Nobody's Saint (34 page)

*

It was Monday, and a fairly quiet night at O’Byrne’s. Mary Kate had just finished seeing to all her tables, which left her just enough time to stand in the kitchen and wolf down a trencher full of stew and a piece of day-old bread. If there was anything left from the previous day, employees could buy it for next to nothing, and that meant all the more money saved. One of the women at church had mentioned her cousin, a sailor with a ship of his own that was sore in need of repair, but he lacked the funds. After a few careful questions, Mary Kate had learned he was unmarried, and it occurred to her that a wife and dowry might be just the thing for him. Of course, she hadn’t even met the fellow, but it seemed like a possibility.

“Mary Kate!” a loud voice called from the common room, carrying clearly through the kitchen door.

Stuart Langford and his mates, and probably Freddy with them. Bloody sots!

“One minute!” she called back.

Colin O’Byrne jerked his head toward the door. “Back to work, Mary Kate.”

She took the last bite of her bread and washed it down with warm ale, pasted a smile on her face, and headed back to the common room. Say what you would about him, Stuart was generous with his coin. He was already seated at a table, along with Freddy and several others from Freddy’s crew.

“A lass has to finish her supper to keep her strength up for the likes of you,” she said.

“Come now,” another sailor said, “we never ask for more than a smile and a pint. That’s not so much.”

Predictably, Freddy sprang to her defense. “She works hard carrying trays and cleaning up! You can hardly fault her for needing sustenance!”

Did the man never jest? Just to annoy him, she playfully ruffled the first sailor’s hair. “This one’s right. We all work hard for our coin. I suppose a pleasant lass to serve you your ale isn’t too much to ask.”

Her gesture had its intended effect. Freddy scowled at her and said, “Well, aren’t you in a happy mood?”

Nothing she had done so far seemed to deter Freddy’s pursuit, so she tried a new tack. “I am. There’s a young man related to one of the women at church who’s looking for a wife. A sailor with a ship of his own.”

Freddy glowered. “
I
have command of a ship.”

“‘Tis not the same as owning one.”

“I should like to see his vessel next to mine!”

“Bring us our ale, Mary Kate, and we’ll take him off your hands,” Stuart said, casting a scornful glance at the captain.

The lull ended abruptly as sailors from another ship filed in and filled the pub. It kept Mary Kate hopping fast enough that she couldn’t spare Freddy’s table much time. He was definitely in a foul mood, but his mates seemed to be working hard to ply him with enough alcohol to cheer him up. Mary Kate had had enough experience to know drink often made a man angrier, but it was none of her business. She set their drinks before them and headed off to the next table.

They stayed through the rush, and around the time the crowd began to thin and Mary Kate hoped to be able to sit down for a moment, Freddy stood unsteadily on his feet.

“What the hell’s the problem, Mary Kate?” he shouted at her.

She gave an inward groan, but kept her voice even and gentle. She’d talked her da through these things before. “There’s no problem, Freddy. You’re a bit out of sorts is all. Let your mates take you home and sleep it off. It’ll all look better in the morning.”

“B’damned if you’ll gimme the brush-off ‘gain! I’m an officer o’ the British Navy! A cap’n! You’d choose some little fisherman o’er me ‘cause he owns a boat?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I haven’t chosen anyone, but I’m considering him because he’s Irish. Ask your mates here what they’d think of you marrying an Irish girl.”

“She has a point there, Freddy,” Stuart said. “You can’t advance your career with a common serving wench from an Irish pub. You need an Englishwoman to impress the other officers’ wives.”

“I don’t care,” Freddy insisted.

“Well, I do,” Mary Kate said.

Freddy gave her an odd look. “You’d never have ‘nything to do with a man who wasn’t Irish?”

She hesitated a moment and said, “I’ve said all I’m saying, Freddy.”

She hardly expected the smile that spread over his face. “I thought not! But you’ll come ‘round. Here, lemme settle m’account.” He fumbled in his coat pocket, and Mary Kate saw a piece of paper slip out and fall to the floor next to him. Since he was tottering on his feet, she stooped to retrieve it, then froze at what she saw.

María Catalina
had been scrawled in bold and unmistakable script.

“Tha’s nothing,” Fredrick said, trying to pull it away from her.

“Nothing?
Nothing?
” She no longer cared that he was drunk and becoming belligerent. She’d give him belligerent! “‘Tis addressed to me!”

“You? Really? Didn’t rec’nize the name…”

“May the devil take your head and make a week’s work of your neck! When were you planning on giving this to me?”

“Tha’s not your name…”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Never lie to a liar, Freddy Fielding! Now, where did you get this?”

He leaned toward her, ale-soaked breath in her face. “Well, tha’s a story, really.”

“We should take him home,” Stuart said, but Mary Kate glared at him, and he didn’t press the issue.

“I’m dying to hear it,” she said.

Freddy continued. He furrowed his brow, trying to concentrate on what he was saying. “There wassa Spaniard off the coast. Actually wanted an escort into Loch Foyle. S’most absurd thing I ever heard.”

“Diego’s off the coast of Ireland?”

Fredrick’s eyes hardened. “Diego, is it?”

“And wanted to find me?” As she spoke, she ripped at the seal and devoured the brief contents of the letter. Freddy reached for the paper, but he was slow, and she snatched it out of reach.

Estoy esperándo te en Carndonagh.

Diego

He was waiting in Carndonagh! Twenty miles away in a tiny village outside of Ulster and away from English control!

“Four months we’ll be on board ship. Now how am I to take four months’ worth of clothes, and me with no horse nor cart?” she wondered aloud.

“Like bloody hell!” Fredrick objected.

She’d been mad enough to spit nails a moment earlier, but she could afford to be charitable. “Ulster’s brimming with English families, Freddy. Sober up and find yourself a nice girl from one of those.”

“She’d be more than you could handle anyway, Freddy,” Stuart said, and he and another sailor began to haul their captain out of the pub.

“She’s going off t’be with some Spaniard!”

“No accounting for taste,” Stuart replied.

Once Freddy and his men had gone, Mary Kate walked on air the rest of the night, washing dishes and scrubbing the floor, and hardly noticing the effort it took. When she was finished, she collected her wages and went upstairs to pack in the tiny room she’d rented above the pub.

At the same time, in the captain’s cabin of an English naval vessel, Fredrick Fielding lay in his bunk, holding onto the mattress while the room spun. Somewhere off the coast of Northern Ireland was a Spanish merchant ship called
Magdalena
, and he was going to find it. Maybe he’d never had a chance with Mary Kate, but he bloody well wasn’t losing to her to a filthy Spaniard!

Mary Kate’s very meager savings yielded enough for a donkey, a cart, a loaf of bread, and some cheese. There were even a few coins left over, which she used to post a letter to her family telling them where she had gone. She would so liked to have had them with her when she and Diego were married, but she wasn’t about to make another mistake where love was concerned. Mary Katherine O’Reilly was going to seize the moment, and the devil himself couldn’t have stopped her.

She set out right after breakfast, so she would need to eat only one meal on the road. Even with no better transportation than her donkey and cart, she should be able to make it to Carndonaugh in time to find Diego and have dinner. And even if she didn’t, it wouldn’t be the first time she had gone hungry for that man! The fasting she had been obligated to do over Diego Montoya! And there’d be more to come, for there was no way on God’s green earth she was waiting four months until they could land in Havana and be married. It would be worth every century in Purgatory that came of it!

The road was long and lonely, and the miles were interminable. She ate her bread from sheer boredom, long before mid-day, and stopped only as often and as long as nature demanded. To make matters worse, she had never been to Carndonagh before. When she came to a fork in the road, she chose wrongly, and discovered it led to a farm.

Correcting the mistake brought her to the ancient city well after dark. Fortunately, she had thought to bring a lantern, just in case she might have need of it. There were still people about, dining in the common rooms of inns or having a pint in the taverns, but it was fairly quiet. Most other travelers had taken lodgings, and the shops were all closed.

She looked out into the void that spoke softly the language of water, but if
Magdalena
was out there, she was one of many lights shimmering from lanterns on the decks of ships in the water. Diego would have given up and returned to
Magdalena
when the sun set, no doubt, but he’d come again in the morning. He had not written where she might find him, which made sense, given that neither of them had been here before. She would check at the church, since it seemed as likely a meeting place as any. For now, with a sigh of disappointment, Mary Kate trudged alongside her little donkey cart into the yard of a public stable. She called inside, but no one answered, so she bent to the task of unhitching the tired beast from his burden herself.

“
¿En qué puedo servirle,
señorita
?” a deep voice asked behind her, and Mary Kate jumped up so fast her donkey started and brayed indignantly.

“Diego!” She hurled herself into his arms with such force that he staggered. Then his arms were around her, his mouth on hers, his tongue delving. She tasted wine and breathed verbena and her head swam even as her body ignited.

The sound of another voice brought her around. “
Ar mhaith leat seomra?
”

She pulled away from Diego to look at the man who had interrupted them. His face was split into a wide smile, and he pointed to an inn across the road.

“Do you know how hard it is to find people here who speak English?” Diego asked.

“Imagine that,” she said. She turned to the man and nodded, and they spoke a little more before he trotted away to an inn across the street. To Diego’s initial question, she said, “Aye, I could do with a bit of help.”

Together they unhitched the cart, and Diego said, “So what did he say to you?”

“He asked if we needed a room and said the inn across the street belongs to him.”

“That is good. I have been having some trouble communicating with the people here. I thought this was close enough to the English residents that he would know a bit of the language.”

“Well, it can be a matter of pride, you know.”

“Stubborn, prideful—these are common Irish traits?”

“Common
human
traits. Y’ought to give yourself a good look in the mirror some time.”

He lifted his chin. “I am not stubborn!”

She gave him a sly grin. “At least you’re willing to bend where it matters most.”

“And where is that?”

“You’ve agreed to only one room.”

He gave her puzzled frown, but his brown eyes twinkled in the light of the lantern. “And that is some kind of a compromise?”

“The last I remember, Diego Montoya was far above deflowering any woman save his wife.”

Diego grinned back. “That has not changed. Come, I will take care of the cart; you take care of your little friend.”

Mary Kate led the donkey into a stall and called out, “If you think I’ll just lie there and take what you offer without giving a thing or two back, you’re sadly mistaken!”

“I am counting on that.”

She came back out of the stall. “You’ve lost me completely.”

“I cannot lose you. I have only just found you again.”

“You know what I mean!”

“Come,” Diego said, holding his hand out for hers.

“I’m starving,” Mary Kate said.

“Your stomach will have to wait a little longer.” He led her past the inn to the main road through town.

“Where are we going?”

“They have a lovely church here, with a stone cross that I am told is a thousand years old.”

“A very pretty idea, Diego, but we have no license.”

From the deep pocket of his coat he produced a sheet of heavy vellum. Mary Kate snatched it from his fingers. “What’s this?”

“A license.”

“But how?”

“The bishop in Cádiz wrote a document which permitted us to skip the banns. I procured the license today while I waited for you.”

“But the document was from Cádiz.”

“The Church is the Church.”

She gave him a dubious look. “And the priest here could read Spanish?”

“Not Spanish. Latin.”

Mary Kate pulled him to a stop. “Really? And it worked? Are you sure?”

“Unless a nod means something different in
Gaeilge
than it does in Spanish…”

“We’re getting married? Right now?” She looked down at her plain, brown skirt, rumpled and travel-stained. Under its tattered hem she wore sturdy, scuffed boots. Heaven only knew what her hair looked like. She ran a hand over it, but it seemed that most of it was still in its pins.

“You are beautiful.”

“Nay, I’m not! There are much better gowns in my trunks.” She turned to go back, but Diego held fast to her hand and refused to budge.

“
Tú eres muy hermosa.
”

“I’m a fright.”

He pulled her close and kissed her deeply. “
Te quiero
.”

“I love you, too, but—”

He kissed her again and moved to whisper Spanish words to her that she only half understood but which made her tingle and ache.