Chapter One

She sat quite primly in her chair, a book held in her lap. Her head was tilted so that it appeared as though she was reading, but really she was listening to the muffled arguing that filtered through to her from her father's study. She could only understand half of what was being said, but she didn't need to hear the rest to comprehend what was going on: they'd been having the same argument since she was twelve.

She heard banging doors, and through the window she saw her mother walking swiftly down the dirt road leading up to their house. Her gingery locks bounced as she walked, and her skirts swayed with elegance that her daughter only dreamed of achieving.

She heard footsteps in the hallway just outside her door. There was a pause, then a fairly audible sigh. She quickly lowered her gaze to her book and tried to appear surprised when her father walked in.

Will Turner was a tall man with long dark hair that was just beginning to show the first signs of graying. He had a thin mustache and a fairly easy smile, as exemplified by the laugh lines around his mouth and the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. But his eyes, which had once been so merry, were now tired and sad. His shoulders, which had once fit so handsomely into the simple shirts he chose for himself, now sagged rather limply, crushed by the burden of life.

"Did you hear much of it?" he asked, under no pretenses about his daughter's preoccupation. She said nothing for a moment, her light eyes staring into his dark ones.

"Only a bit," she lied, closing her book. He sighed, looking out the window at the palm trees and the port, the many sails fluttering in the distance.

"Your mother and I love each other," he said after a long moment. She resisted rolling her eyes- that was the lie he always told himself to justify why he didn't simply leave. That they had once loved each other, of that she was sure- she'd often heard tales and gossip about their passionate early romance. But somewhere along the way that passion had cooled, only to find themselves trapped by their demanding society.

"Was the new painting delivered?" she asked, artfully changing the subject. He smiled indulgently. At her request they had purchased a new painting to hang over the dining room table, a marvelous piece of art representing a ship at sea during a storm. She had found the work simply breathtaking, gripping and wonderfully poignant, and upon seeing her fascination with the work, neither one of her parents could resist purchasing it for her.

"Not that I am aware of," he said. She smiled, thinking back to the painting and the way the frothy sea lapped up against the sides of the ship. "I'm going to town for a while," he said gently, drawing himself up and walking towards the door. He paused in the doorframe. "You'll be good, won't you Catherine?"

She nodded and smiled. She was sure not to make her smile too sweet, for her father knew her better than anyone and could see right through her.

"I mean it," he said solemnly, his gaze stern. "Nothing violent, and that means fighting. Nothing too wild or adventurous and nothing unladylike. Sometimes I feel as though I've raised a heathen."

She grinned proudly and nodded. Appearing still unconvinced of her intentions, he disappeared.

She jumped up at once and ran to her wardrobe. Underneath a pile of chemises and shifts was a plain blue cotton dress, sadly worn. She swiftly changed into it, removing her pretty pearl necklace and replacing it with a simple locket, engraved with the first letter of her name. She then pulled out a thick wool shawl, tattered and ragged, and threw it over her shoulders. She selected her oldest and most worn pair of sturdy boots, and inside either one of these she tucked a carefully concealed knife, as her mother had taught her.

"If either one of my parents returns home before me, tell them Mary called and that we've gone out calling," she instructed her maid.

Port Royal was a bustling town, and Catherine loved it. She grinned, breathing in deeply the scent of fish and sea-water, allowed the pleasant music of the busy marketplace to fall on her eyes and taking in the many odd characters to be found scattered around the port. Normally she was forbidden to go without an escort, but she found sneaking out of the house to be a far more convenient alternative. Her parents always turned a blind eye to her antics, and so she took every chance she got to come into town and associate with pirates, sailors, and ne'er-do-wells.

She was admiring the wares of a certain shop girl, a thin girl with a pale, pinched face. She eyed with fascination the bracelets and necklaces made from cheap metal, the earbobs made with cheap rocks made to look like precious gems. A man walked over and stood beside her, pretending to be interested by the merchandise, too absorbed by the things laid out before him to actually be observing them. She felt immediately drawn to him. He was a handsome sort, though rather soft-looking to be much of a fighter. He had a slight build but a strong body, soft chocolate eyes and long dark hair that fell in curls about his slightly angular face.

"How much for that bracelet?" she asked the girl, pointing to a thick pewter band with a small piece of turquoise embedded in it.

"Five pence, milady," the girl replied, in thickly accented English.

"Allow me to offer it to you," the man said, speaking for the first time. As he pulled the money out of his pocket he turned to Catherine and smiled. He had an easy smile that made her insides melt, and she said nothing as she smiled back at him and held out her wrist for him to put the bracelet on. "It's not every day you get to buy gifts for a pretty lady. My name is Daniel Weston, by the way."

"Catherine Turner," she said, fingering the bracelet, her eyes fixed on his smiling face.

"I'm a sailor, I've just come in from Barbados," he said. At this her smile grew into a broad grin, and she leaned close to him and whispered in his ear.

"'Sailor' being a euphemism for 'pirate'?" she said. He grinned as she pulled away. She smiled and leaned in again. "Don't worry. I happen to like pirates quite a lot."

He smiled, looking her over. His eyes danced, and she guessed that he liked what he saw.

"Is that so? Perhaps we should discuss that over a bottle of rum, then," he suggested, putting a hand on her waist and taking several steps in the direction of the nearest alehouse. She wrinkled her nose.

"I don't very much like rum," she said. "Couldn't we make it ale instead?"

He threw back his head and laughed, his hand strong and commanding as it pressed on her lower back, insistent that they reach the alehouse soon.

The alehouse was loud and noisy, men laughing and drinking, pushing each other around, all of them red in the face from drink. They seated themselves at a table, dirty from spilled drink and from years of not having been washed, and Daniel went to fetch drinks. In the meantime, Catherine kept her hands in her lap, neatly folded, and her eyes firmly fixed on the table so as not to cause any trouble. In the very back of her mind, she wondered what she was doing here. But she quickly pushed the thought away and forced a smile on her face as Daniel returned to the table.

"One bottle of rum for me," he said, sitting down and putting the drinks on the table. "And a mug of ale for the lady."

He smiled at her in a genuinely sweet way as he set her mug in front of her. She smiled and slowly brought the liquid to her lips, trying not to drink too much.

"So where are you really from? What ship are you sailing?" she asked, putting her mug abruptly down. Her eyes shone brightly with excitement, as they always did when there was talk of adventure.

"We've just come in from Tortuga on the Dark Goddess," he said, watching her with a calculating eye. She sighed, picturing the wide expanse of sea that he had just crossed. How she desired to be sailing those seas!

"Was it a long journey?" she asked, turning her gaze on him once more. He shrugged. She frowned, looking confused. "Don't you love being at sea?"

"I like it well enough," he said with a smile. "It's a living, and it provides more freedom than most professions."

Her frown grew deeper and more pronounced, and she leaned towards him.

"If I were in your place, I would be in Heaven," she whispered. "Sailing is freedom, the seas are freedom, and you never appreciate freedom quite so much as when you are trapped in your society because you're the daughter of the city's Minister of Trade and Commerce."

She drew away from him, smiling to herself. Her whole face was glowing.

"I love the feel of the wind in your face and the sea air in your lungs," she said with a sigh of longing. "But sadly, I'm forbidden from enjoying them half as much as I should."

"I take it you don't sail often," he said with a smile, his eyes taking in every single detail about her. She was never more attractive than in the moments when she was thinking about the freedom of the seas and the many adventures she could be having, and he was consciously aware of it.

"Only once, and then I was but an infant," she admitted, her smile fading. "I wish I could sail again, but my parents have kept me chained to this port."

"I left home a few years ago," he answered, fingering his bottle of rum, which was by now nearly empty. "I've been sailing ever since. Sometimes it gets to be a lonely life, but loneliness only makes you appreciate company even more."

He looked up at her and their eyes met. Slowly they both leaned in towards each other, but she turned her head at the last minute and his lips made contact with her cheek.

"My kisses are nothing to be taken lightly," she said, pulling away. She spoke seriously, but her blue eyes were dancing. "You have to earn them first."