Nobody's Saint (16 page)

“What would you have?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Some deep dark secret.” He waited so long to answer that Mary Kate half-fancied that he would tell her that he was really a spy, or a murderer, or some other outlandish confession.

“I have—dreams,” he ventured tentatively.

“Everyone has dreams.”

“Not like that. I mean, the kind you have at night.”

Everyone had those, too, but Mary Kate knew he meant something else, so she waited silently for him to be able to speak of them.

“Only—I have them during the day, when I am awake.”

Before she could resist, she leaned across the table and took his hand, knocking over his bishop. The game had ceased to matter. “And that’s what happened to you yesterday?” He nodded. “Well, what are they about?” she prodded gently.

“Pirates, mostly, where they are, when to fight them, when to flee.”

“Saints preserve us, you have the sight,” she whispered.

“What?”

She smiled at him, her face alight. “‘Tis a gift, Diego! Left over from the old days, before the Christians came. Mostly ‘tis women have it, but sometimes ‘tis passed to a man. Were there others in your family with it?”

He shook his head in adamant denial. “No, it is nothing like that!
Madre de Dios
, Mary Kate, you are speaking of witchcraft!”

“Witchcraft? Nonsense! ‘Tis passed on from one generation to the next, like red hair or a gift with gardening. We’ve a family in my village with a seer in every second generation of daughters. Paddy O’Shea—aye, that Paddy, but it has nothing to do with what’s wrong with him—his mother had it last, and we’re all watching his nieces. Our village counts on these women for warning of hard times or foretelling of good fortune.”

He could not seem to wrap his mind around what she was telling him. If there had been such a family of women in Spain, every one of them would have burned a century ago. “I do not think you understand.”

“Then help me understand. Tell me about your dreams.”

He pulled his hand from hers, scattering several more pieces. “That is all. I just have these strange dreams.”

“But who were you talking to?”

“Myself. I was—trying to stop the dream.”

“You’re lying to me.”

“How can you say that?” he demanded, trying to sound indignant, but he heard weakness in his voice.

“I keep telling you, Diego, you can’t lie to a liar.”

He grasped at the chance to change the subject. “And what lies have you told me, besides all those when we first met?”

She thought about the things that she’d said to him just that morning. “‘Half the truth’s no better than none at all,’ my priest always told me. But sometimes there are things that are best left unsaid; that’s what I’m thinking.”

“
Sí
, I think you are right. Some things are better left unsaid.”

*

As the days passed and Cartagena neared, Mary Kate had to wonder at Diego’s crew. Many of them had seemed to relax a bit, but there remained a core knot of men who regularly spoke in whispers behind his back and sent dark looks at him whenever he was on deck. Always at the periphery lingered Enrique Sánchez, Diego’s first mate. As far as she could tell, he did not engage these men in conversation, but neither did he hasten to his captain’s defense when she heard them murmur words like
Satanás
and
herejía
—Satan and heresy. She had nearly been forced to threaten violence to get translations from Galeno.

She was waiting for the boy in the late afternoon, watching the shadow of the sails stretch out over the clear blue water. Below the surface, fish darted by in streaks of silver, orange, and brilliant green. Occasional silhouettes of longer, bulkier, creatures down deep slid silently under the hull. She was overdue for a Spanish lesson, but Galeno was engaged in a short, hushed, and vehement conversation with a shipmate. Bless Galeno. There he was, not yet a man, doing what should have fallen on Enrique’s shoulders—defending the captain against his own men’s slander!

When the lad finally joined her, his face was red with anger held tightly in check. “Forgive me, Señorita O’Reilly.”

He stood so straight and tall, spoke with such formality. The boy mirrored with painstaking detail the demeanor of his commander.

“You had a job to do, Galeno. ‘Twas Sánchez should have been doing it, but ‘tis good to see that someone is taking care of things.”

He nodded crisply, his face grim. “I have told the captain of Enrique. I think he will lose his position, maybe even his job, in Cartagena.”

“As well he should!” Mary Kate agreed. “Y’ought to teach me a few truly vile curses, Galeno, the likes of which some of these men deserve.”

The anger on the lad’s face dissolved quickly into horror. “You are a lady! I cannot teach this to you.”

“Oh, I’m not that much of a lady. I can curse a cur who has it coming!”

“If you wish to learn bad things, I will not teach you. We must not lower ourselves. We must keep our honor!”

Mary Kate arched one dark brow at him. “You sound just like your captain,” she commented dryly.

“
Gracias
, Señorita O’Reilly,” he replied, but the grin on his face gave him away. He knew bloody well she hadn’t meant it as a compliment.

“Well, then, we’ll go back to the last lesson—listing reasons why no woman in her right mind would marry an Englishman! I have to be ready for Cartagena.”

She knew she was becoming entirely too attached to the boy. He had just enough of the devil in him to make him interesting, and she discovered it was not uncommon for him to accidentally set a bucket in the path of a sailor who had been less than loyal to the commander. Such a man might also find that his fish had been intolerably over-salted whenever Galeno was assisting the cook in the galley.

Apparently, Mary Kate was not immune to his pranks, either. They concluded their Spanish lesson, and she went to her cabin to practice aloud while she got ready for dinner with Diego. When he tapped on her door to summon her, she told him that she wished to converse in Spanish as much as possible. He favored her with a dazzling smile and replied, “
Por supuesta
.”

Almost immediately she discovered that “
usted es muy macho
” did not mean “you are very kind” and was
not
generally the correct response to a gentleman pulling out one’s chair.

Diego chuckled while she blushed and stammered. “It is all good fun when you make such a mistake on purpose and it is I left at a disadvantage,” he said.

Mary Kate’s face was on fire. It
would
have been funny, if he weren’t standing right over her shoulder, radiating heat, and being so…so…deliciously masculine.
Macho
. She was going to kill Galeno.

She commented on the delicious
arroz con pollo
, requested
más vino
,
por favor
and even toasted a
su salud
, all without further incident. Diego was patient, helping her to fill the considerable gaps in her vocabulary, correcting her grammar, providing full phrases when needed. Finally, they piled the dishes onto the serving tray to make room for another game of
ajedrez
—chess. Diego stood next to her, holding up each piece and supplying its Spanish name, but he went so quickly she didn’t even have time to repeat each one and work on her accent. With a polite smile she interrupted him. “
Me besa despacio, por favor.
”

Diego stopped in mid sentence, his brows shooting up in surprise. “
¿Perdón?
” he asked. Kiss her?

“S-slowly?
¿Despacio?
” she stammered, her smile fading. He nodded, and the way he was staring at her, all she could think about was what it had felt like to have him in her bed, his body on top of hers, his lips…

The sound of Galeno’s merry laughter in the passageway beyond the open door brought her back to the present. The little scamp had taught her the correct way to say it, hadn’t he? “Speak slowly,” she clarified in English.

“Ah,” Diego said a little sadly, looking away. “More of my young crewman’s pranks?
Es una lástima
.” It is a shame.

She should have known better. She had even asked Galeno why the phrase did not use the word
hablar
—to speak. He had never cracked a smile as he explained that
besar
was the form of the word used when making a request.

Diego was standing so close to her they were nearly touching. The pungent, crisp scent of lemon verbena, laced with something earthier, stirred her senses. His eyes were nearly black, his mouth wide and firm. “But since you have asked,” he whispered. She felt pulled to him as involuntarily as the needle of a compass was pulled north, and then he was fulfilling her unintentional request, kissing her with such thorough, maddening, sweet slowness that she thought she might drown in it.

I could have this
, she thought to herself.
Every night and every day for the rest of my life, I could have this.

Beyond the door came a barrage of Spanish and Galeno’s laughing protest, and Diego quickly pulled away. Aye, she could have him, but at what price? She forced herself to conjure images of her father and Bridget. Oh, aye, if she never returned to Ireland, her sister would one day marry. Surely she would! She was a pretty lass, for all that she was a shrew. But would she look after their da? Would she see to it he remembered to eat? Sometimes, when the drink truly took over, he’d forget for days at a time. And what if her husband beat her? By the saints, Mary Kate would beat Bridget if she were married to her. But a man would be much bigger, and Bridget would need a place to go and someone stronger than a sick old man for protection.

“
¿Dónde está usted, María Catalina?
” he asked.

“Where am I?”

“You look like you are a thousand miles away.”

“Farther than that.”

“Your country?”

“
Sí
,” she admitted, “
mi patria
.”

*

After dinner, as soon as Mary Kate had shut the door to her cabin, Diego stormed off in search of his former cabin boy. After scouring the upper deck and galley, he found him in the crews’ quarters, ostensibly watching a card game. Diego had no doubt the real appeal of the game was that he had nearly missed seeing Galeno in the crowded group of men. After a cursory inspection of the game to assure himself that his men were not gambling, he took Galeno by the ear and hauled him to his feet.

“A word in my cabin!”

The game fell by the wayside as the men began to speculate on what might have so angered the captain toward the boy who worshipped him. The captain’s behavior seemed to be becoming stranger and stranger.

In Diego’s cabin, Galeno stood before his captain, his shoulders slumped, while Diego berated him.

“What were you thinking of? I am not without a sense of humor, Galeno, but this was out of bounds! What have I taught you in all the years you have served me? Have I taught you to play pranks that violate the respect to which a lady is due? Have you learned nothing of chivalry?”

“I did not think of it that way,” Galeno protested.

“You tell her that ‘kiss me slowly’ is the way to say ‘speak slowly’ and you do not think that this is disrespectful?”

“But you had already kissed her, captain!”

“What? Galeno Rodríguez, have you been spying?”

“No, sir! No!”

“Then why would you say such a thing?”

“But it is true, no? You are in love with each other, no?”

“No, we are not in love with each other!”

“But…”

“But what?”

Galeno shrugged dejectedly. “You just seem like it when you are together. You look like you are in love.”

Diego sighed and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “Galeno, she is a very nice lady, but that does not mean…”

“She is also very beautiful.”

“Yes, but just because she is very nice and very beautiful…”

“And funny.”

“Yes, she is very funny.” Diego laughed and then added, “And brave.”

Galeno nodded enthusiastically. “Brave, yes, and she is passionate and loyal and very, very smart.”

Finally Diego stopped concentrating so hard on denying Galeno’s observations and focused on the boy, instead. He had grown taller in the last few months, evidenced by breeches and sleeves several inches too short. His face was growing leaner, too. How old was he now? Nearly fourteen? And was that a bit of dark fuzz beginning to cast a shadow over the young man’s lip?

“I think this is not about
my
feelings for Señorita O’Reilly,” Diego prodded.

“I am not stupid, Captain. I know I am too young for a woman like Señorita O’Reilly.”

“So you think I would be a better choice for her?”

“Yes, Captain! You would be perfect together!”

“It is more complicated than that, Galeno. We are from different worlds.”

“Then we will make her a part of ours. She is already learning much Spanish. You must love her, Captain. How could you not?”

“Sometimes love is not enough.”

Galeno shook his head in bewilderment. “What more is there?”

Diego could not answer. What more indeed? Honor? Duty? Country? To be together, he and Mary Kate would compromise them all. Love would be impossible to accept on such terms.

But it was getting harder to refuse.

Cartagena took Mary Kate’s breath away. Bits and pieces of it seemed to float amid lakes and lagoons. Deep blue waters and rich green plants and trees blended together to create an atmosphere of mystery and timelessness. The city itself was constructed at the water’s edge in one of the less heavily forested areas. It was in the process of being surrounded by a great wall, and construction appeared nearly half completed. Where a high hill jutted into the sea, the land had been cut into large steps on which a stone fortress stood guard. It was not as large as El Morro, but there was plenty of room for growth. Beyond the city rose a mountain, topped by a massive church.