Paula Reed - [Caribbean]

by Nobodys Saint

  “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.

  “And honest?” she asked.

  He felt his face flush again. “Mostly,” he replied. There was that time when he had misled a woman about the fate of her lover and his own role in that man’s fate. But his judgement had been clouded by love, and he had set it all to rights, in the end.

  “And for momentary lapses, there is redemption,” Magdalene prompted, lifting a lock of his hair from his shoulder and twining it about her fingers.

  “Y-yes. Redemption.” He closed his eyes and mentally began tying a series of complicated sailing knots, trying to deny his body’s powerful draw to this woman.

  She stood back up. “Look again, Diego. Do you like what you see?”

  Now, how was he to answer that? Only the most depraved man would lust after the vision of a saint. But did he say no? It would be a great offense. Worse still, it would be a lie. He had been evasive with the truth from time to time, but he could not lie to a saint.

  Before he could decide how to respond, she laughed again, that husky, seductive sound. “I never give gifts that are easy to accept,” she said, a smile playing upon her tempting lips, “but they can be harder to refuse. The next time you see me, I will give you the one thing I have promised but have yet to deliver. When that day comes, remember all that I have told you this evening. Bear in mind that a desperate woman has few enough weapons with which to fight for her future. Now, wake up, Captain. Wake up!”

  “Wake up, Captain, or your food will get cold!”

  Diego opened his eyes. The ship’s cook had set a tray laden with paella and a decanter of wine on the table, and the room was filled with a delicious aroma. It was nearly dark, and Diego quickly got up and lit the lanterns, thanking the cook for the meal.

  The one thing that Magdalena had promised that she had yet to deliver. He had to smile, despite the fact that he was still mortified by the nature of this vision and his own response to it. It had been three years ago, when Diego had given over the woman he loved to another, that Magdalena had consoled him with the promise of a soul mate. She had told him that he would know this woman the moment he saw her. It had been so long, he had almost allowed himself to forget.

  He was ravenous now and ate heartily. When his plate was empty and he had poured the last goblet of wine from the decanter, he reflected back upon the time when Magdalena had first come to him. He had been recovering from a fever that had killed his captain and left him in command of the ship named for that very saint. Then Magdalena, the ship, had fallen into the hands of the notorious English privateer, Geoffrey Hampton. Little had Diego known at that time, his and Hampton’s lives would become even further entangled. His search for Hampton, in order to bring him to justice, had taken Diego to his uncle’s home in Jamaica. There, he had met and fallen in love with his beautiful English cousin-by-marriage, Faith Cooper.

  He had seen Faith again, less than a year ago, when fate, and perhaps Magdalena, had placed him in the position of helping to rescue Faith’ s friend from being sold into prostitution. Of course, she was now Faith Hampton rather than Cooper. It had been one of the hardest things he had ever done, delivering Geoffrey Hampton from the executioner and reuniting him with Faith. But when Diego had made that sacrifice and chosen Faith’s happiness above his own, Magdalena had made him a promise—a woman meant for him alone.

  Since then, he had poured most of his energy into sailing and saving his money so that he could one day buy Magdalena from his employer, a merchant in Cartagena. He had a few casual lovers, but he had not made much effort to seek anything more permanent.

  Now, Diego grinned broadly. This voyage and another like it should fulfill the task. He would have the amount of money that Don Luis wanted for Magdalena, the ship, and then Magdalena, the saint, would deliver to him a love as pure and perfect as she. At last, his life was falling into place, and soon, he would have everything he had ever wanted.

  Somehow, he had forgotten everything else she had told him.

  *

  Mary Kate pulled her fur-lined cloak more snugly around her shoulders. Outside the carriage window it was drizzling. Again. Of course, it was nearly December. It was just as likely to be raining in Londonderry as it was here in Bristol. Still, what was dreary and bone chilling in England was fresh and invigorating in Ireland. It had nothing whatsoever to do with her; it was just one of life’s great and mysterious Truths.

  Home at last. After four long and trying years away from her father and sister, Mary Kate was going home. Leaning against the side of the carriage, she closed her eyes and thought of all her grandfather’s pompous, English suitors fleeing at the sight of her, and she permitted herself a self-satisfied grin.

  She turned and glanced at the man who occupied the carriage with her. He still kept his gray hair pulled sharply away from his thin, hawkish face. One corner of his mouth was pulled up in what might seem a perpetual sneer, except that it disappeared whenever she was not around or he had found something else to occupy his thoughts. At the moment, it seemed, he was thinking of her.

  Sir Calder swiveled his head and peered at Mary Kate from beneath his brows. “Oh, you’re a smug one today. You’ll celebrate your twenty-first birthday a proud, Irish virgin. If it leaves me with no English heir to carry on my title, what means that to a heartless wench like you?”

  “Had you any love for me save my use as breeding stock, it might mean something, that’s sure. As for your paltry title, it seems a baronetcy’s nothing so grand, after all. Not grand enough to entice one of your weak-kneed countrymen to wed me.”

  “You are a pitiful excuse for a grandchild. Were your mother not already dead I’d kill her again with my own hands,” Sir Calder snapped. “Ridiculous little strumpet!”

  “Well, she was a damn sight finer than you! That I know.”

  Sir Calder’s sneer became more pronounced. “Thank goodness where you’re going, your vile language will no longer be an issue,” he said. “Swear all you will.”

  She lifted her chin in response. “I’ll have no need of it, once I’m back among my own.”

  The thought of going home cooled her temper slightly. What cared she for her grandfather’s opinions of her family and her country? She had won. Every time her grandfather had brought some new, arrogant peacock of an Englishman to court her, she had been the epitome of the Celtic barbarism that they had all seemed to expect. She had refused to bathe or wear perfume, and she’d made sure that her bodice never matched her skirt. Her sleeves, chosen from a third and yet a fourth gown, had made her look a very clown. She’d sworn like a sailor and eaten like a pig, wiping her grimy fingers on the fine fabrics of the clothes her grandfather had purchased to snare her a proper husband. Her quick temper was real enough, but she had given it full head, flying into rages and temper tantrums over trifles. One by one, her simpering English suitors had fled in terror.

  Four years ago, Sir Calder had sworn that if he failed to find an Englishman willing to marry her by her twenty-first birthday, she would be allowed to return to Ireland and marry as she would. Now, a full two weeks before the appointed day, they were in a carriage bound for the harbor.

  She was the last to care what Sir Calder might say about her mother or herself. Ha! She pulled aside the window shade and peered outside in a gesture of complete dismissal. She heard her grandfather snort again, but she ignored him.

  The port w
as bustling, despite the cold rain. Crates were loaded and unloaded from tall ships with masts that seemed to scrape the very clouds that showered them. The air was heavy with the smells of sea, rain, and fish. Mary Kate’s eyes eagerly scanned the side of each vessel until she spied the one she sought. Fortune!

  “There!” she cried out, but the sound was lost in the clip clopping of the horses’ hooves and the laughter and shouts from the crowded streets through which the conveyance slowly progressed. Shutting the window shade, she turned back to Sir Calder. “Does he know which ship?” she asked.

  “I thought you had stopped speaking to me,” Sir Calder said dryly. “More’s the pity. Still, I’ll be quit of that shrill voice of yours soon enough. Yes, the driver knows which ship.”

  Unable to sit still, Mary Kate bounced lightly in her seat, pleased to see her grandfather frown in annoyance. With a smile, she broke into one of her father’s much-loved drinking songs. It was her favorite, and one that had helped her put to route more than one would-be husband. She was still humming it softly under her breath after she had boarded the ship and two burly sailors, reeking of whiskey and sweat, had dropped her two trunks onto the floor of her cabin.

  “I’ve no need of your fancy finery,” she said to Sir Calder, who had accompanied her to her quarters. Actually, she was rather shocked that he was sending her off with the expensive clothes he had purchased for her.

  “Well, you’ll take it with you anyway. Consider this your trousseau.”

  Mary Kate cast him a look of begrudging respect. “You’re not too sore a loser, I’ll give you that. A trousseau to marry me a fine, strapping Irish lad?”

  The corner of Sir Calder’s mouth lifted, and his eyes nearly smiled. “I’m sending a dowry, too. ‘Twill be kept in the hold, though.”

  An uneasy feeling slithered down Mary Kate’s spine. As the two men who had brought her trunks took their leave, she nodded to them. Sir Calder turned to follow.