Chapter 31

As soon as their surviving prisoners were bound and thrown into the hold for safekeeping, Devlin put a portion of his crew in charge of sailing the captured ship back into port. Then Devlin and the Mirage's remaining forces set out in search of Bonnet—who, unless the situation had altered in the past few hours, was still eluding the law.

Since their pursuit had taken them south of Charles Town, they cruised the coastline on their return route home, thoroughly investigating every likely area along the way. They had reached the mouth of Charles Town Harbor, and were about to enter it, when they chanced to spot Colonel Rhett’s vessel to the north of them, traversing the seaward shore of Sullivan’s Island. Suddenly Rhett’s ship changed course, heading toward the far end of the island.

Curious as to what the colonel had spotted, Devlin headed the Mirage on the same tack. They pulled alongside the sloop just as Rhett and his men were clambering into their jolly boats. Cupping his hands about his mouth, Devlin called out loudly, “Ahoy, Colonel! What goes?”

Rhett turned quickly, almost tumbling himself into the water in his excitement. He pointed toward the island, where a battered, abandoned skiff had been washed up on the rocks, and bellowed back one word. “Bonnet!”

It was all that was necessary to rouse Devlin and Nate to action. Into their dinghy they flew, rowing to shore mere seconds behind Rhett and his band.

The group split into sets of two and three men, and quickly spread out to search the small island. Devlin and Nate stayed together, heading into the dense, damp underbrush, employing their cutlasses as machetes to clear their path. They were making so much noise that there was no way Bonnet and his quartermaster could fail to hear them coming. Though they communicated by hand signals, the rattle and crackle of brush and branches announced their approach as loudly as a cannon report.

They had passed a point perhaps a quarter of the way across the narrow isle when the back of Devlin’s neck began to tingle alarmingly. Without stopping to question his actions, he swiveled about, drawing his loaded pistol from his belt at the same time. From the corner of his eye, he caught a brief flash of movement in the nearby brush. He barely managed to shove the unsuspecting Nate aside in time to level his weapon and shoot. In that same instant, his enemy fired as well, and it was only thanks to poor marksmanship that Devlin did not receive a ball in his chest. Rather, the missile tore through the left sleeve of his shirt, leaving behind a thin, bloody groove the length of his forearm.

His opponent was far less fortunate, for Devlin’s aim proved true. The man gave one hoarse shout of disbelief and pain, followed by the sounds of mad scurrying through the bushes. Weapons drawn, Devlin and Nate dashed forward, keeping carefully under cover now. Arriving at the place where Devlin had spotted the gunman, they found Herriot lying dead at the base of a tree, shot through the head.

Leaving him there, the two friends took off after Bonnet, following the trail of broken branches and fresh footprints. It was a testimony to Bonnet’s desperation that they chased him for a full ten minutes before running him to ground.

Immediately upon realizing that he’d been caught, Bonnet threw down his weapon and raised his hands above his head in surrender. Only then did he finally recognize his captors, and his flushed face turned hopeful. “Let me go,” he implored breathlessly. “For old times’ sake. I swear I’ll give up pirating. I’ll go back to my plantation, and my wife, if she’ll have me, and petition for special amnesty. I give you my pledge as a fellow Brethren.”

“We’re no longer members of the same league,” Devlin reminded him callously. “Nor would I wish to align myself with the man you have become, Stede, a man who would hold an innocent woman against her will and ravage her repeatedly and without mercy. The old Devlin Kane might not have cared, but the new one does. Therefore, ’twill do you little good to plead for pity from me.”

“Nor from me,” Nate concurred. “If ’twere left to me to decide, I would shoot you where you stand, and let the buzzards feast on your rotten innards. However, that’d be cheatin’ the good citizens of Charles Town out o’ yer hangin’, and they’re lookin’ forward to the grand event. So, what say we get marchin’, and give them folks somethin’ to cheer about?”

It was only after the two friends returned to the Mirage that Devlin became aware that he had lost his disguising hood somewhere amidst the dense tangle of underbrush on Sullivan’s Island. He’d gone to his cabin to examine the wound to his arm. As he stood at the washstand, he glanced upward—and caught his reflection in the wall-mounted mirror. For a moment, he thought nothing of this, as he had now become accustomed to being discernible for hours at a stretch. But then the truth dawned upon him. He had not been in contact with Eden since early morning. It was now sunset, and he was still visible!

Though his hood was gone, probably lost hours before, Nate and Bonnet and Rhett’s men had seen him clearly. Devlin had no doubt he would have known immediately if any of them had viewed him as some freakish phantom! His breath caught in his throat, hope rising within his chest. Could this possibly mean what he desperately wished it did? Could he finally, at long last, be fully revived? Had Swift’s death somehow triggered his ultimate restoration? Or had something entirely different effected a cure?

When Devlin reached home, cautiously elated, Eden was ecstatic. It was she who came up with the true test of the matter, and as much as it pained him, Devlin agreed. “In order to be certain, we must avoid touching each other for a few days,” she told him.

“Drat it all, Eden, do you know what you’re asking of me? After all these months, ’tis second nature to me to be in almost constant contact with you. I don’t honestly know if I can stop myself from doing so.”

“Well, you simply must, so we can know for sure whether or not you are really cured. Mayhap ’twould be best if you were to live on the ship, or move a cot into the warehouse office for a short time. That way, neither of us will accidentally ruin the experiment.”

Devlin groaned. “As often as I have prayed for this advent, the cure now seems worse than the ailment” 

“Not the cure,” she corrected solemnly. “The proof of it.”

She took another crunchy bite of radish on buttered bread, and Devlin caught a whiff of the pungent aroma from across the bedroom. As his eyes began to water, he waved a hand to disperse the fumes. “You win, duchess. We’ll give it a three-day trial. If I become invisible before then, home I come. If not, you have that space of time in which to stuff yourself with radishes, to your burning heart’s content. If God is kind, your odd obsession with the obnoxious root will be adequately satisfied by then, and I will no longer hesitate to share the same air as my lovely, fire-breathing bride.”

For the next three days, Devlin avoided the house. With the Mirage on another shipping run, he slept in the warehouse office, as Eden had suggested, and took to carrying a small mirror with him so that he could readily check the state of his visibility. Afraid of doing anything which might send his body back into revolt, he minced about as if he were walking on eggshells.

He was irritable as all hell at being forced into “exile from Eden.” Once he had thought of it in those exact terms, he found a small dose of dour humor in his current situation, and developed a good deal of sympathy for Adam and Eve into the bargain. He might have told them that true temptation came not in the form of an apple. For him, temptation was a tall, sweetly curved lady with sparkling turquoise eyes, a lilting laugh, and a tart demeanor. One who had quickly become a habit he didn’t want to break, an addiction he adored.

It was one thing to be away from her on business, to be separated by miles of sea. It was quite another to know that she was mere minutes removed from his touch, warm and waiting and eager, yet completely forbidden to him, all by their own design. It was a unique torture.

Eden was equally miserable. She tried to keep busy to counter it. But in the wee hours of the night, when their bed seemed to have grown to twice its actual size, she missed Devlin terribly. Now, at long last, she was experiencing but a meager measure of what her mother had felt after her husband had died. Eden couldn’t imagine how dreadful it must be to know that one’s husband was forever gone, never to return again. At least she could anticipate having Devlin back in her arms in no more than three days, and if it took all that time, it would mean he was well and truly restored to his normal self. For this she would endure almost anything. She’d even give up radishes!

Like Devlin, she could scarcely bear having him so close at hand, yet so completely inaccessible. At every turn, she found herself tempted to rush over to the warehouse and see how he was faring. Alone in their room, she paced for hours. She curled up on the bed and snuggled her face into his pillow, breathing in the lingering scent of him. She dreamed of him at night, and fantasized about him all day, until she was certain she’d go mad.

By the appointed hour of his return, Eden was as edgy as a rusted razor. When Devlin finally walked through the door, she raced for his arms. “I hope you are cured, my love,” she told him as she threw herself into his welcoming embrace, “because I never want to be separated from you like this again. I have even decided that if you choose sailing as your trade, I and our child will voyage with you.”

Laughing, he hugged her to him. “Oh, you will, will you? Don’t I get anything to say about it?”

“Nay. ’Tis decided. Now, tell me that all is well.” 

“Aye, sweetling. At least for now. Hopefully, for always.”

As he at last set her on her feet, she pulled him toward the bottom of the hall stairs, the twinkle in her eyes telling him she was scheming some sort of delightful mischief. “Come,” she urged, tugging at his hand. “We simply must celebrate this grand and glorious event.”

“Upstairs?” he questioned, mocking her with a raised brow.

She nodded.

“Mayhap in our bedroom?”

“Aye, dunce. Now do hurry, will you?”

“My, what a lusty wench you are, to have missed my loving so much,” he teased, deliberately dragging his steps.

“You don’t know the half of it,” she claimed boldly. “Now, unless you want me to undress you where you stand, and have my wicked way with you right here on the stairs, kindly move your bloomin’ bum a bit faster.”

He was sorely tempted to call her bluff, but resisted—just barely. “Aye, aye, duchess!” he replied with a smart salute. The two of them ran hand-in-hand up the stairs and scarcely shut the bedroom door behind them before they began tearing at each other’s clothes.

He needed a bath, and he needed her, and it seemed his bride was well prepared to give him both—at the same time! She’d shielded a large section of the bedroom floor with an oilcloth tarp, over which she’d spread several blankets. In the center stood the copper tub, half-filled with bathwater.

“Mama would have fits if we flooded the floor and brought down the dining-room ceiling,” she explained with a giddy grin.

In her eagerness to jerk his shirt over his head, she nearly strangled him. Then she tried to remove his breeches before his boots, and he almost broke a leg in his efforts to untangle himself. Likewise, he ripped the sleeve of her gown in his haste to undress her, and completely forgot to peel her stockings off before tumbling her into the tub.

The protective covering for the floor proved prudent, for by the time their raging passions had finally been slaked, there was more water outside the tub than in it.

“Good God, how I missed you!” Devlin growled into her wet ear.

“I’m glad,” she murmured, lazily lathering soap into swirls on his chest. “As much as I suffered, I was hoping you were, too.”

He chuckled and squeezed her close. “Ah, Eden! Our biggest problems are behind us now, duchess. After six long months, I am completely normal at last. The businesses are coming along well. We’ll soon have a new house and a new child. And Swift and Finster will bedevil us no more.”

She raised her head to smile at him and licked a drop of water from his chin. “You can bedevil me as often as you wish, my love.”

His black eyes glittered with ardent promise. “I intend to, my sweet. Very often indeed.”

Though Eden and Devlin had spent the better part of the night reveling in their reunion, they were rudely awakened at first light by a loud chorus of the most cacophonous squawking Eden had ever hoped to hear. It wasn’t hard to guess that the ear-piercing noise was coming from the parlor, where Zeus and Rum Pot had been tethered to their perches. Devlin grabbed for his britches, while Eden yanked on her night rail. In tandem, they rushed down the stairs.

Eden skidded to a halt just inside the room, her eyes wide in disbelief. “Gadzooks, Devlin!” she swore breathlessly. “I always supposed Zeus was big, but I had no idea how large until now!”

“You can see him?”

“I most certainly can,” Eden replied, glowering. “And I must say, he is looking extremely proud of himself. I also fancy I know the reason why.” She pointed a finger at Rum Pot, who was weaving to and fro on her perch, looking dazed and ruffled. A scattering of bright plumes littered the floor.

Devlin gave a muffled laugh. “I’ll be switched! That snooty bird of yours has finally gotten her comeuppance!”

Eden jabbed him sharply in the ribs. “That heathen pile of feathers you call a hawk has finally gotten his claws into my parrot!”

“More than his claws, from the look of it,” Devlin countered with a chuckle. “Lord only knows what sort of odd chicks will hatch, should their curious union produce eggs.”

“One might ask the same of our offspring,” Eden reminded him sourly.

Not at all put off by her surly mood, and freshly inspired by Zeus’s success with Rum Pot, Devlin carted Eden back to bed for another lusty romp in the sheets. By the time they came up for air, Eden had long since gotten over her pique at the hawk. If the two birds were destined for each other, who was she to gainsay their union?

For now, it was Devlin’s turn to question matters. “I wonder what has caused Zeus to reappear now,” he mused. “Do you suppose the effects of the Saint Elmo’s fire merely wore off gradually, rendering the two of us whole again?”

“Possibly,” she allowed. “Then again, when you regained your visibility, Nate suggested it might have been the good deeds you had performed, for after each incident your visibility returned a bit, until you were completely cured.”

She recounted the three separate times. “After you saved those unfortunate prisoners from Blackbeard’s clutches, when you rescued that young woman Stede Bonnet had held prisoner, and after you helped to free the two men Swift held in bondage. All admirably selfless acts.”

‘True, I did improve after each, but what of Zeus?’’ Devlin asked.

“He performed his own heroic feat when he swooped down on Swift and his men, providing a much-needed distraction, which no doubt saved both your life and Nate’s. A deed for which I will be eternally grateful.”

“Then you agree with Nate, that these acts of valor redeemed our bodies?”

“Not entirely.” Eden’s smile grew wide as she gazed at him with adoring eyes. “Nate has his theory, but I have one of my own. I believe love cured both of you—that only when you had fully surrendered your hearts and received a matching measure of devotion and passion in return did all fall right with your world again. I also suspect that is why I could view you when no one else could, and why Rum Pot could apparently see Zeus. We were your God-chosen mates, you see, specially selected to love and aid you. Some might claim it magical or mystical. I say ’tis the power of love.”

Devlin simply declared it wondrous, and prayed that the splendor of it would shine brightly all through their lives, and beyond.