might Rafael even have told her how important it was?
No, Rafael would not interfere. And yet . . .
Coming up behind her, he drew her around to face him. He had to see her face, had to determine if she meant her words. She shot him a questioning glance, but not before he briefly saw unhappiness in her eyes.
Or was it just his wounded pride making him think it?
Her vacillation drove him mad. If it was vacillation. “What has changed since I left your cabin?” he demanded. “When I mentioned marriage earlier, you seemed pleased by the idea.”
“I wasn’t so much pleased as stunned,” she shot back. “You didn’t exactly give me time to discuss it with you. And after you left, I had plenty of time to think. If you lose your estate because we marry, how will you support us?”
That sparked his temper. “I am not poor, Lucy,” he clipped out. “I am not rich, but I am certainly capable of supporting a wife.”
“For as long as your act is popular and successful, yes.” She tipped up her chin. “But a handsome unmarried performer will always attract the female portion of the population, while a married one—”
“Will attract the portion of the population who wants to be surprised by his act,” he bit out, unaccountably annoyed by her assumption that he would only be successful as long as he was free to charm the ladies.
Never mind that he had often complained to Gaspar that the women on
ly came to see him in hopes of a flirtation. “I am good at what I do, damn it. My career will not end simply because I marry.”
“Even assuming that you’re right,” she went on, blithely battering his pride with every word, “I’d have to travel with you, living in hotels, unable to settle anywhere, unless I wish to be without you for months on end.”
It was the same thing he had told himself when deciding that he could not have her. But that made it no less galling to hear her say it. “You grew up traveling with the regiments, did you not?” he snapped. “I should think it would be the sort of life you know well. And we would at least be traveling more comfortably.”
“Travel is travel,” she said lightly. “If you’ll recall, my fa- . . . the colonel sent me away to school at twelve. Clearly, even he didn’t think it a good situation for a woman.”
Diego had always claimed that the life of a traveling conjurer was no life for a wife and children. So why could he not accept that same claim from her?
Because he still desired her.
It made no sense. Last night should have quenched his obsessive need to touch her, kiss her, make love to her. Her coldly practical assessment of his acceptability as a husband should certainly have squelched any further longing to possess her.
It had not.
Sliding his hand about her waist, he drew her close. Undaunted by her sudden look of panic or the fact that she turned her head aside when he bent toward her mouth, he brushed kisses to her brow, her cheek, her ear. “But we would have this.” He nuzzled the pale, fine skin of her neck. “We would have our nights.”
“That isn’t enough,” she choked out. “Not for me.”
She slipped from his arms and hurried to the door, but he caught up with her, hauling her back against his chest. “Dios mio, querida, do not do this. We could make it work.”
“Why should we?” she asked, her voice oddly breathless. “You said you wanted me to meet my grandfather, to see what sort of life he could offer me, and now I’m willing to do that. Unless you can give me a good reason for doing otherwise, it seems sensible to do as I originally planned.”
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