Nobody's Saint (30 page)

“Is Pablo there, too?” he asked.

His mother began to weep.

“Shortly after you left last time,” his father said, “Pablo asked the bishop to send him to another parish. He said he had decided he was too close to people here to be an objective priest to them. He is outside Madrid, now.”

The discussion was getting harder by the minute.

“Ramona, darling, Pablo must answer to God, you know that. Now Dieguito is here, and I am sure he has good news for us.” Dieguito. Only his parents could get away with calling him by his childhood name.

Ramona wiped her eyes and took a deep, shuddery breath. “I know. I am still unhappy with you, Dieguito, but you are my first baby. What is it you want to tell us?”

There was no way out of it. No matter how poor a start he had made, if he did not tell them now, he only delayed the inevitable. “As I told you the last time I was home, this voyage from Tierra Firme to Spain and back will give me enough to finish paying for
Magdalena
.”

His father broke out into a wide smile. “So this is it, then? The next time you will be both captain and owner! Congratulations! This calls for wine, at least.” The senior Diego went to the sideboard and pulled out wine and glasses.

“I have not eaten all day,” Diego reminded him.

Diego Senior poured two glasses, handing one to his wife. “We will toast you, then.” He lifted his glass, and Ramona raised hers in return, all trace of distress erased from her face.

“You will have an office near the harbor,” she said, “and you will spend weeks at a time here in Cádiz! You will marry here, and when you are at sea, I will have another daughter and your children for comfort.” She gave him a look that was part disapproval, part sly indulgence. “With a wife, you need never go hungry again.”

“Mamá…”

“I think that, under these circumstances,” Diego Senior said, “your brother Rico would do well with you. Rather than being answerable to Don Luis—I understand your reluctance to have Rico in the middle of that relationship—he would be answerable to you. He might cause you problems at first, but those problems would no longer shame you before an employer. And I think that Ramona will understand that you must be able to discipline Rico as you see fit. No, Ramona?”

“I do not think that Mamá will be happy with me for taking Rico away. Not with Pablo so far and me at sea or in La Habana. Andrés would be the only son left.”

“La Habana?” Diego Senior asked.

“I am well known there, and there are a number of customers who will ship with no one but me.”

His father nodded. “It would be a frequent destination, then. Certainly, we knew that you would be at sea much of the time. But there are many other aspects to owning your own company. You will have to have a permanent office.”

“Yes, I will. In La Habana.”

Ramona gave him a bewildered look. “I do not understand. I am proud that you have customers who rely upon you, but they are more important than your family?”

“Mamá, you have all done just as well without me. I will still visit when I am here.”

“Dieguito,” said his father, “I think there are things you are not considering. Your business may not always bring you to Cádiz. Don Luis has several ships, so he can always direct you here. The only shrewd way to make sure you spend time at home is to have your office here.”

“I am aware of this, Father. La Habana will place me in an advantageous position for a number of routes.”

“So would Cádiz.”

“Shorter trips can bring substantially more profit.”

Diego Senior frowned. “Shorter trips would not bring you home as often.”

“I would try never to be gone more than two or three years at a time.”

“Two or three years!” Ramona wailed.

“Naturally, son, we would not interfere with your success. You have worked very hard for many years to come to this position.”

“La Habana offers me the greatest opportunity.”

Diego Senior nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps it will be better for Rico. A few years away from home might help him to grow up.”

“He is not taking Rico!” Ramona proclaimed.

“I did not say…” Diego protested, but his father cut him off.

“You coddle the boy too much!” he said to his wife.

“And you are too hard on him. You simply have to know how to manage him. He cannot go with Dieguito. He is so young still. He needs a mother’s guidance.”

Diego was not about to argue, because he certainly did not want to be stuck with his irresponsible, disreputable youngest brother, but secretly, he had to agree with his father. The only way Rico would ever learn to take care of himself was if his mother would stop doing it for him.

The realization hit Diego squarely between the eyes, and suddenly he knew that both he and María Catalina had made a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake.

He took a breath, and before he could think better of it, he said, “I will be happy to take Rico for you, Father.”

Diego Senior went back to smiling. “You are a good boy, Dieguito.”

“No!” Ramona shouted.

“I think I should go now,” Diego said.

“Perhaps that would be best,” his father answered.

“Thank you for the offer of a late dinner, Mamá.”

“If you take your brother, Dieguito, I will never forgive you!”

“She will feel better about all of this tomorrow,” Diego Senior said.

Diego nodded and let himself out. Without his mother there to disapprove, he went to find a hot meal to ease his empty stomach and light head.

It had been nearly four months since Mary Kate had kissed Diego goodbye and they had boarded separate ships. In that time, the Atlantic had gone from brilliant blue to dull green, the sky from clear and sunny to cloudy and dark. It seemed to Mary Kate that the drizzle she had left behind had never stopped, for the clouds hung close and misted Lough Foyle, the main waterway from the ocean to the port town of Londonderry.

It wasn’t that it had never rained while Mary Kate was in the Caribbean, but that which had been cool and soothing there seemed dreary and chill anywhere else. Then again, that probably had more to do with her own disposition than the weather. It was June, and regardless of the rain, not at all cold for Ireland. When the ancient walled city came into view, Mary Kate’s heart began to lift despite the gloom that had followed her all the way from the New World to the Old.

Ireland was every bit as green as she remembered, and the damp smell of earth, rain, and seawater brought her clear and vivid pictures of those she loved. After so many weeks on board an Irish vessel,
Gaeilge
tripped easily off of her tongue, and that, too, added to her sense of homecoming.

She wished there had been some way of telling her father and sister she was coming. It would have been nice to have someone there to meet her. She had only been to the actual city of Londonderry twice in her life, once with her father and sister and once to sail to England. She had been a lass of seventeen, taken by the hand and guided through. Now, she was a woman of twenty-one, and she had to find her own way. The ship made port, and Captain Cunningham took her ashore.

“Sure as you said,” he commented, “the crew let you go easy enough, and I’m thinking they won’t be too worried about the money.”

Mary Kate shook her head. “‘Tis a gift I have.”

“Will there be anything else you need?”

“I can take care of myself, thank you.”

He gave her a bow and a merry grin and was off.

She waited in the wet for her trunks to be unloaded. Sailors and dock workers bustled around her, perhaps slowing long enough to give her an appreciative glance, but no longer. Once her things had been set beside her, she was overwhelmed by the sense that she didn’t belong there. The trunks were entirely too heavy for her to lift and take anywhere on her own, and everyone around her seemed terribly busy doing other things. They walked around her with clear destinations in mind, while she could only stand and wonder what to do next.

Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that she had killed one pirate and nearly outrun another whole group of the miscreants. She had had a brush with the Spanish Inquisition and breezed in and out of a brothel in Port Royal. This was her home. How hard could it be?

Geoff had left her with enough coin to hire someone to drive her to her village, northeast of Londonderry. She grabbed a sailor she recognized from the ship and paid him and his mates a few coppers to take her things to the main thoroughfare. Once there, she found a public carriage and squeezed in next to a mother and daughter from the country. Across from her sat the father and son. The son was a handsome fellow, not much older than Mary Kate, and she whiled away the time flirting with him and telling the whole family of her adventures in the Caribbean.

The last time she had seen it, Mary Kate’s village had boasted a pub, three or four stores, a few houses, and a tiny church made of stone, and it had changed very little. There was a new building on the little dirt road, and a new house, but that was all. The carriage stopped outside the local pub, and the driver stepped down to retrieve her trunks. An arrival like hers in such a public place was sure to cause a stir, and before long there were seven or eight people in the street, waiting to see who would step out of the carriage. The first to meet Mary Kate’s eye was the pub owner.

“Jack Roche! Wouldn’t you just be the first man I’d see? Do you have my old da in there, now?” Too drunk to rise and see what the clamor was, she thought.

“Haven’t seen your da much here in a long while. Not since Bridget married Conor Fitzpatrick.”

She felt as if he had slapped her. “Bridget? Married?”

“She is lass, must have been six or seven month ago.”

Mary Kate looked at the smiling faces that surrounded her, and smiled back, chatting merrily although something felt completely off-kilter inside of her. She hadn’t heard from Bridget in many weeks before she’d left England. She must have missed the news. Séamus Tylling was there, looking handsome as ever. She had shared what she had thought were passionate kisses with him long, long ago. That was before she had known what passion was. Now, she felt nothing at the sight of him but relief that he had a strong back and probably a wagon thereabouts.

“Might you help me make my way to my da’s house?” she asked him “I’ll track down Bridget once I settle my things. Come to think of it, news travels fast. She’ll be at our door in time for dinner I’ll wager.”

Séamus hefted the first trunk onto his shoulder and set out across the street. “She and Conor live with your da, so you’ll not have to wait an extra moment to see her.” He loaded the thing and went to fetch the other.

Bridget, her new husband, and their da all under one roof? ‘Twas a good thing she had come back. She searched her brain to think of what she could remember about Conor Fitzpatrick. A second cousin, he was, to Maggie Fitzpatrick, who was of an age with Mary Kate. He was quite a bit older though. Why, he had to be at least thirty-five!

How old was Diego? She forced the thought aside.

He was a steady, even-tempered man, as she recalled. Bridget and Da had to be driving him straight out of his mind! He’d be so glad to turn Dylan O’Reilly back over to his eldest daughter, Connor might weep with gratitude. And he was a farmer, a tenant on their land. Well, Calder Larcombe’s land, but she had never thought of it that way except when she’d had to send him his rents. So much for Bridget marrying a fisherman who might take Mary Kate out in his boat. It was better that way, she told herself. The water held too many memories.

Before long they were bouncing over the dirt road, past low stone walls and neat cottages. Sheep grazed in some fields, crops of grain and vegetables grew in others. Everything was green and damp and cool. She had longed for this once, and she tried her best to embrace it now.

“Tell me of England,” Séamus said.

“What would you want to be hearing about it? ‘Tis a cold, dreary place filled with stuffy Englishmen who look down their noses at you. I’ve been all the way to
Tierra Firme
!”

“Where?”

“The Spanish Main!”

“As in the New World?” he asked incredulously.

“Exactly! I have so much to tell! I’ve been kidnapped by pirates and rescued by a Spaniard, and I’ve seen Havana and Cartagena and Port Royal. I’ve seen slaves with skin blacker than peat.”

“All that? I’d stay to dinner and hear it all, but Peggy Brannagan and her family are expecting me tonight.”

“Peggy Brannagan? And here I thought Maggie Fitzpatrick was the other lass in your heart.”
Second to me, a long time ago.

Séamus shook his head. “Her da died, and her mother moved the family to Belfast. She had people there.”

“That’s sad. Then how is Peggy?”

“Oh, she’s as fine as can be. We’re to be wed in two weeks. You’ll be there, won’t you?”

A knife twisted inside of Mary Kate. She didn’t want him. He couldn’t hold a candle to Diego, but everything had changed. She forced another smile. “Of course. Congratulations. She’s a lovely girl.”

“You’re a lovely girl, too. We had some times between us, we did. All that time away, and no Englishman snapped you up to be his bride?”

“Me? Marry an Englishman? I’d sooner cut off my right arm.”

“Well, there’s a lad or two here that will be tripping to your door any day. You’re prettier now than when you left. Of course Liam’s married, and so’s Roche’s youngest, Cian.”

She vaguely recalled the news of Liam in one of her sister’s letters. “Cian, too?” Wasn’t he younger than she?

“Well, Cian and Sarah Kenedy have been married less than a year and have a five- month-old daughter, if you catch my meaning.”

“Sarah Kenedy? Why, she’s only a child.”

“Sixteen. Old enough.”

Sarah wasn’t the first young girl in the village to have borne an early baby. It was just that Mary Kate had once known everything that went on here. Now, she felt like an outsider.

The feeling only intensified when they reached the manor house. The square, stone house hadn’t changed, but the roof looked new, and the wall around the front yard had been repaired, keeping the sheep away. The grass was neatly mowed, and the flower and vegetable gardens that had once been choked with weeds thrived in tidy little rows.