He stands on his balcony, his pale, beautiful hands curling gently around the railing, and he is soaked. His office is behind him, asking him why he's not sitting at his desk, warm and dry, and writing vitally important letters to Lords and Kings and Prime Ministers; the harbour is below him, the ships beckoning him, telling him to sail away and find those pirates, and destroy what it is that makes that delicate frown between his brows and troubles him so. He has no answer for his office, with its fine furnishings, priceless china and equally priceless portraits; and the songs of the harbour and his ships - his mighty fleet - offer no interest to him at the moment. Not in the slightest.
He just stands in the rain, back straight and stance proud, and watches the town, his town, busy with the panicked hustle and bustle of people running into houses and taverns to escape the pelting droplets. But he stands; he is not a coward and he stands and is hit, again and again, by speeding bullets of water that, when they explode onto his bare, numb hands, surprise him with their delicacy. His coat is ruined: the water has ravaged the fine silk and embroidery that before had make him look so Lord-like and powerful. Now, they only serve to make him appear a washed-up, desperate young man - boy - who has taken too many chances. He laughs a little at the irony. The rain has ravished the coat that makes him Lord Cutler Beckett, and now he looks like a pirate.
But he keeps his wig. No matter how alone and wet and ruined he may look, he keeps the symbol of his power and himself fixed firmly atop his head, hiding his dark brown curls and making him the leader everybody thinks he is, and the ruler he will soon become. And he is safe in the knowledge that he isn't a pirate, never will be and if he has anything to do with it, nobody else will in a matter of days.
A small rain drop lands on his bottom lip, which, he notices, hadn't yet been touched by the sudden storm. He feels it soak him for a while, that tender place that nobody touches these days, and senses it make its escape as it falls to the tip of his boot. Escape, he thinks. You are the last thing that will ever escape from me. He thinks of how Miss Swann had escaped him, that night in is office, with the Letters of Marque; he thought of all the banter between himself and Turner about Jack's compass. He thinks of how entirely in vain it had all been because, in the end, he'd had a desperate Commodore come crawling to him with something so, so much greater.
"My Lord," a valet says behind him. A slight turn of the head signals Beckett's acknowledgement. The valet is always slightly amazed by his Lordship's aloofness. He admires it, his grace and his grandeur. But he can't help but wonder if the man has ever had any affection in his life because of this, or whether his elegant self-assurance has stopped any woman - or man - in the past from getting anywhere near close. This is only a fleeting thought, but in those few seconds he comes to the conclusion that it has.
"The fleet is ready to sail."