“Here,” said James, heaving with fatigue. “Set him down beside the water.”
After his exhausted brothers lowered William on the ground, Madeline rushed to his side. She stroked his cheek, cold as ice, and quickly lowered her ear to his breast. His chest lifted ever so slightly, a gurgling sound in his lungs. He was still breathing . . . barely breathing.
She looked around the jungle, the small pool of water. The palms hovered like a roof over the secluded spot, darkening the area so even sunlight couldn’t penetrate the brush. It was so remote, so macabre. Why had they put her husband through such unnecessary pain? Hastened his death even with the arduous hike?
“Why did we bring him here?” she demanded, her voice cracking with grief.
Her sister-in-law squeezed her shoulder in support, her features just as hurt and confused.
James rubbed the back of his neck, doubtful, furious even. He pointed toward the boy and said in a stiff tone, “Ask your grandfather.”
Madeline stared at the lad, bewildered. He shrugged and smiled. And that smile brightened his eyes . . . his eyes.
“No,” said Madeline, shaking her head, frantic. “No.”
“Hullo, lass,” he said.
And she covered her mouth at the familiar sound of his throaty burr. “Grandfather? What . . . happened . . . ?”
“I found it, lass.” He stepped toward the pool and hunched beside it. “I finally found it . . . The Fountain ‘o Youth.” He cocked his head. “Look.”
Her every bone trembling, Madeline leaned over her husband and stared into the small round pool, her eyes gaping. The water whirled into a black void and twinkled like stars in the heavens. Faraway lights collided in the void, unheard of worlds.
“We have to put him in the healing water, lass.”
Her heart spasmed. “But he’ll turn into a boy.”
An image flashed in her mind: a child with unruly black hair and brilliant blue eyes—her husband? But he would live, she thought next. And he would grow again. Into a man. She would be a much older woman, but . . .
“I waded in the water too long,” said the boy . . . her grandfather. “I floated until I shrunk an’ almost drowned in my clothes. Don’t keep him in the pool too long, just until the wound heals.”
“Yes,” she sobbed. “Yes!”
She had her miracle.
“The knife,” said Quincy, reaching for it.
She stayed his hand. “No, I’ll remove it.” After a fortifying breath, she interlocked her fingers over the blade’s handle and yanked the steel from William’s belly.
His blood roiled and poured from the opened wound.
“Quickly.” Madeline skirted aside, tossing the knife. “Place him in the water.”
James and the duke took his legs, Quincy and Edmund his arms. Gently they settled him into the pool.
The family looked on as William floated in the water, swirling in the same counterclockwise direction as the mysterious current. The pool filled with his blood. The water lapped all around him.
Madeline’s heart tightened as she watched the fatal wound slowly close.
“Fetch him,” ordered James.
“No!” she cried. “Not yet.”
“Why?”
“What about his illness? The wound in his belly is healed, but his sickness?”
James raked his hand through his hair. “How long do we leave him in there? Until he’s a babe?”
She glanced at the scar on her husband’s chest. “Did he fall ill before or after he was shot?”
“After,” said Quincy.
“Are you sure?”
He bobbed his head. “Aye.”
“Then we wait until the scar is gone, to the time before he was sick.”
“Fine,” gritted James.
It was a minute later the scar across William’s chest shriveled and a bullet popped out, sucked into the whirlpool.
“Now!” shouted Madeline.
The brothers grabbed his feet and dragged him to the pool’s edge before hoisting him from the water.
Madeline crouched at her husband’s side, blood pounding in her ears. He remained so still, lifeless. “William?” She rocked his shoulder. “William?”
“What’s wrong?” from Edmund. “Is he dead?”
Quincy dropped beside his brother and placed his ear over the man’s chest. “No, he’s breathing.”
“The water is very comforting,” said her grandfather, wedging his scrawny arms between her giant brothers-in-law. “I also fell asleep in it, remember?”
He then hunkered—and poked William in the eye.
William shot up, cursing and clutching his eye.
“Oh, thank God!” the family erupted in unmatched delight.
Her heart about to burst with pleasure, Madeline curled her arms around her husband’s neck and sobbed, then smothered him with kisses and sobbed again.
When his strong arms circled her waist, and cradled her in a tender embrace, Madeline sobbed even harder until she gasped for breath.
“Easy, Maddie,” came his husky voice, a soothing balm. “I’m here.”
And he was. He was really here!
She pinched his hair and buried her lips in his ear, “I love you, William.”
“And I love you.” He bussed her neck. “What the hell happened to me?”
She half chuckled, half groaned. “We’ll tell you on the journey back to the Bonny Meg . . . though I don’t know if you’ll believe us.”
William lifted her to her feet and looked around at all the beaming faces, obviously bemused.
Her grandfather approached her. “Do you want to step into the healing water, lass? Mend your broken ribs?”
“Maddie.” Her husband wrapped her in his arms again, stroked her cheek. “You’re hurt?”
“No,” she insisted. “I’m fine.”
Her grandfather furrowed his brow. “Maddie?”
“I don’t want to go into the water.” If she entered the pool, her fractures would disappear . . . but so might the babe in her belly. “I’ll heal in time. We’ve taken enough from the pool.”
Quincy dipped his finger in the fountain. “I should bottle this, take it home to England. It would do so much good.”
“Ye can’t take the water,” warned her grandfather, gripping his hand. “I tried, as well, to study it, but the island quaked like an earth tremor. The water must stay on the island.”
A heavy sigh from Quincy. “What a pity.”
A moment of thoughtful silence passed.
“Come,” said James. “Let’s go home.”
~ * ~
Madeline watched her husband from a short distance. He stood alone at the starboard rail, his hair ruffled by the breeze, his shirt billowing with each gust of wind. The sun was slowly setting below the horizon, a fiery red, while brilliant streaks of pink and purple reached toward the heavens. To the east, a midnight blue already covered the hemisphere, stars twinkling in jewel-like glory.
She felt as if she was crossing between two worlds. Her life would never be the same again. She now had a husband. A twelve-year-old grandfather to raise. A babe on the way. A family.
“Care to join me, Maddie?”
He asked the question without even turning his head, aware of her presence, and a swell of emotion filled her breast at the thought that he sensed her so intimately, that their bond was so strong.
She neared him in quickened strides. His arms opened for her. In a moment she was sheltered in his embrace, his chest against her back, his cheek resting against her temple.
She gazed at the sunset with him. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“I feel like I’m seeing it for the first time,” he returned, the awe in his voice unmistakable.
“Perhaps you are,” she offered. “You have new eyes, a new heart.”
He bussed her cheek. “I have you,” he murmured.
She shuddered. “How are you headaches?”
“Gone.”
“And the bleedings?”
“Stopped.”
She sighed, content for now, but . . . “Do you think your illness will ever return?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t want you to worry, Maddie. Life is too short.” Her breath hitched as he stroked her belly. “Too sweet to waste on idle troubles.”
“You know about the babe?”
“I couldn’t think of another reason why you wouldn’t enter the healing waters.”
She cupped his hand. “I thought I might lose the child. Quincy said my ribs will heal in three to six weeks. And there’s no danger to the babe.”
“You should rest, Maddie.”
As he pulled away from her, she clinched his hand even tighter. “No, I’ve been in bed all day. I want to be with you.”
He cradled her again, whispering, “Stubborn woman.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
A low chuckle tickled her ear. “I suppose I shall never have an orderly life again.”
“I would wager on that.” A pause, then, “What will our new life look like, William?”
“First, we’ll marry again. A legal ceremony with a minister. Then I’ll sell the bachelor house in St. James’s and find us a respectable home, perhaps Mayfair.”
She stiffened.
“What’s wrong, Maddie?”
“Would you mind if we lived in my grandfather’s house?”
He cringed. “Aye, I would.”
“I know it’s eccentric, but it would please me, and him, to live there. It’s home.”
After a loud sigh and an incoherent muttering, he relented with, “I might be persuaded to raise our child in that beastly place if you redecorate.”
Madeline grinned. “I’ll pack up the shrunken heads, I promise.”
“Hmm.”
“And Grandfather? He will stay with us, won’t he?”
Her grandfather had the wisdom of a seasoned captain and explorer. She couldn’t bear the thought of treating him as a child and sending him off to a boy’s college.
“Of course,” said William. “We’ll introduce him as our ward or adopted son.”
She glanced over her shoulder and spotted her grandfather. He was seated on the steps of the poop, scribbling in a notebook, writing about his latest adventure, no doubt, and another smile tugged at her lips, for she imagined him on many more adventures . . . though she’d have to set some ground rules while he still resembled a child.
“But no one can know his true identity, Maddie. Sir Richard McNeal must remain lost at sea.”
“Yes.” Her smile faded. “Like so many others.”
They had lost three crew members in the storm: the helmsman, the first lieutenant, and another shipman. A few other tars, missing after the wreck, were later located on the island.
“What will become of their families?” she wondered with a heavy heart.
“I will look after them,” he assured her.
“Good. I just wish . . .”
“Shhh, I know. But my men loved the sea, Maddie. They accepted her riches—and her risks.”
As Madeline thrummed her husband’s hand, his brothers and their wives, followed by his sister and her husband, joined them at the Bonny Meg’s starboard rail. Together the entire family gazed out at sea before Captain James Hawkins broke the silence with a tart:
“I only wish I’d strangled the bastard before we’d left the island.”
His blood lust evoked several chuckles and a few grunts of agreement from his kin. The so-called “bastard” was the pirate captain that’d stabbed her husband before disappearing into the jungle. Despite their best efforts, the crew of the Nemesis and Bonny Meg had been unable to locate him. The black devil had likely retreated to a secret haven: a cave or underground tunnel perhaps.
In any case, the pirate lord’s crew had been rounded up and delivered to the authorities of the nearest military port, where several ships were then dispatched in search of the elusive rogue. The rigs would remain off the island’s coast until starvation or sheer isolation rooted the notorious devil from hiding.
Madeline shuddered at the memory of him even now. She could still feel his steely fingers gripping her throat, squeezing her airway. She could still see his merciless blue eyes, so cold and cutting . . . but the dark images flittered away as her husband bussed her temple and stroked her arms, an unshakable warmth settling throughout her soul.
“I’m sorry, James,” said Madeline. “But if the bastard is ever discovered, I intend to strangle him myself.”
The captain lifted an amused brow. “You’d make an excellent pirate, Lady Madeline.”
“Thank you,” she quipped.
William groaned. “Do not encourage my wife.” He whispered, “She’s already stolen everything from me.”
At his sultry voice, Madeline shivered . . . then gasped. A bloom appeared between his hands, a tropical flower. Where had he concealed the bright red blossom? Had one of his siblings passed it to him?
Before she’d uttered a startled remark, her husband gingerly tucked the flower behind her ear. “I’ve been meaning to do that since we first set sail, Maddie.”
“But how?”
“A miracle, of course . . . like you, luv.”
And then the “why” and “how” mattered naught anymore, for some things were meant to remain a mystery, she realized . . . including her love for one dashing pirate.
turn the page for a bonus novella
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A PIRATE