Nobody's Saint (2 page)

Bridget gave Mary Kate a worried glance, but Mary Kate gestured to the door.

“Well, you heard him,” Bridget said to her grandfather. “Out!” She marched through the door, Sir Calder reluctantly at her heels.

Dylan, dragging his feet, shut the door behind them. Then he turned back to Mary Kate and leaned on the portal. “Might as well scream and rage and get it out of your system. You’re going.”

“Like hell. And I know you too well to think you’re so drunk you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“‘Tis right you are, Mary Kate. I’m sober enough to know there’s no other way.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We need you.”

“You’ve the right of it there. The place will fall to wrack and ruin without me. Who’ll keep the accounts? Who’ll cook and oversee the farms? You? From your seat in Jack Roche’s pub? Bridget? She can’t add two and two and burns everything she puts over a fire.”

Dylan winced. “You’re unkind honest, daughter. But Bridget’s smarter than you give her credit for.”

“I’m staying here.”

“Then you’ll be putting us out of our house and home. Larcombe’s brought an English manager with him. If you’ll not go, his man will be moving in here, and we’ll be on the street.”

“He wouldn’t!”

“And why not? D’you think he gives a tinker’s damn what becomes of us?”

Mary Kate had been handling all of her family’s correspondence with Sir Larcombe for years. He never asked after their health or wellbeing. He hadn’t even seen fit to tell them that his wife and sons had died. All he ever cared about was the profits from the farms.

She started to reach for her father’s whiskey bottle, just for the pure satisfaction of sending it sailing against the wall, but another thought stayed her hand. She turned and looked at her father. “Get out of my way.”

“There’s no use making it worse,” he argued, but at her arch look, he sidestepped away from the door. Still, he reached for her, his face soft. “God forgive me, Mary Kate, I wish it weren’t like this.”

“I know that.”

“I love you, lass.” He wrapped her in his arms, and Mary Kate returned his embrace, surrounded by the smell of whiskey, a scent that she associated with both his love and his rages. “God help me, to lose Bess and now you.” His voice broke, and Mary Kate’s heart broke with it.

She disentangled herself from her father and collected her emotions before opening the library door and looking out into the sitting room, where Sir Calder and Bridget sat across from each other, glaring daggers through the space that separated them.

“I’m a reasonable woman,” Mary Kate said, addressing her grandfather. “We need this house. If you’ve no one to inherit, why, who’s to stop your king from bestowing it on some other milksop English pretender?”

“I will not tolerate—”

“And you need me, too.” That shut his mouth. “But our people have never had much use for each other. What if I go with you, but you can’t find an arrogant Englishman who’ll have a lowly Irish lass like myself? As you said, you’re not getting any younger. ‘Tis only, I’d hate to see you die without an heir, just because you were too stubborn to settle for an Irishman.”

“Oh, I shall find an English husband for you. On that you can rely.”

“Well, seeing as you’re so certain, you’d not mind fixing a time limit. Say, a year?”

“That’s preposterous!”

“Two.”

“You are in no position to set limits, young lady!”

“Then set them yourself. How long do you think it will take you to find someone who aspires to the lofty position of baronet?”

“That is quite enough of your sarcasm! And I believe I can have you wed before you reach your age of majority.”

“Four years? I’ll not be spending four years away from my own!”

“The sooner you wed, the sooner you can return.”

Mary Kate contemplated his terms. “Before I reach my age of majority? And if you can’t find a husband by my twenty-first birthday, will you swear that I can return and marry as I will, and that the lands will go to Bridget’s or my
Irish
sons?”

“I’m no fool. You’ll only turn down every man I present to you.”

Mary Kate smiled sweetly. Only Bridget and Dylan knew just what ill might befall the recipient of such a smile from this particular Irishwoman. “Upon my word, I’ll accept the first man who’ll have me, so long as ‘tis before my twenty-first birthday.”

Sir Calder sneered. “You’ll be the mother of my heir by then, Mary Katherine.”

The battle lines had been drawn.

1674

One hand on the helm, the captain of the Spanish merchant ship
Magdalena
watched the pirate ship sink below the horizon through his spyglass. He dropped the instrument into the pocket of a dark jacket that fell below his hips and skimmed his thighs, and he swept the length of the deck with a worried frown. Crewmen glanced in his direction out of the corners of their eyes and made furtive signs of the cross over their breasts. The captain shook his head in consternation, and the mahogany hair that framed his narrow face spilled over his shoulders.

“Magdalena,” he whispered softly in Spanish, “as always, you have my humble thanks for keeping us out of harm’s way. God willing, there will be no further incidents from here to Cádiz.” It was both a blessing and a curse, the strange relationship he had developed over the years with a woman long dead. In a moment of pious devotion meant to be both a private offering of thanks and a public display of his religion, Diego crossed himself as well, his brown eyes turned toward heaven.

He knew what his crew was saying as they whispered among themselves on the forward deck, beyond his hearing. Galeno, the lad who had once been his cabin boy but was now trying to move into the ranks of a true sailor, swabbed the deck nearby. As he had been doing for months now, Galeno would report back to the captain all that he had heard. It would be nothing new. Diego’s crew was beginning to speculate that his luck with pirates was more than mere luck, after all. Some had even gone so far as to breathe the possible involvement of unholy forces.

Supernatural perhaps, but far holier than they could know. Ironically, he should have no fear of revealing the source of his guidance. He was, after all, a devout Catholic. Where was the heresy in communing with saints? Although the
auto da fé
was no longer the spectacle it had once been, the Holy Office of the Inquisition was still feared, and the smell of burning flesh was still too close for anyone to fully trust in the Church and Her leaders. Diego knew better than to admit that his patron saint, María Magdalena, often sent him visions and intuitions that warned of danger.

Diego’s ship was not built for speed. Neither was she a majestic galleon. Nonetheless, she had outrun many pirate vessels and had been known to stand her ground and fight when it suited her commander.
Magdalena
was small and serviceable; with a hold full of sugar, cotton, and indigo produced in the Americas and making her way to Spain, she was unremarkable among Spain’s larger ships laden with silver and gold. But Capitán Diego Montoya Fernández de Madrid y Delgado Cortés knew differently. She was protected by greater powers than mere pirates could ever hope to conquer.

As it so often did at the end of the day, the sun seemed to pick up speed as it descended toward the line between the sky and the Caribbean Sea. Diego was tired, both in the conventional sense and in the sense that he was tired of being the object of scrutiny and speculation. He motioned to his first mate, Enrique, who snapped to attention and answered the call.

“Take the helm,” Diego said as soon as the other man drew close enough to hear him. At thirty-four years old, Diego was nearly ten years Enrique’s junior, but Enrique respected his captain’s authority. Diego inspected the man’s face closely for any chink in the fortress of Enrique’s regard, but the first mate simply looked back at him, his face a study in placidity.

“Yes, Captain,” he said, and Diego stepped to the side.

“The men seem discontent,” Diego observed. Better to put their cards on the table.

“Too much gossip,” Enrique answered. “Maybe I should give them more to do.”

“And what do you think of their gossip?”

Enrique shrugged. “In the three years that you have commanded this ship, you have had remarkably good luck where pirates are concerned. Until I see some sign that you come by it dishonestly, I count your luck as mine.”

Until. The word was not lost on Diego. He would have preferred at least an ‘unless.’ It was a long way to Cádiz. Hopefully the rest of the voyage would be utterly routine, and his crew would slowly forget their idle conjecture. He left Enrique in command and headed toward the hatch to go below deck. His long, lean frame moved gracefully with the roll of the ship, and where he walked, his men moved subtly away from him, stopping mid-whisper to let him pass in silence.

In his quarters, Diego doffed his heavy coat and boots, tossing them over the top of the sea chest at the foot of his bunk, before he lay down and stretched out. He moved his unbound hair from under his neck to feel the cool linen against his skin. With both hands, he rubbed his lean, stubbled jaw in a gesture of weariness. A wooden crucifix hung over his head, with lanterns affixed to the wall on either side of it. On another wall, a good-sized port let in light that fell across a mahogany table. The table could comfortably seat two, four with a little crowding. A chart nearly covered the top of it, and there were three others rolled up and resting on the floor.

Diego flung one arm across his eyes, just to rest them a moment, not to sleep. The cook would have dinner ready soon, and he was nearly as hungry as he was tired. Despite his best intentions, soon his breathing fell into a deep and even rhythm.

He stood on the deck as fog swept in from the ocean and obliterated the planks under his dark boots. The night was cloudy, no moon or stars lit the sky, but the fog itself was infused with light, soft and comforting.

“Diego,” a woman’s voice called from somewhere in the luminous blanket. He looked around him but could not find her. In fact, the deck appeared entirely empty. “Over here, at the helm,” she said. Her voice was smooth and her Spanish strangely accented with a foreign lilt.

“Magdalena?” he whispered back, stepping cautiously toward the bridge.

“Yes, Diego, it is I.”

“I am ever in your debt, my lady. Again you have delivered us from our enemy.”

“Yes. But in your heart I sense that you are not entirely grateful.”

He peered anxiously into the fog but still saw no sign of her “Forgive me,” he mumbled miserably. “I am unworthy.”

Magdalena laughed musically. “You are worried for your skin, as well you might be. Good fortune is only admired for so long, and then it is envied. It is a burdensome gift I have given you, I am afraid.” At last, he could see a feminine silhouette in the luminous mist.

“I accept whatever you give with gratitude.”

“But?” she prodded.

“But what, my lady?”

“You say that, but I hear you qualify it with your voice. You accept what I give you with gratitude, but…”

“But my men are beginning to talk. I was only hoping that we would not be encountering any more pirates on this voyage.”

“Not before you reach Cádiz,” she assured him.

She spread her arms wide in a fluid gesture, and the mist thinned before her. Each vision of her was vivid, though this one perhaps more so. Her lips were full and berry-red, her eyes crystal blue. Jet-black hair fell over her shoulders. Whenever she had come to him before, she had worn robes like those worn by the Blessed Mother in paintings and on statues, her body and hair modestly covered. Now, she wore a simple shift of fine, sheer muslin. It clung to her curves and was lit from behind, leaving little of her form to his imagination.

Immediately, Diego ducked his head and hid his gaze. “Thank you, my lady.”

“If you would rather not speak of pirates, what shall we speak of, Diego? Shall we speak of promises you have waited for me to fulfill?” She reached out and with a gentle hand, tilted his face to hers. “I have shocked you, but be assured I have my reasons for appearing before you so.”

Her vibrant beauty and smooth, lilting voice set off an alarming response in Diego, and he knelt before her in shame. “I am not worthy of your presence, Magdalena.”

She laughed, a rich throaty chuckle. “Why? Because you kneel before me now with desire in your heart? I am a woman accustomed to men’s desires. I was not always a saint, Diego.”

He nodded and found it hard to speak past the lump in his throat. “Yes, I know this. But you repented. You became a servant of the Lord.”

“So I did. Look at me, Diego. What do you see?” Black hair spilled over one shoulder and tumbled to her waist in silken waves. With a fluid shrug of the other shoulder, the neckline of her shift slipped, revealing a bit of milky white skin.

He knew that he should not look at her so, but he was unable to tear his eyes away. “You are a very beautiful woman,” he said, hoping that his voice did not sound as choked by lust to her as it did to him.

“I am a woman, Diego. In my time, as in yours, a woman had little influence on the course of her life. You know what I did before I met Jesus, do you not?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

She knelt with him, facing him on the hard deck. “I did what I had to to survive. Virtue, honesty, what are these to a woman who is desperate?”

“It is not for me to judge you, my lady. No one is without sin.”

She shook her head, and her dark hair shimmered in the soft light. “No, no one is. You, Diego, you are honorable, noble, self-sacrificing.”

Diego blushed and looked away. Such high praise from a beautiful woman, and a saint, no less.