Don't Bargain with the Devil Read Online Free PDF

for them was part of his appeal. The audience, particularly the ladies, loved it when he could call their names from the stage.
     
Yet he had not gained Seńorita Schoolteacher’s. Although he might have, if not for ending the conversation prematurely by losing his temper.
     
That, too, galled. He rarely lost control in such a manner. Rage was too volatile and dangerous an emotion to allow. Give it free rein, and you ended up dead, either at the hand of another or at the hand of the hangman.
     
Lately, however, his temper had been plaguing him. With each new failure to locate Don Carlos’s granddaughter, his anger grew a little more. If the ailing marqués died before Diego and Gaspar fulfilled their part of the bargain, they got nothing. So Seńorita Schoolteacher looking down her pretty nose at him and lecturing him about proprieties had provoked his temper more than usual.
     
“You will have to discover the woman’s name yourself,” Diego told Gaspar, “but that should not be too hard. How many teachers can there be in such a place?”
     
“What does she teach?” When Diego groaned, the old man laughed. “You didn’t get that either? I’ll have to findout what this English paragon eats that makes her impervious to your attractions. She must be a rare bird indeed.”
     
“I did learn that she is twenty,” Diego shot back, annoyed. “That seems young for a teacher, so that is something to go on. You are the one who claims to be able to weasel information out of a stone. Why not put your talent to good use?”
     
“Don’t carp at me,” Gaspar grumbled. “I swear, you are as surly as a bear these days. And I know why.”
     
“Because we keep running into obstacles?”
     
“Because you need a woman, that’s why. How long has it been?”
     
“Not that long,” Diego lied.
     
“A year.” When Diego’s startled gaze shot to him, he said, “Yes, I have noticed. You ignore even the fine ladies who cast you come-hither looks, and you take no one to your room.”
     
“I have more important things on my mind these days than rutting.”
     
“Nonetheless, you should spend your pent-up energy on something besides work. Why not just tumble a whore and be done with it? It will do you good.”
     
“ Dios mio, I do not want to tumble a whore!” he snapped. “I am sick of whores. For that matter, I am sick of fine ladies. They only wish to share my bed to say they have lain with the ‘great’ Diego Montalvo. Or to provoke their husbands.”
     
“You didn’t used to mind that.”
     
“I didn’t used to mind a great many things.” He threaded his fingers through his hair. “Plowing every field that came my way was fine when I was too young and stupid to know any better, but now I want…I want….”
     
He wanted so very much. He wanted to go home to Villafranca to blot out all memory of the charming trickster he had played for the past fifteen years. He wanted the life of dignity and honor that the English and French had stolen from him, the life he should have had. And that life did not include bedding whores.
     
“I know what you want,” Gaspar said softly. “But are you sure that having the marqués sign Arboleda back over to you will satisfy you? It’s been years since you lived there. You may find it isn’t the Eden you remember.”
     
“That does not matter.” Diego could hardly speak for the turmoil churning in his chest. “What kind of man would I be if I did not keep my vow to Father?”
     
“A sensible one, that’s what. When you promised him you’d restore it to what it once was, neither of you could have anticipated that your mother would have to sell the estate. You’ve done your best to fulfill his dying wish. Perhaps it’s time to let that dream pass.” Gaspar slid Diego’s shirts into the tallboy. “This life has its compensations, doesn’t it? Especially for a conjurer as talented as you.”
     
But its compensations paled beside his failure to accomplish his life’s dream. Gaspar did not understand that.
     
Gaspar turned for