“You must have driven the young men mad.”
She gave him a sly grin. “Am I doing that to you?”
“I do not know what to say. I have used up all of my good English words on you,” he answered with a deep chuckle. “Surely one proposed?”
“Two proposed—Séamus and Liam. I couldn’t decide. Séamus had a fine, broad build, with a chest made for a girl to lean her cheek on, but Liam was by far the better kisser. I should have chosen one, either way, for I’d not be in this fix if I had.”
“And where was your father? When my sister, Mercedes, was caught meeting a young man in secret, my parents locked her in her room, posted the banns, and had them both in front of a priest before a hint of scandal could break.”
“Oh, my da were far too…” She stopped, her smile fading, the teasing glint in her eyes instantly dulled. “He were sick, like I said. I ran wild for the most part. I’m strong-willed, as you pointed out.”
“I thought we were being honest with each other.”
“I’m not lying!” she snapped. “‘Tis just none of your concern, that’s all. I’ve a bit of the devil in me, sure, but I’m not a bad girl! I want to be noticed! I like being wanted! Is that so bad? Men don’t have to sit around waiting for someone to see them and maybe decide they’d like to get to know them. They go after what they want. Well, so do I! I’ll not be carted off across the globe when all I want is to be home. I’ll not marry some Englishman who thinks I’m dirt because I’m Irish. I don’t care what it takes!” She spun on her heel and headed to the hatch.
Diego watched her stomp off furiously and wondered what on earth had just happened. He should not have questioned her virtue. Even now, he could scarcely believe he had done such a crude thing, but part of him had been hoping he had been wrong, that she had had more experience than he thought. He would have to apologize, and she would be well within her rights to demand that he order forty lashes for himself.
But that was not what had angered her. What had Magdalena told him, that a woman had few enough weapons with which to fight for her future? He had, himself, chafed against his parents’ desire to control his life. What if they had had the power to legally bind him to a woman he had never met and force him to live on land when all he wanted was to sail? They would do it, if they could. He would be in charge of his father’s store and his brother Rico, both.
He gripped the helm tightly. Oh God, she was the one. María Catalina was the one Magdalena had told him about. What had Magdalena been thinking? How could she send him a woman he could never trust? And even if he could find it in his heart to overlook all her outrageous, bald-faced lies, by law, María Catalina belonged to her betrothed. He was not about to give his heart to another woman who would leave him for some English dog! How could his saint think this was what he wanted? Why would she have helped him steer his course so truly—one more voyage and he would own a ship, a business—only to place him in such an untenable position?
I have to give her back, he told Magdalena silently. The last thing I need is to enrage some English nobleman by stealing his granddaughter. There is protocol here, a set course of action for a man such as I. She must be returned to her own people.
But her people were not English. After all, was that not all she was asking, to be returned to her own people? Maybe he could convince his friend Don Juan to ransom her to her family in Ireland.
Where are you, Magdalena? You have much to answer for!
He let out an exasperated breath. As María Catalina had admitted herself, she should have married when the choice was hers and saved them both this trouble. He should be glad she would soon be someone else’s problem, but somehow, the thought gave him little comfort.
*
Mary Kate’s eyes burned and her head ached fiercely, but she refused to give in and cry. Tears never did anybody any good. She’d learned that young enough. Her father’s disposition, whether he hated her or loved her, had never seemed to have any connection to anything she actually did. The best she could do was enjoy his good moods and scuttle out of the way when they turned to dark rage for no good reason. Try though she might, she had never been able to make him happy, or even angry, for that matter. If he was in the mood to see her outrageous behavior as charming and impish, so be it. If, another day, he found her solicitousness annoying, she got the back of his hand and a sound cursing in Gaeilge.
None of this was anything new. She had stopped shedding tears over it long, long ago. And everyone in the village knew her father was a drunk. For the life of her, she couldn’t explain why she hadn’t wanted Diego to know.
That Diego! As stuffy as any Englishman she’d ever met! Just because a girl wanted a bit of sport, she was a harlot, was she? She’d never let any lad do much more than hold her close and kiss her. If his hand wandered a great deal farther, he’d the print of her own on the side of his face to show for it.
“I’m not wicked!” she shouted at the closed door of her cabin. But pain stabbed between her brows and she felt her eyes burn again. Well she knew if she did not elude Diego in Havana, the stakes would become much higher. If all else failed, there was nothing she would not do to foil her marriage. No doubt it had taken much to convince her English fiancé to take a crass, ill-tempered Irishwoman, but one who had already been sullied by a Spaniard? No self-respecting Englishman could bear it.
Chapter Seven
The thrill Mary Kate felt when she first spotted land was short-lived. Diego quickly explained that she was seeing the coast of Florida. They sailed along that coast, past a series of islands, and finally she looked through the spyglass at El Castillo de los Tres Santos Reyes Magos del Morro—El Morro, as it was called.
The pale, sprawling, infinitely imposing fort guarded the open blue harbor of Havana. The surrounding land was flat and edged with sandy beaches that gave way to glistening, plaster-coated buildings embellished with graceful arches and artful windows. As far as she could tell, this place was as unlike Ireland or England as ever a place could be.
“Álainn, no?” Diego asked as he took the spyglass back.
Mary Kate smiled tenuously. He had been distant with her since her fit of pique several days before. She had apologized, and he had graciously accepted, but there had been no more easy banter or flirtation. “Hermoso,” she agreed.
“Galeno’s Spanish lessons?” he asked. When she nodded, he said, “Hermosa. Es una hermosa ciudad. City is feminine.”
“No matter. It is a beautiful city.”
“No importa. ‘No matter.’”
“Is cuma,” she replied. “‘Tis my language for ‘no matter.’ How do you say, ‘Does the priest here speak English?’”
Diego frowned at her. “I know a priest in Cartagena who does.”
Fortunately, she had prepared for this. “I know, but they’ll be deciding my fate there, and I’d just as soon go into it with a clean soul. Please, Diego! I haven’t seen the inside of a Catholic church since I left home when I was seventeen. I’ve much to account for, and some of it is your own doing!” She gave him a coy look.
He felt his resolve weaken the tiniest bit, so he squared his shoulders and stood a little straighter. “I have business to conduct here, and I do not have time to escort you around the city.”
“You won’t have to! You’ve only to find me an English speaking priest. A full confession and penance will take an hour or more.”
“Or more?” he asked, his eyebrows lifting in shock.
“It’s been four years, and if you think I told you a pack of lies, you ought to have heard what I told all those Englishmen!”
Diego sympathized more than he would have liked to. The closer they had come to returning to lands under the Church’s dominion, the more torn he had felt about his visions. He had never felt the need to confess them before. It was no sin to be visited by a saint. Now, he was seriously questioning the nature of those visitations, and Magdalena had been frustratingly silent.
He studied María Cat
alina and wondered if the weight upon her soul was as heavy as the weight upon his. Still, if he could last until Cartagena, so could she. “I cannot spend an hour waiting for you.”
“You won’t have to! You can leave me in the care of the Church.” She watched eagerly as he scratched his chin and looked off into the distance at the fort. He appeared to be considering it, so she added, “How much trouble can I get into? I don’t know a soul, nor speak the language above a few useless words.”
“Havana has plenty of trouble. If I leave you at a church, you must promise not to leave it.”
She worried at her lower lip. This was going to be the hardest part. “Well, there are a few things I need. I was thinking, maybe you could let me take a bit of my dowry and…”
Diego shook his head. “You have no dowry anymore.”
“But that’s where you found the letter from my grandfather!”
“The money belongs to Spain now.” He shrugged lightly.
All thought of charming him evaporated as her blood began to boil. “Spain!”
“It was part of the spoils that we took from the pirates.”
“But ‘tis mine! I can see why you’d keep the things whose owners you cannot find, but you know whom that belongs to! Besides, your country will be profiting by my ransom.”
“And what would be the use of ransom if we returned the dowry? Why not keep the dowry and ask no ransom?”
“Nay!” At his confused look, she forced herself to calm down. “The dowry’s mine. The ransom is my fiancé’s.”
“So you have no objection to Spain stealing his money, only yours.”
“Well, of course! Why would I care about his money? He’s trying to steal me.”
“You have the most confusing sense of logic. His claim to you is perfectly legal. Besides, the dowry belonged to your grandfather.”
“You thickheaded lout! I never agreed to marry that shipbuilder. No one ever even asked me! As for Sir Calder’s money, well, ‘tis just payment to me for all he’s put me through!”
“And just what is it you need to buy with that money? Passage back to Ireland, perhaps?”
Damn him! Mary Kate leveled him with a mutinous glare. “None of your damned business.”
Diego laughed at her, and she felt the corners of her own mouth begin to quiver. A tiny snicker escaped through her nose, and finally she had to let go and laugh with him. “How is it you know me so well, and we only acquainted so short a time?”
“A person can read you like a book, María Catalina.”
She thought about that for a moment. Most people quickly determined that she was a nuisance. They’d never seemed to feel the need to know much beyond that about her. “Well, if that’s so, I’m a book no one’s ever cared to read so closely before. I think they take one look at the cover and never much like what they see.”
Diego’s eyes warmed as they scanned her. “I do not think that can be the problem. I have yet to see a book so fairly bound. For what it is worth, I think I can see to it you are ransomed back to your family in Ireland. So you see, there is no need to try to slip away from me here. Havana is a dangerous place.”
She shook her head emphatically. “My da could never afford it. You could help to keep me safe if you’d give me Sir Calder’s money and find me a ship.”
“I cannot do that. The money does not belong to either of us. There is a protocol here, María Catalina, and I am honor-bound to follow it. Have patience. My friend in Cartagena, Juan Gallegos, is a good man. I will explain to him how you feel, and perhaps he can find a solution.”
Enrique called his attention away, and Diego headed across the deck. Judging by the flurry of activity and their proximity to El Morro, they would be docking soon, and there was much to do. Mary Kate gazed up at the fortress walls and the tall, stone lighthouse that was part of the edifice, then looked to the city beyond.
The book analogy was flawed, she decided. The lads at home had certainly liked her looks. They liked her fine as long as they kept her mouth busy. It wasn’t as though other girls in the village weren’t as outspoken as she. They just seemed to take it better when no one paid them any mind. But it seemed to Mary Kate that her thoughts were as sound as anyone else’s and deserved to be heard. If having a man really listen to her meant he understood her a little too well, it just might be worth it.
She sighed. Diego listened, but there were things he simply didn’t understand. Once he disembarked, she would get one of the sailors to let her into the hold on the pretense of needing something from her other trunk. Once there, maybe she could find her dowry and pay her way home.
*
There were myriad tasks to perform in La Habana. Enrique stood ready at the ship to unload cargo, but there would be no one there to take it if Diego did not inform the buyers that it had arrived. Also, with each visit to the Cuban city, he had been carefully laying the groundwork for his own company, one that he intended to open after one more trip to Europe for his employer, Don Luis. There were potential customers to court and petty government clerks’ palms to grease.
Still, the bold, fortress-like façade of the Cathedral called to him. In hopes that it was Magdalena who beckoned, he turned abruptly and strode through the doors. He genuflected, crossed himself, and slipped into a small alcove. Votive candles burned before a screen elaborately depicting the torture of some martyr, but Diego did not study it closely enough to determine who it was. In an instant, he was on his knees on the stone floor, desperately willing his saint to appear.
But come to think of it, he thought, she had never appeared to him in a church. The first time he had seen her was over a dead man’s shroud, and he dreamed of her in his sleep. Perhaps she could not come to him in a church. Perhaps she dared not enter sacred ground! Who was this woman who had once seemed such a godsend and now seemed such an anathema?
“Mother of God, help me!” he whispered fiercely. Immediately, a sense of calm settled over him. He would hold fast to his honor, he thought, and all would be well. He had only to keep his resolve. Perhaps the visions had stopped because he had begun to suspect their source, and so whatever force had brought them to him had moved on. With a sigh of relief and a reverent sign of the cross, he rose. Business could wait. He would confess to lustful dreams and being tempted by María Catalina, and he would be absolved. Then he would face all his confusions and temptations with a clean soul and a fresh perspective. With that thought, he slipped into a dark confessional and set his plan into motion.
Behind him, Magdalene waved her hand over the tops of the votive candles in the deserted alcove, but none of them danced, for there was no breeze. “You scold me for toying with him, but heaven forbid I should just step in and give him a straight answer.”
Mother Mary was still seated on the little pew, next to where Diego had been kneeling. “And what would he learn from that? He would defy his country and marry her because a saint had told him to, not because he had struggled with his own conscience and learned that rules are sometimes made to be broken. They must find their own paths, Mary Magdalene.”
“What about Catherine, Margaret, and Michael and that little French girl?”
“That was different. Nothing short of a direct order could convince a sixteen-year-old, fifteenth-century girl to raise up an army and be its general. Besides, everything that happened after that was her choice. No one can accuse her of taking the easy way out.”
Magdalene fell silent. Mary had her there. Finally she shook her head. “He’s too honorable for his own good. Besides, he thinks I’ve deserted him. He thinks I’m evil!”
Mary stood and walked over to Magdalene. “It is a double edged sword, is it not? They pray to us because we were human once, and we understand, but heaven forbid we should seem too human. We are, after all, saints.”
Magdalene laughed. “They wait too long to canonize people. It should be done when those who actually knew them are still around to testify.”
Mary chuckled along with h
er. “If they did that, there would be considerably fewer of us!” She draped her arm over the other woman’s shoulder, and they were engulfed in light that rapidly disappeared.
*
Mary Kate’s eyes were as wide as saucers when she opened the large sea chest with the broken lock. She had never seen so many jewels and so much gold in all her life. This wasn’t her dowry, that was sure!
“Is that your baúl?” Galeno asked, picking his way through crates in the dim lamplight that flickered through the hold.
She slammed the lid down before he could see the contents. “Nay. I thought it was, but ‘tis not. Could you check that other trunk, over there?” She pointed to the far side of the hold, and Galeno dutifully went to open it.
She opened the chest again and grabbed a large, gem-encrusted brooch. Even her entire dowry would probably not cover the cost of the ornament, but it had been stolen to begin with. It wasn’t as though it actually belonged to Diego, or even Spain. She slipped it neatly down her bodice, cradling it between her ample breasts.
“This is your baúl?” Galeno asked, pulling one of her winter gowns out of another trunk.
“Aye! ¡Sí! Thank you, Galeno. That is my trunk. I’ll just get that necklace I was wanting and let you get back to your duties.” His unwavering smile and wide stare suggested that hadn’t understood much, but at least she had been able to communicate enough to get him to bring her down here. She patted his cheek affectionately and was rewarded with a shy grin and a blush. “You’re a good lad, Galeno,” she added.
Once he had escorted her back to her cabin, she fastened the little gold cross that had been her excuse for searching the hold around her neck. It was her only piece of good jewelry, but it wasn’t worth enough to exchange for passage home. The brooch should do the trick. She pulled it from her bodice and fastened it to her petticoat, underneath her skirt. She had already tried to get Galeno to take her into the city, but he didn’t understand enough English to be persuaded by her confession argument, and he knew his captain would not approve of him letting her leave the ship. The boy would not budge where his captain’s wishes were concerned.
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