Diego returned with a half-dozen men, and soon the ladders, hatches, and decks were swarming with men hauling crates from the bowels of the ship. She might have gotten lost amid them and escaped unnoticed, but she couldn’t even get from her cabin to the hatch without being scolded in Spanish by someone hefting his load and pointing back to her quarters.
Scowling furiously and stomping around the room in frustration, she pulled three cotton gowns from her trunk. They were utterly impractical for the wet weather in Ireland, but she had little choice. She wouldn’t be able carry several heavy dresses with their voluminous skirts and still move quickly and nimbly, as she would need to. She tucked her ledger and rosary amid the folds and wrapped them in the light wool cloak that had been packed with her summer clothes. Next to the bundle, she set the glass bottle with the last of her precious rosewater. She didn’t have anything else heavy enough to throw and distract the night watch, so it would be a worthwhile sacrifice.
Finally, Mary Kate lay down on the bunk and looked up at the ceiling. She was full of nervous energy, but she resisted the urge to pace. She would need to get her rest so she could do what must be done come nightfall. Havana was filled with ships from every corner of the world, and she was bloody well going to be on another one of them before dawn tomorrow.
Chapter Eight
Diego’s back and shoulders throbbed with the sort of satisfying ache that comes of a hard day’s work done well. Once Magdalena belonged to him, he could never purposely pursue Don Luis’s customers. That would be dishonorable. But more than a few of them would seek out Diego, and then he would be a fool to turn away their business.
He only wished that his troubled conscience regarding his unanticipated passenger was as easy to resolve. The good father at the church had advised him to leave her in La Habana with the governor and let him arrange for her ransom. Diego had tried to explain why he needed to take her to Don Juan in Cartagena, but the priest was unmoved. He simply could not understand why her family in Ireland needed to be contacted when she was as good as married to a man in Jamaica, a veritable stone’s throw from Cuba.
Diego was not entirely sure why that was, either, but he could not bring himself to leave her among strangers to be delivered into the hands of a stranger—an English stranger. He did not see how any decent Spaniard could fail to understand Mary Kate’s loathing for her circumstances. So in the end, he was disregarding the advice of the priest—quite possibly a sin in itself—and leaving himself vulnerable to continued temptation.
So much for a clean soul and a fresh perspective.
He had Mary Kate’s dinner sent to her room, along with the message that he was too busy to eat with her. One less opportunity to be tempted. They would sail tomorrow afternoon, as soon as he had cleared up his last few business tasks. Then they would head straight for Cartagena, and that would be the last he saw of María Catalina. As for Magdalena, before he had left the church that day, he issued a direct command to her to stay out of his life. He felt a chill go through him, but nothing more ominous than that. If she came to him again, she would not find him so compliant!
He shared his supper table with Galeno, who told him about Mary Kate’s trip into the hold.
“I watched her very closely, Captain, because you warned me that she was deceitful. I kept her far away from the cask with her dowry in it, and she took only a small cross from the other.”
“How small?” Diego demanded. Galeno held up his fingers to indicate an inch or so. “Any jewels on it?”
“No, only gold.”
Diego pondered that a moment. “Not enough for passage to Europe. Why did she have such a sudden need for it, I wonder?”
Galeno shrugged, and Diego let the matter drop. With only one night in La Habana, and a crew of men who had been many weeks at sea, he could hardly justify keeping too many aboard. He chose two to keep watch, with the promise of a generous bonus, and released all but a skeleton crew for security. Those who had stayed behind to guard the ship would be first off in Cartagena. As Diego retired for the night, the men who were not specifically on watch were in the crews’ quarters, playing cards and making plans for their next stop.
*
Mary Kate had had her ear pressed to the door for so long it ached, but at last, she heard what she’d been listening for. Diego’s door opened, he bid Galeno goodnight, and the door closed again. She was a nervous wreck, but she waited at least twenty minutes before she cautiously opened her own door a crack and peered into the passageway by the light of a single candle held aloft. From deeper within the ship, she could hear the crew laughing and talking among themselves, but there was no sign of anyone nearby.
Ducking back into her room, she grabbed her bundle and bottle of rosewater, then left and tiptoed softly to the bottom of the ladder that led to the deck above. The quarter moon above it lent a little light, but not too much, and she blew out her candle and slipped it into her bundle. In an instant, she discovered the difficulty of climbing a ladder in a long skirt while holding an armload, and after three attempts at a ladylike ascension, she finally piled her skirts on top of her parcel and climbed the thing bare-legged. God help her if someone sneaked up from behind, for he’d get a fair eyeful!
The worst was having to pause at the top, peering over the edge at the night watch, all the while acutely aware of what she looked like from the waist, down. Thankfully, one man kept his eyes fixed on the dock, the other out at sea, and she could quickly pull herself through and set her skirts to rights. Then she pulled herself tightly against the mast and threw her bottle of rosewater as hard as she could onto the bridge. It shattered loudly, and while the crewmen bolted up the stairs to investigate, she hurtled across the deck and down the gangplank, melting quickly into the collection of people who still wandered the docks of Havana after dark.
And fascinating people they were. They spoke in myriad languages and came in skin shades she had only heard of in tales told by well-traveled sailors. Among this foreign crowd, she encountered the next obstacle. For all their variety, really there were primarily two kinds of people who populated the docks at this time of night—prostitutes and men looking for prostitutes. She didn’t understand a word of anything said to her by the men she passed and didn’t want to understand any of it. She just clutched her bundle tightly to her chest and plowed through them, spewing venomous Gaeilge at any who dared to touch her.
Mary Kate spun hard when a man grabbed her arm tightly and pulled her toward him. “Cá mhéad?” he demanded. How much?
She opened her mouth to give him a sound cursing when she realized what he had just said. “You speak Irish!” she cried, her own language sweet on her tongue.
“I do,” he replied, “and so do you, by the proper cursing you gave these poor bastards!”
From the general direction of Magdalena, Mary Kate could hear shouts of alarm. She gave the fellow before her a cursory inspection. Reasonably good-looking, fairly clean, clothes not overly-mended. And he was Irish! “Please, you have to help me,” she pleaded. “I was abducted by a Spaniard, and I’ve only just escaped. Please! They are coming after me!”
He looked over his shoulder at the commotion building behind them. “Come with me. I’ll take you to my ship.” Grabbing her bundle in one hand, and taking her by the hand with the other, he led her quickly away, down to the end of a far pier where a rather battered looking ship rocked in the water.
“Is this ship yours?” she asked. “Are you the captain?”
“Not I,” he answered, “but the captain will have no objections to your presence.”
She started to assure him that she could pay for her passage, but then thought better of it. She stopped at the bottom of the gangplank, looking up at the vessel. There was no flag anywhere in sight.
“Under what flag do you sail?”
“Does it matter? To a woman in trouble, I should think that to be the least of your worries.”
“Does it matter? It is a simple enough question
to answer.”
“Pádraig!” a man shouted from above. The rest of what he said was so much gibberish. It wasn’t Irish, English, or Spanish. The two men laughed, and Pádraig’s grip tightened on her hand, crushing her fingers.
“What did he say?” she demanded, trying to pull herself free of his clasp. “What language is that?”
“Portuguese,” Pádraig answered. “We’re a bit of an international crew, here. He’s wanting to know whether I’ll be sharing, seeing as how I’m bringing you on board. Not nice to enjoy something in front of others unless there’s plenty to go around.” He laughed heartily and called something back up to his cohort.
Mary Kate grabbed a fistful of her bundle with her free hand, yanking hard and pulling him off balance, while she drove her knee straight and true between his legs. She was rewarded by the immediate release of her belongings and her hand as he crumpled to the street, gritting a long string of musical curses through his tightly clenched teeth. She didn’t wait to see what his mate would do. Tucking her bundle under her arm, she set off at a dead run back up the pier.
Behind her, footsteps thundered on the wooden planks and echoed off of the water. There were more in pursuit than Pádraig and his friend! At the end of the pier she turned to run in the opposite direction of Magdalena, only to spy a group of unsavory sailors who all straightened to attention at the sight of her. Here, at the far end of the dock, an honest merchant vessel was not to be found. With another colorful phrase, she spun and raced back toward the heart of the harbor.
*
The words Diego muttered under his breath in Spanish were not far off from the ones Mary Kate had just spat in Gaeilge. At first, it seemed that she had simply disappeared, but now he spied a fat commotion near the docks favored by pirates, and he had the sinking feeling he had just found her. He glanced behind him and then set into a run. He had eight men, all armed, all as skilled with a sword as any on the high seas.
They had better be enough.
He had expected to find her surrounded, begging for mercy. He definitely did not expect her to be running, hell-bent, ahead of the pack. When he reached for her, she ducked her head and nearly ran him down and knocked him flat on his back. She almost made it through his own group of men, until Enrique snagged a handful of her glorious, black hair and hauled her backwards by it.
“¡Maldito sea!” she cried, and Diego had to shake his head in wonder. She seemed to be picking up on her Spanish very quickly.
He and the rest of the men quickly surrounded her and Enrique, swords at the ready. It could have been worse. A quick head count gave him ten opponents. Eight to ten—they had fought pirates against greater odds and lived to tell of it.
For a while, the two bands of men stared at each other in hostile silence. The only sound was that of Mary Kate spitting like an angry cat as she tried to pry Enrique’s hand from her hair. Finally, one of the pirates started to laugh, joined one by one by the others.
“Is the hell-cat yours?” he asked Diego, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.
Diego made a sour face and rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “For the moment.”
“You will have furrows an inch deep on your back tonight,” the other man chortled. Then he called to his companions, “We will leave the poor fool to his fate! Come, there are softer, more eager women to be had in La Habana!”
No one let down his guard until the motley crew was well past them. Finally, Diego turned and looked at the thoroughly mussed, flush-cheeked, glaring burden in whose hair Enrique’s hand was still buried.
“Bring her,” he commanded. “And do not be gentle.”
It had never occurred to Mary Kate that a man might actually drag a woman a full quarter of a mile by her hair. Surely, once she had stopped struggling, Enrique might have taken her by the arm or something! And Diego! The oh-so-honorable, oh-so-proper Captain Do-good, was just letting him! She tried to get his attention and tell him to call off his dog, but the prig just marched along at the head of the crew, never once looking in her direction! Bloody bastard!
Enrique forced her all the way on board, through the hatch and down the ladder with her scalp on fire. If she went bald after this she would never forgive a single one of them! He started to shove her toward her cabin, but Diego stopped him and gestured toward his own quarters.
Once inside the cabin, Enrique released her, and she pressed her own hand to the back of her head and struggled against tears of relief. She threw her bundle on the floor and stomped over to Diego’s bed where she sat down hard, nursing her pride and running her fingers under her hair, searching for patches of bare skin.
“I hate you!” she spat.
“You are a complete imbecile!” he fired back.
“I was outrunning them, you meddling swab!”
“And where did you think you were going? To find another crew of men to take you home?”
“If I hadn’t had to sneak off in the middle of the night, and I weren’t being chased by yourself, I would have had time to find a more reputable ship!”
“So this is my fault?”
“Who else’s fault would it be?”
“You ungrateful little—”
“Ungrateful? And what might I be feeling grateful for? That you had your mate haul me back to your ship by my hair? Well, I’m not of a mind to be feeling much gratitude for that!”
“For saving you, yet again, from a fate worse than death. I risked my life and the lives of my men twice on your behalf!”
“Ha! You didn’t take on those first pirates out of any worry for me. You didn’t even know I was on board that ship.”
¡Maldita sea! She had him there. “If we had not been there tonight…”
“If you hadn’t been there tonight I’d be on my way home! I was outrunning them! I can take care of myself, Diego Montoya!”
“Can you?” he growled. “If a man is of a mind to overpower a woman, María Catalina, he will, and he will take what he wants without her say-so.”
Mary Kate stood up and set her fists firmly on her hips. “Not with me!”
By all that was holy, he meant only to teach her a lesson. He reached her in three strides, grabbed her wrists, and yanked her hands over her head while he pushed her backwards onto the bed. She twisted and writhed in his grasp, and he pinned her to the mattress with his full weight.
“Let me go, you son-of-a-bitch!”
“Make me, María Catalina. Stop me. Deny me.” His blood was still on fire from the near fight with the pirates and his rage with the woman struggling under him, but the feel of her, the way that her hips wriggled against his, fanned those flames and turned them into something altogether different. Before he could think about what he was doing, his lips were on hers.
Mary Kate opened her mouth to curse him again, and then his tongue filled her, lapped at her, seemed to be gulping every last ounce of will from her body. She didn’t know what was happening. One minute, she was angrier than hell with this man, and the next, she couldn’t have enough. She tried to pry her wrists from him so she could touch him, but he held them firmly above her head. Blindly seeking his warm, hard body, she tried to arch her back and press her entire body into his.
At last, he released one wrist and dragged his hand roughly over her breast, setting it afire, and she used that freed hand to pull his head closer so that she could drink more deeply of his hot, moist mouth.
Diego was lost, drowning in the taste of her, the texture of her tongue against his, the way she rose up to meet him, and the wild, urgent whimpers she fed him with her sweet mouth. His hand had a will of its own and moved past the soft mound it had been exploring to slide over her skirt and begin pulling it up, up, seeking the softness of her thigh.
He lifted his head to drag a gulp of air into his lungs and looked down at her. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips swollen and parted, and she was panting lightly. For a split second, he saw Magdalena in the mist, and he jumped back, nearly tripping over h
is own feet.
Those blue eyes widened in surprised. “What?”
But Diego did not trust himself to speak. His body was on fire, but his head was rapidly coming back to cold, hard reason. What had possessed him?
For a moment, Mary Kate felt abandoned and completely disoriented. Then she realized what had almost happened. Granted, this was a sacrifice she was willing to make, but she hadn’t been about to make it happen on purpose. She had simply been swept away. She had nearly done it because she had wanted to. That was another matter entirely!
“You were saying?” Diego said, finally catching his breath.
But Mary Kate was nobody’s fool. She hadn’t been the only one who had lost her head. “I was saying no man would take me without my say-so. You had my say-so, Diego.”
“Would you have given it to one of those men tonight?” he asked, purposefully trying to sting her.
She only smiled. “I’ve spent too much of my life getting others to do as I wish by saying things to make them mad. It won’t work on me. Nay, I’d not have given it to any of them, but I’m giving it to you now. I want you, Diego, and you want me too; you know it.”
God, he could almost feel her naked skin in his hands, and the taste of her mouth lingered still on his tongue. “Do you care nothing at all for your honor? Are honesty and virtue nothing to you?”
“Virtue, honesty, what are these to a woman who is desperate?”
Diego felt a chill. He had heard those words before. “What did you say?”
“I said I’m desperate! Maybe I hate you, but I want you, too, and I can admit that! Maybe I want a night for myself ere I must give myself time and again to that disgusting English pig!”
Paula Reed - [Caribbean] Page 9
