Read Online Nobody's Saint by Paula Reed - Free Book Online

enough.
    “Surely your family did not allow you to set out on your own.”
    Mary Kate hesitated, affecting overwhelming emotion while her mind churned. If she told him that she had come alone, how would she explain the dowry that had been in Fortune’s hold? And yet, she had to get her hands on Sir Calder’s money to buy passage home!
    “I brought my maid with me,” she finally replied with a heavy sigh. “She was killed in the battle.” She wasn’t about to make up some tale of rape and torture. Here she was taking all of these lies upon her soul on the open sea where the whim of God could sink their ship and there wasn’t a priest for confession in sight. Please, God, she prayed, let me live until my next confession.
    “But your father, ill as he might be, surely he did not send a mere girl and a maid to seek a husband in a land of strangers. You must know someone in Jamaica who will be worried for you.”
    The last thing she needed was to have this man contact her fiancé, but it seemed unlikely that he would believe her if she said she had come traipsing across the globe without family or connections. She gave her plate a gloomy look. She was about to become too distraught to talk, and she supposed that she should be too upset to eat, as well.
    “Oh Captain,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
    “I regret that I must bring up such pain, señorita . You have held up so well through all of this. We will pause for a while. You must eat and regain your strength.”
    “I couldn’t.”
    “A bit of cheese, at least, and some wine to fortify you.”
    “Perhaps a bit of cheese…” It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to take a tentative bite, rather than rip into the repast before her.
    Diego contemplated the woman across the table. She was, indeed, everything he could have ever asked for. She was beautiful and sweet. Impetuous, perhaps, to have done what she had, but apparently too innocent to realize the ramifications of it. He should have been profoundly grateful. Magdalena had come through for him once again, charming his life. And yet, something about Mary Katherine O’Reilly bothered him. For one thing, he had a hard time believing that a woman who had killed a pirate and cursed at him in the heat of battle would run from something like an unfaithful suitor. And maybe it was wrong to question Magdalena ’s generosity, but Mary Kate’s grief and remorse had an edge of affectation. It did not quite ring true.
    “ Capitán ,” Enrique called softly from beyond the doorway. He held in his hand several sheets of heavy vellum, a broken wax seal on the outermost page. Diego rose and joined his first mate in the hall, where they conversed in quiet Spanish for a moment until Diego began reading the pages in silence.
    Mary Kate took advantage of his shift in attention to wolf down two more pieces of cheese and finish what remained of both halves of the orange he had peeled earlier. He had been studying her intently, and she’d had to work hard to keep up her shy and demure demeanor. Had he been Irish, she’d have flirted and teased until she’d had him wrapped around her fingers. But he had been so protective of her, so quick to assume that she would be distraught and powerless, it had seemed wiser to follow his lead.
    The ability to read others and become what they wanted (or what they didn’t want, in England) was a talent she used without compunction. Even as a child, she could tiptoe into a room and gauge her father’s mood in seconds. Was he happy-drunk, angry-drunk, or morose-drunk? Should she tease and play, run for cover, or offer solace? Bridget had quickly learned to let Mary Kate size him up before she joined them, and if Mary Kate sneaked quietly upstairs, Bridget soon followed. As for Bridget herself? She was the easiest of all to manage. She was so bloody contrary that all Mary Kate had to do was order Bridget to do the opposite of what she wanted. If that didn’t work, they would