Nobody's Saint (6 page)

But why was she speaking English? And what had happened to her wrists? And were saints permitted to use that kind of language?

He was about to dispatch his latest adversary when the man threw down his weapon.

“Mercy!” the man cried.

His sword already poised over his head, it would have been easy for Diego to bring it down. Was not a swift death a form of mercy? From all around him, Diego heard similar pleas. He glanced about to see that the battle had been won. What few pirates remained were on their knees, begging for clemency.

He wiped away the sweat that stung his eyes and sought Magdalena, though he knew she would be gone, of course.

But she was not. Her skirts stained with blood, she was leaning against the main mast, trying to catch her breath. One of his crew approached her, reaching out to touch her shoulder. She twisted away, eyes on fire, cheeks flushed.

This was no vision, no saint. She was a woman.
The
woman—the one Magdalena had promised. He was as certain of that as he had been of his victory here.

“Enrique!” Diego shouted across the deck to his first mate, but he kept his eyes on the woman. “You and the men put the pirates who are still living in the brig. Let their surgeon treat their wounded there. Empty this ship then set her afire.”

“Yes, Captain.” He gave Diego a wary look, then followed orders.

Diego walked over to the woman, who watched him approach with a look no more trusting than Enrique’s had been. In rapid Spanish, an apology tumbled from his lips. “I am so sorry. I thought you were a vision. Forgive me, forgive me, please. But our saint, she was guarding us both, no? She made sure that we would, at last, find each other.”

The woman only stared at him, not the slightest trace of comprehension on her face.

“Forgive me,” he said again. “You are in shock, as am I. But you are safe now, and I promise, no harm will ever again come to you.”

She took a deep breath. He smiled, and his heart soared at the anticipation of the first words his flesh and blood saint would speak to him.

“I don’t suppose you speak any English,” she said.

The smile of delight froze on his face. Switching to her language, in a voice of disbelief he asked, “You are English?”

“You may have saved me from a fate worse than death, but that doesn’t give you leave to insult me,” she replied.

Hope surged back up. “You are not English?”

“Irish.”

It died again. “That is the same thing.”

The woman’s eyes scanned the deck full of dead and injured men. She seemed about to say something else to him, but then she set her mouth in a grim line. “I don’t want to stay here,” she said.

Ashamed again at having been so insensitive, Diego quickly stepped in front of her, blocking the carnage from her line of vision. “Of course not. Come with me. I will help you to my ship.” His gaze fell back to her wrists. “You were bound?”

“Aye.” She glanced down at them. “They’ll heal.”

“I will have my surgeon look at them.”

“Nay, you must look to your men first.”

“Soon, then,” he promised. He had to admire her for thinking of his men before herself.

Mary Kate nodded and let the Spaniard lead her to the rail just across from his own vessel. She could have swung across on her own, but it felt blissfully secure to wrap her arms around this man’s lithe torso and let him hold her with one sinewy arm while they swung together. He smelled of sweat, and his body was still hot from combat, his clothes slightly damp. The fevered rush that had engulfed her when she had swung the cutlass at the pirate captain’s neck still churned inside of her. She had actually killed a man.

When her feet found the deck of the Spanish ship, she pressed herself closer to its captain, reluctant to leave his embrace. She could feel his heart beating hard against her cheek, hear its distinct thumping. Finally, she peered out around them. It hardly seemed possible, but the scene on the Spanish ship was worse than that on the pirate vessel. The crew was busy tossing pirate bodies overboard and respectfully tending to their own few dead. An older, well-dressed man was stitching a deep gash on one man’s arm, and Mary Kate assumed this must be the ship’s doctor. Judging from the number of injured men on board, it would be a while ere he could see to her wounds.

The Spanish captain’s arm tightened around her. “Look away,” he whispered, and though it felt cowardly, she obeyed. He was whipcord lean and firm, and she suddenly wished that he would stop and kiss her, long and hard. She almost laughed at the bizarre notion. There were stories of old, tales of Celtic warriors and of the lust that came in battle, first for blood, then for women. Was that what was happening to her? She had taken blood, and now she wanted this? Mary Kate wet her parched lips and looked up into his deep brown eyes. He looked back, and his gaze became darker still with answering heat. The passion of the fight seemed to be taking the same turn in her rescuer, and the thought sent her emotions into a heady tumble.

He led her down a ladder, below the main deck, and into a fairly spacious room. Light poured in through a window, illuminating a neatly made bed and a table filled with charts.

“This is my cabin,” he said cordially. It was as though he had willed away every trace of whatever she had seen in his face on deck. “As soon as I can, I will see to it that my first mate’s cabin is made ready for your use. For now, rest here.”

Mary Kate didn’t know if fear had at last begun to take hold, or if desire still had her in its grip. She knew only that she didn’t want this man to leave her. Not yet. “I—I think I may have some things on board the other ship. If you could look ere you sink it, I would be in your debt.” She added a silent prayer that her ledger was still safely tucked inside one of them.

The captain nodded. “We will try to find them.”

“My thanks. And Captain—?”

“Montoya. I am Capitán Diego Montoya Fernández de Madrid y Delgado Cortés, and I am at your service.”

She curtsied. “Mary Katherine O’Reilly. Captain Montoya, ‘tis
not
the same thing.”

He looked at her quizzically. “What?”

“Irish and English. They’re not the same.”

He smiled apologetically, and Mary Kate became acutely aware of her heart beating inside her chest. The expression tugged one corner of his mouth just a bit higher than the other, and his teeth were dazzling against his olive skin. “I meant no offense.”

“You’re forgiven.”

“I will send water so you can wash away your ordeal.”

“Again, my thanks.” She smiled back and heard the satisfying sound of his breath catching in his throat.

“Catholic, no? The Irish?” he asked.

“Not officially in Ulster, where I’m from.”

“Oh.” He seemed disappointed. With a sad shrug, he turned away.

Mary Kate laughed lightly. “Not officially. Nonetheless, d’you think that where you’re headed you can find me a priest that speaks English? I’ll be doing penance for a year over that pirate, I’m sure.”

Captain Montoya turned back with a grin, and Mary Kate thought again of that hard, lean body against hers. “It was self-defense, and the man was surely Protestant. Nothing a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers will not absolve you of. Trust me, yours is a sin I have confessed to many times.”

“I suppose you have duties,” she said.

He sighed. “
Sí
, but I will be back as soon as I can.”

As soon as he shut the door behind him, Mary Kate sank onto his bed, thoughts humming in her head like a swarm of bees. She had to regain control of her senses. He was a fine specimen of a man, that was sure. But it wasn’t as if she’d never been in the presence of a handsome fellow. She’d even been kissed by a few and kept her wits soundly about her. Still, if the Spanish captain was as drawn to her as she to him, he could be putty in her hands, for it was a well-known fact that women were much better than men at controlling their physical desires. Aye, opportunity was ripe here. She was as good as on her way home.

The amount of gold taken from the pirates’ hold should have been a source of jubilation among the crew. Most of it would go to the Spanish government and then on to the Church, but they were always given a share to split among themselves. None of them would get rich, but the spoils would make their lives substantially more comfortable. And certainly, there was the glory. Instead of celebrating, the men were subdued, their faces grim, and they went out of their way to make sure their eyes never met those of their preternaturally successful captain.

Each crate and trunk was opened in front of Diego or Enrique before it was taken below, and the two men kept a running inventory with as little speech between them as possible. When the crewmen opened two trunks filled with women’s gowns, Diego ordered them taken to his cabin. The sight jolted his thoughts from his preoccupation with his men’s suspicions to the woman who had landed in his lap.

She had to have been sent to him by Magdalena. The resemblance was too much for mere coincidence, the draw to her too powerful. The feel of her body against his, the look in her eyes, that impossibly tempting mouth. But an Englishwoman? No, Irish. The point was she wasn’t Spanish. And she was nobody’s saint. She had been downright vulgar when she had yelled at him on board the other ship, and she fought like…

Well, she had been a sight to behold with a cutlass in her hands and her eyes on fire. Then, when he had brought her to the safety of his own ship, she had looked at him again with those sapphire eyes, and he had recognized the emotion that smoldered there. He had felt it himself looking down at her. No, this one was no saint, at all.

If Magdalena had promised him a mistress, Mary Katherine O’Reilly would have been all he could have asked, brazen and daring. He could appreciate such qualities in a woman, to be sure, but he had been promised a
wife
. A wife was sedate and demure and meekly submissive. In marriage, a virtuous woman yielded to her husband’s will and hopefully found pleasure in it, but she did not cling to him in front of a deck full of sailors and send him a look that scorched him straight through. A wife certainly did not pick up a sword and nearly sever a man’s head!

Although he would have been dead had Mary Katherine not done exactly that. What had Magdalena told him, that a desperate woman would resort to desperate measures?

How could he be so heartless? The poor woman had been forced into the direst of circumstances. She must have been terrified, driven to take up arms despite her fear. A woman could be at once virtuous and brave. Why, bravery was among the highest of virtues! And as for that heated gaze, it was entirely understandable that she would feel a strong attraction to her rescuer.

It was churlish of him to question Magdalena
’s
judgement over such a trivial matter as the country of Mary Katherine’s birth. Had Magdalena not said that her gifts were not always easy to accept? But she had also said that they were harder to refuse. Once this María Catalina had been given time to calm down, surely her more sweet-tempered and mild nature would begin to shine through.

He thought again of her lips and the heat in her eyes and acknowledged a crate opened before him without seeing its contents. Then again, maybe it would not be such a bad thing if she kept a bit of that fire.

*

Mary Kate scrubbed herself thoroughly with soap and a bucket of seawater before she rinsed with the even smaller bucket of fresh water provided. She used as little as possible on her body and had just enough left for her hair. By the saints, she had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be clean! She didn’t even care that the saltwater had stung her wrists with a vengeance.

Before her bath, she had chosen the trunk with her summer gowns to remain in the cabin and asked one of the sailors to take the other to the hold. Once clean, she studied her clothes deliberately. She knew enough about the Spanish to know unmarried women dressed very modestly and were most carefully protected, so she selected a demure gown made of robins-egg blue cotton embroidered with flowers. Her throat and arms would be covered, but the bodice of the gown was expertly fitted. It revealed her charms while concealing her skin and was therefore the perfect choice.

She thought about pinning her hair up but decided she looked considerably younger and more helpless with it down. She untangled it with her fingers instead of her comb so it would curl softly around her face and over her shoulders.

Fortune seemed to be smiling on her at last! If she had to play the part of helpless maiden and distract this man with every charm she possessed, at least it would be a pleasant task. He was handsome as sin and chivalrous to a fault. Leading him along would be a delicious way to pass the time. Aye, she’d do whatever it took, be whatever she had to be, but the next ship she boarded would be bound for Ireland.

She bit her lips and pinched her cheeks for extra color and sat down on the bed, her hands folded serenely in her lap. Captain Montoya didn’t have a chance.

Diego paused outside his door, holding a tray with wine, oranges, cheese, and cold salt fish. The cook had been fighting, along with the rest of the crew, so he had been unable to prepare a proper meal. Still, Diego supposed his guest would be hungry enough to eat nearly anything at this point. He doubted the pirates had seen to her comfort. Summoning his most charming smile, he tapped the toe of his boot lightly against the portal.

“Who is it?”

“It is I, Diego.”

Mary Katherine opened the door and smiled at him, and Diego tightened his grip on the tray. Her lips were dark and slightly swollen, almost as though she had been thoroughly kissed, and her cheeks were flushed. Her gown was perfectly proper, and yet it somehow made him all the more aware of her generous curves.

“You brought food, I see,” she prompted, her gaze briefly sweeping the tray before returning to his face.

Diego stood up a little straighter before he carried the meal to the table. She moved the chart, and he set the tray down. He felt as off balance as he had when Magdalena had appeared in the mist on board his ship. While it was only natural, what he felt for this woman, somehow it seemed he ought to be more reverent toward a gift from a saint. For good measure, he returned to the cabin door and propped it open with the sea chest at the foot of his bunk.