Her Match

A/N: Someday, I will master the art of the one shot. I really will. But until then, I've got 5,000 words on this and counting. Hope you enjoy this first installment! :)

And, heartfelt thanks to the beautiful Florencia7 for the cover image. You're the best! :)

And, and, I don't own anything here. Just stealing it, but for no monetary gain. Pirate…


Part I: Awakening

He does not know me.

Elizabeth collapsed back against the door of her chamber, her knees weak.

She was not usually one for fainting, but she'd never had her heart ripped from her chest before.

She'd not felt so miserable since the night her mother died, so many years ago.

He does not see me.

William had joined she and her father for a dinner that evening. As they had many times after their engagement, afterwards she and William had retired to the parlor to sit upon the settee and hold hands, whispering words of love and speculations of what their future might hold.

Innocent enough, considering.

That evening she'd mentioned her hope that William would like to take a tour for their honeymoon, Europe, perhaps, or even somewhere farther East. She burned to see new lands, and could think of no better way to do it than with her new husband at her side.

However, dear William had laughed lightly, as though she'd told a most amusing joke. When he realized she was quite serious, he visibly paled. How can you wish to risk leaving our home, after the ordeal with pirates we just survived? Nay, I would be content to never set foot upon a ship again.

How those words had wounded her. More than she ever thought possible. Unwittingly the young man only twisted the knife further, going on, My love, I will not allow you to endanger yourself. You will forget these silly notions of adventure once we are married and expecting our first child. We will have a happy home life. You will see.

Elizabeth had regarded him with mouth open, flabbergasted by his words. She had never felt so invisible as in that moment.

Oblivious, William went on to speak of babies and his plans to expand the smithy.

Speechless, Elizabeth barely heard him, the reality of her future flashing before her eyes. She'd been so over the moon for William, the boy she'd always loved, and now she was to actually be allowed to marry him! She'd been certain it was fate's design. And yet now—babies?

Elizabeth was so very intrigued by the thought of the conjugal bed, and yet she'd hoped somehow to postpone that inevitable by-product for at least a little while. She wanted to enjoy her youth with William, to have him to herself for a little while. And she wanted to do something different than what was always done upon this deuced island. Their brush with pirates had been quite an ordeal, yes, but also she'd never felt so alive.

She wanted to feel that way again. For some reason, she'd thought that marrying William would replicate such heights, another grand adventure.

Elizabeth was beginning to see the truth of the matter might be ever so opposite.

Biting her fist, Elizabeth suppressed a sob that wracked her entire body, her hands shaking.

I would be content to never set foot upon a ship again.

To spend the rest of her life only looking at the sea, but never traversing her azure waves again? The thought hurt her, deep in her heart, for she loved the ocean for all its majesty and fury. She always had. Of course, she'd never been shipwrecked and left to the mercy of the briny waves clinging to a piece of flotsam, as William had. He had his reasons. She knew he did. But to hear him set down his foot with such casual confidence, already comfortable in his mastery of her…

It pained her, and something inside her raged that he thought she would be so easily cowed.

It was as though William did not know her at all. As though he only beheld a version of her, a version of his own making, fashioned like a thing of precious metals to fit into his life, just the way he'd always wanted.

Slowly it dawned on her that it was precisely the truth, a truth she'd suspected but never really allowed herself to see until now. This time she could not suppress her sob, her face hidden in her hands. "What have I done?" she asked herself.

Already, she'd scandalized the society of Port Royal, jilting Commodore Norrington for the blacksmith. But her father had swallowed the shame and turned his back upon the gossip, all because he wanted his only daughter to be happy.

How could she change her mind again?

Usually she wasn't a woman to care what people said, but this would be too much.

"Are ye alright, miss?"

Anne, her lady's maid, had slipped in from the adjoining door without Elizabeth noticing. With a start Elizabeth straightened, affecting a stoic face. Even after so many years of training in English society, it was a difficult thing. "I'm fine, Anne. I would like some privacy for the remainder of the evening."

Anne raised her reddish-gold brows, not convinced at all that would be a good idea. "But Miss—"

Elizabeth lifted her chin, affecting her best mistress of the house expression, a role she never really felt comfortable with. "I said I'm fine. Please go."

Anne did not stop to argue twice, scurrying away with an alarmed expression. Once she was sure she was alone Elizabeth crossed the room to her vanity table, slumping down upon the tufted stool.

She held her face in her hands, shaking her head at herself.

What the devil was she going to do?

Elizabeth regarded her reflection in the mirror, raising an eyebrow at herself. "Perhaps you shouldn't be so bloody surprised," she told herself.

Maybe once upon a time, she really would have been content with William's plan for their future. As a girl she'd thrived on tales of princesses finding their prince charming and living happily ever after. She was certainly no less than a princess upon this provincial backwater of an island—why couldn't she live a fairy tale life?

Of course, as a girl she'd also devoured tales of pirates and adventure upon the high seas. For a short time, she'd been so lucky as to taste that life, and even walk away from it alive. And not that her Prince Charming didn't have a hand in that, but mostly because a certain kohl-eyed buccaneer had seen to it, in his very round-about way, that she made it out unscathed.

She thought of the night Barbossa pointed the pistol at her face, and how quickly Jack had pulled his own trigger upon him. Despite the stories, she knew Jack was a man who did not like to kill, and yet there had not been a moment's hesitation, for her.

Jack.

Unbidden, the picture of his handsome face rose in her memory, that Puckish smirk upon a mouth too fine to have any business upon a pirate. Elizabeth, it never would have worked between us, darling…

Just the fact that he'd given it—them—any thought had sent the most maddening thrill down her spine, goosebumps raising upon her arms even in the harsh Jamaican heat.

Since then she'd been left to wonder if that was yet another thing Jack had said in seriousness beneath the guise of jest. He did that more often than people realized.

She'd been left to wonder…just how could it have worked out between them?

It was a question that hounded her imagination without mercy, in the minutes of her daydreams and the hours of her rest. How many times had she woken in a sweat, plagued by a dream not of her fiancé but a pirate named Jack Sparrow causing even just the light sheet to lay heavy upon her skin with longing.

God, but she was a wicked thing. Engaged to a good sweet man, thinking of a pirate all the while.

Will was right that these waters were infested with pirates. Did she want to leave Jamaica to have an adventure with Will, or in the hopes that it would lead them into another madcap hijinks with Jack?

As if you don't know the answer to that, she scolded her reflection. Red-rimmed eyes stared back at her, her cosmetics smudged by tears. With the palms of her hands she wiped them away, or attempted to at any rate. In a sudden frenzy she tore out the hairpins anchoring her coiffure, feeling trapped by the loops and whorls so artfully formed by Anne earlier that evening.

All for William. William, who saw her beauty, but apparently not the woman underneath.

Unlike Jack, who had certainly been interested by her comely looks, but always seemed to look deeper with those burning black eyes of his. In a way she felt Jack might be the only man in the Caribbean who truly knew her. The thought was titillating as it was alarming.

And, the titillating part was most certainly alarming.

Suddenly Elizabeth regretted the decision to send Anne away so soon, the constraints of her corset digging into her sides. Ah well. She would make do.

But what did she plan to do?

How was she going to get out of this mess?

Would she stick it out, or break Will's heart? Could she just…leave?

She needed a plan. Something scathingly brilliant.

What would Jack do?

As if she didn't know. With an impish smile, a sad attempt to cover her distress, she selected a cut glass perfume jar from a tray upon the table. It was something she'd began keeping around since their little adventure, something vile disguised in plain sight within a pretty package.

Rather like herself, she thought, tipping the rum back. It burned down her throat and warmed her belly. She was getting better at drinking it, that was for sure. She even almost liked it, and with a sad little laugh she wondered if Jack would be proud.

It did not take long for the rum to take the sharpest edge off her worries, and surprisingly she felt she could actually think a little more clearly under its influence. Her thoughts were not dogged by the clamor of panic, and she thought she might better be able to formulate a plan.

Perhaps she would write it down, she decided. Her mind was quick and prone to jump around, and sometimes the only way to reign it all in was by putting it into words, relegating her thoughts to the confines of a piece of paper. It was better than letting the deuced things rattle around unbidden and unfettered in her mind. It was the only way to tame many thoughts inside her head, not only her fears, but also her dreams. Dreams that had no place in the life she'd been born to live, but dreams that would give her no peace all the same.

Dreams like Jack.

Elizabeth produced a sterling ink pot, uncapping it upon her table, and sharpened a quill.

She would tame this whole blasted mess with a list, she resolved, then thought maybe the rum was making her a little too confident if she thought it could be that easy.

She dug around in the bottom drawer of her vanity. Beneath a false bottom, stashed away from prying eyes, she hid the leather bound journal where she recorded her thoughts and fears. Since she turned thirteen and realized she could not express aloud everything that came to her mind, this journal became her sanity. It was like a graveyard for her thoughts, she sadly mused. The place her fantasies were laid to rest, perhaps to be revisited later with curious eyes, but never acted upon. It was a place to speculate on all the things she wished she'd had the courage to do, or possessed the quick wit to say.

Such as, she really wished she'd kissed Jack upon that spit of an island. That little fantasy comprised a few pages that would cause the cackling biddies in her social circle to blush like wildfire, she thought with amusement.

Elizabeth's hand felt about the bottom of the drawer, but found only blank space.

Instantly her heart thundered in her chest, as she felt around the compartment again.

Empty.

With a gasp she wrenched the whole drawer from its casing, frantically rifling its contents. Where could it be? Did Anne find it while cleaning? Did she give it to her father? It was a silent understanding that although Anne served Elizabeth, she was to report all findings to her true employer, Governor Swann.

"Oh no," she gasped, wrenching open other drawers. Had she misplaced it after a late night scrawling? When did she last have it?

Elizabeth leapt from the stool, her hands pulling her hair as she madly tried to recall.

"Lookin' for this, luv?"

Elizabeth's heart dropped to her feet, a cold sweat instantly breaking out over her skin. Slowly she turned to the darkened corner, to find a shadowy figure sprawled in her reading chair.