DISCLAIMER - Nothing is mine, nothing, forI am a communist and don't believe in private property (note to paranoid Americans - I'm NOT a communist :P) But if I did believe in property, than POTC wouldn't be part of mine...
A/N -Well, second time lucky – I've been turning this story over in my mind for quite a while, some of the MarySue-ness in it annoyed me, as did the stupid plotholes, so I'm having another go – simpler storyline, more focus on the characters and hopefully less half-baked plotlines...
Though no one I know now would ever believe I almost married a pirate, it's the truth. It was long ago, of course, when I was only seventeen – over ten years ago now. I lived in Bridgetown, on the island of Barbados, where my father had made his fortune supplying the Royal Navy with uniforms cut from the cloth of our native Yorkshire.
I was only a year old when my mother and I made the stormy crossing from England to join my father in our newly built house nestled away amongst the lush hills of the Caribbean island. It was the only home I had ever known and though my grandfather had only been a humble cloth merchant, and his father before him a crafty sheep-herd with an eye on his masters business, we lived an easy life – with every luxury our glorious eighteenth century could afford.
By the time I had reached the flower of womanhood my father had amassed such a fortune he barely needed to continue his trade; his travels to the other isles of the West Indies became little more than social visits and it wasn't unusual for me and mother to accompany him. Twenty years ago this would have been unthinkable – pirates and privateers all but ruled the Caribbean ocean, merchant ships were forced to travel heavily armed and guarded and all sailors feared the sight of a black flag on the horizon. Yet our Navy had worked hard to eradicate this threat to trade and it was now widely believed there were more pirates hung, tarred and rotting on the shores than sailing free.
The voyage that changed my life so utterly should have been brief and uneventful, during the mild May weather we were to make the short trip across the Windward Isles to Puerto Rico.
