Rum and Persuasion
by Luvvycat

Chapter 2
Captain Jack Takes a Bath

Elizabeth eased open the cottage door. Holding the lamp aloft, and straining under the weight of Jack, whom she still clasped round the waist, she surveyed the room about her.

The cottage was simply furnished, the single large room being comfortably appointed with a plain plank table and two equally plain chairs at its centre, a basic bed and wardrobe against one wall, and a large fireplace dominating the wall opposite the door. The fireplace was designed to provide light and heat for the cooler Caribbean nights, and also served as a makeshift kitchen, for a fair amount of cooking could be done on its hearth. The cottage would never have served the needs of a full family, but it was quite well-suited as bachelor quarters.

Elizabeth deposited Jack in one of the two chairs, where he lolled like a marionette with its strings cut. She placed the lamp on the rough-hewn table, turned the wick up to increase the illumination, then retrieved two additional lamps from the mantel. Once the room was aglow with the flickering light of all three lamps, she set her efforts toward building a fire. Luckily, the groundskeeper had laid in an ample supply of firewood, neatly stacked beside the hearth, and before long, Elizabeth had a cosy blaze crackling in the grate.

Draping her shawl over the back of the second of the two chairs, she looked at the tidily-made bed ... then turned her sights to the eminently untidy pirate slumped in the chair. Her sensibilities quailed at the thought of sullying the crisp, clean sheets with Jack's decidedly unclean and malodorous body ...

A further search of the quarters revealed a large iron pot, which she quickly filled with buckets of water from the pump behind the cottage and set on the grate to heat. A sizeable wooden washtub, large enough to hold a grown man – presumably intended to serve as both bathing and laundry facilities for the occupant – was dragged in and placed before the hearth. She filled the washtub partway, alternating buckets of cool water from the yard pump with hot water from the pot, until the temperature was just right. She found bathing supplies – a stack of neatly-folded bath sheets and a small quantity of bar soap – in a small cupboard.

When all was ready, she topped off the pot on the hearth with more water, then went to Jack and carefully removed his sword, as well as the pistol and knife stuck into his wide belt, then bent to divest him of his boots, belt, sash and waistcoat.

She eyed the heavily soiled, voluminous shirt – which she presumed, ages ago, had once been white – considered for a moment, then with a shrug removed it as well. After all, having spent time on a pirate ship, it wasn't as though she'd never seen a man's naked chest before. Holding the shirt well away from her, as if fearful of contamination, she placed it in the cauldron and, borrowing Jack's knife, added a healthy dose of soap shavings to the hot water. At last, she had Jack down to nothing but breeches, and that was as far as she dared go ... he would just have to go into his bath as he was, breeches and all!

Now to the daunting task of manoeuvring him into the tub.

Elizabeth looked down at her dress, which was already somewhat worse for the wear from her struggle getting the dead-drunk Sparrow to the cottage. She was dismayed to discover that it was one of her favourite day-frocks, one her father had given her on her last birthday -- quite pretty and fragile, fashioned from layers of gauzy fabric and cut in the Grecian style, loosely-fitted with a draped rather than fitted bodice, one of the few dresses in her wardrobe she could wear without a tightly-strung corset.

In her frantic haste, she had had the misfortune to grab the least durable and most impractical dress she owned. As it was one of her father's favourites, and one he requested she wear with some frequency, she was reluctant to inflict further damage upon it. Should it get ruined, she knew her father would question its sudden absence from her wardrobe, and how then could she explain that?

Noting that Jack was still, for all intents and purposes, dead to the world, she sighed and started undoing the fastenings of the dress, until she was clad in only her loosely-laced corset and long, sturdy cotton shift. She draped the dress carefully over the chair already holding her shawl.

She looked down at the dozing pirate, and tried to determine the best approach to getting him into the tub. Stooping, she leaned close to Jack. The intensity of the stench clinging to him lent her the strength and determination to accomplish her task. Now that she had more ample lighting, she could actually see little bits of rubbish clinging to his dreadlocks. Perhaps he really had fallen into a dustbin!

Manipulating his boneless limbs, she managed to drape each of his arms over her shoulders, then wrapped both her arms around his waist. Leaning back again, she tried to use her weight to lever him into a standing position. It took a couple of attempts, but she was at last able to get him up and out of the chair.

For one heart-stopping moment, his greater weight almost caused her to fall backwards, but she quickly repositioned her feet, shifting her right leg back to serve as a brace. She swayed slightly as she worked to realign her centre of balance to accommodate the added burden of a second person, and for a moment they stood poised, locked in an awkward embrace like a pair of particularly inept, and slightly tipsy, dancers.

Slowly, bearing most of his weight, she "walked" him back toward the washtub, then eased him down until he was sitting on its edge. Supporting him with only one arm, she used her other to lift his leg over the edge and into the tub. She repeated the process to get his other leg in as well.

As his second foot hit the water, Jack came partially awake, but only long enough to shout slurringly, "Man the buckets, mates! We're takin' on water!" before his legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees, sending a small tidal wave of bathwater sloshing over the edge of the tub. From this kneeling posture, she was able to lean him back into a reclining position without much difficulty, his head coming to rest on the tub's lip.

She had finally managed to get the drunken pirate immersed in the hot water, but in the course of her efforts, she had become thoroughly soaked herself. Her drenched corset and shift clung to her feminine curves like a second skin, the water rendering the fabric translucent.

Looking down at her sopping wet clothing, she was suddenly reminded of the very first time she had met Captain Jack Sparrow – when, overcome by heat and unable to breathe due to her unbearably tight corseting, she had tumbled from the battlements of Fort Charles, into the sea. She would surely have drowned then, had not Jack plunged in after her, relieved her of the sodden gown whose weight threatened to pull them both to the bottom of the harbour, and hauled her safely back to the surface. Cutting her free from the constricting corset had, literally, returned breath to her body, and brought her back to life ...

Of course, that encounter had ended with Jack wrapping a manacle chain around her neck and using her as a hostage to try to make good his escape from the authorities. But, when it came down to it, he was a pirate, after all, so allowances had to be made ...

When she looked back at Jack, his eyes were still closed, and he looked all the world like he was sleeping rather than passed out in a drunken stupor. Unobserved as she was, she took the opportunity to give a more thorough visual examination of the pirate.

The face, now relaxed in rum-induced repose, was swarthily handsome – at least what one could see of it under facial hair, headwrap, and the mass of dreadlocks framing it. Though wiry in build, what muscles he had appeared to be hard and well-formed. She fought the temptation to touch him to find out if that was, indeed, the case.

Ever since that day on the rum-runner's island, when all her childhood illusions about the fabled Captain Jack Sparrow had been rudely shattered, she was mystified to find those illusions suddenly transformed into dreams of a decidedly more adult nature. She could not refrain from blushing as she recalled the role he had played from time to time in some of her more fevered fantasies and darker daydreams. Of course, she would never, ever admit that to anyone – especially not to Jack, who had a healthy enough ego as it was … or, for that matter, to Will, who would no doubt be wounded that any man other than him dared to enter her dreams!

Fantasies notwithstanding, she loved Will Turner, no doubt about that ... and had done so ever since first laying eyes on him – a half-drowned boy of twelve, fished out of the ocean that fateful day nearly nine years ago, when the Dauntless, en route to Port Royal, happened upon the burning wreckage of a merchant ship. The childhood affection they had shared had only transformed and grown stronger over the passing years. As far as she was concerned, Will was her One True Love.

But Jack intrigued her in a way that Will didn't. If Will was an open book to her, then Jack Sparrow was definitely a deep, dark mystery. That part of her that craved freedom, adventure, and worldly knowledge was, she had to reluctantly admit, powerfully drawn to the pirate. Though on the surface she had ever shown Captain Sparrow a face of disdain and disinterest, she couldn't deny the illicit thrill she felt whenever she turned to catch his exotic kohl-lined eyes regarding her with a more-than-casual interest, his crooked golden smile promising ... something ... beyond her wildest imaginings.

Will and Jack. The two, if she could somehow combine them into one person, would be the perfect man for her. But separately, each lacked certain qualities that completed her picture of the ideal mate. Would that Will possessed a bit more of Jack's spirit of adventure, his unpredictability, his innate cleverness, and Jack more of Will's sense of honour, his trustworthiness, his purity of heart.

At twenty-one, Will still had the shine of youth and a sea of endless possibilities stretching before him, while Jack – whom she reckoned to be about twice her age – was more worldly-wise and consequently had a much keener grasp on the realities of life. She could only guess at the things those dark, mysterious eyes had seen over the years.

And that stirred within her an insatiable curiosity.

Elizabeth had always been fascinated with pirates, as far back as she could remember, an enduring, almost obsessive love that stretched back even farther than her long-held affection for Will. As a child, she had been drawn to the romance of piracy, and had been particularly fond of the epic and fantastic tales concerning a certain near-legendary pirate captain and his magnificent and miraculous raven-sailed ship, the Black Pearl. She had always longed to meet a real pirate, and often imagined how it would be to sail under a pirate flag ... to experience the thrills, the danger, the excitement -- living on the edge, taking life as it came, without apology or regret, answerable to no-one and doing whatever she damn well pleased ...

Of course, now that she had spent some time on an actual pirate vessel, rubbing shoulders with real live (or, in some cases, real undead) pirates – some of those long-held girlish fancies had been cruelly dispelled by the cold harsh light of reality, the romance lost amid the horror of violent deaths witnessed, washed away in the tide of mortal blood spilled by men both good and evil.

But not all of those fancies had passed. They clung tenaciously, like a barnacle to a ship's hull. The same indomitable spirit that had led her to a lifelong fascination with pirates still dwelt in her breast, unquelled despite the rigours of their recent strange adventure. Oddly, she had never felt so alive, so exhilarated as when she was caught up in the throes of that adventure, danger and fear making the blood fairly sing through her veins. And, on some level, she knew the reason for that. Beneath the outer trappings of silk and lace, polite gentility and ladylike demeanour, beat the heart of a true pirate ...

And Captain Jack Sparrow seemed to recognise, acknowledge, and accept that, in a way that Will simply did not. Will had grown up with a deep hatred of pirates, little knowing that his father, in truth, had been one. And his rancour had been well-founded, considering it had been the Barbossa-helmed Black Pearl that had been responsible for the destruction of the merchant ship on which young Will had been travelling. Elizabeth had seen with her own eyes the black-sailed ship, rising like a phoenix out of the smoke and fog surrounding the burning wreckage, the Jolly Roger proudly displayed atop its mizzen mast ...

Sighing at the memory, she reached for a cake of soap, dipped it in the water, and had soon worked up a quantity of lather between her palms. She hesitated a moment, then tentatively reached out to gently soap the exposed portion of Jack's chest. As she did so, her fingers moved to trace the intricate and curious pattern of tattoos which adorned his chest, back, and arms.

With a boldness of which she never would have been capable, had the pirate been awake and aware, she allowed her soapy hands to explore the tanned topography of Jack's torso. Her touch found and lingered on the scars dimpling his flesh here and there, and she wondered briefly how he had received each one. She knew there must be stories here -- strange, thrilling, and perhaps tragic tales -- chronicled indelibly upon the living, mortal parchment of his skin.

When Jack had first shown her his scars, on the island on which they had been marooned by Hector Barbossa, he hadn't elaborated as to their origins, nor had she pressed him for explanations. She now regretted the lost opportunity. At the time, though, she had been filled with anger and disillusionment at having learned that the fantastic tales regarding his miraculous escape from the island had been naught but a tissue of lies. She had all but accused him outright of being a complete and utter fraud ...

"So," she asked him bitterly, still stinging at having her childhood fantasies ripped away, "Is there any truth to the other stories?"

His expression went dead and cold, and the look he gave her chilled her to the marrow. "Truth?" He pulled up his shirtsleeves to show her the brand on his right arm, the network of scars on his left, then drew aside the neckline of his shirt to reveal the ugly pitted remains of twin gunshot wounds in his right chest. He responded quietly, with cynicism in his eyes and sarcasm on his lips, "No truth at all ..."

In that one brief, shockingly revealing moment, she had learned more about Jack Sparrow than in all the rest of the hours spent in his company during that adventure. Though she had tried to dismiss him as nothing but a charlatan and a drunken buffoon, the scars told a much different, and much harsher, story about who Jack Sparrow truly was, and starkly illustrated the events which had helped shape his character.

Raising his limp right arm out of the water to wash it, she fingered the branded letter "P" on his forearm, and grimly considered how excruciating it must have been for him when the mark had been administered. Had he screamed in agony as his flesh sizzled under the red-hot brand, or borne it with silent stoicism, determined to deny his adversaries the satisfaction of seeing him succumb to the pain?

She shuddered at the thought. Perhaps it was best that she didn't know ...

His damp dreadlocks hung over the edge of the tub, and now she lifted them to loosen the knot of his ever-present bandanna. Removing it, she took a moment to rinse the soiled headcloth in the bathwater, wrung it out, then draped it over the edge of the tub nearest the fire to dry.

Looking with dismay at the daunting mass of tangled hair, she sighed. She picked out the largest bits of detritus with her fingers, then, cupping her hands, she dipped them into the tub and let the water pour slowly over his head, again and again. Once she had his hair thoroughly wet, she carefully started working lather into each of his braids, gently squeezing each spongy lock as she rinsed the soap out, taking pains not to dislodge the various beads and adornments intricately threaded into his hair. When she was at last done, she draped a bath sheet over his head, pressing each ropy strand to release the excess water.

As she reached again for the soap, it slipped from her fingers and dropped into the now-cloudy bathwater. Muttering a mild, thoroughly unladylike curse under her breath, her hand dipped below the surface, seeking, grasping. Her fingers brushed something ...

"Careful, luv. That's me, not the soap!" a murmur sounded low in her left ear. She gasped, drew her hand back, and turned to find Jack regarding her with bleary eyes from under his fringe of dark lashes. He lifted his left hand out of the water, revealing the cake of soap nestled within his palm. "Unless this is not what you were lookin' for ... then, by all means, do continue," he slurred with a somewhat lascivious grin.

She blushed a furious shade of red, thinking of her hands on his body just moments before, and wondering just how long he had been awake, aware, and watching her.

"Mmmm!" a moaning sigh rumbled deep in his throat as he closed his eyes, then slitted them open again to peer at her face. His brow furrowed in concentration, and he seemed to truly focus on her for the first time that night. "Elizabeth?" he drawled uncertainly. "Izzat you, darlin'?" He shook his head disbelievingly, sending his damp dreadlocks whipping around his face like Medusa's snakes. "Can't be! Mus' be dreamin'!" He looked down at his submerged body, then stretched his long limbs out so that his lower legs emerged from the bathwater. Perching his feet on the tub's edge, he wriggled his unshod toes experimentally, his brow wrinkling again. "Bu' is this my dream, or yours, luv?"

She decided not to disavow him of this notion. Let him think this was naught but a dream. Chances were, in his highly inebriated state, he would remember very little in the morning anyway. "Does it really matter, Captain Sparrow?"

"Well, luv, in the first place, I never bathe ..."

"That's pungently obvious," she interjected tartly.

"... with me breeches on. And second ..." His gaze fell upon her face again, and a dark light sparked in his black eyes. "... if t'was my dream, I wouldn' be here ..." His right hand splashed idly at the bathwater, as his eyes slid past her to fix on something beyond her. "I'd be there ..." He nodded toward the bed, and crooked a wicked grin. "... and I wouldn't be alone, if you take my meanin'!"

She turned to follow the direction of his gaze, and as she caught sight of the bed, her face reddened anew. "Captain Sparrow!" she cried in outrage. Flustered beyond reason, she reached across him in an attempt to snatch the cake of soap from his far hand, but with a prankster's grin he moved it just out of her grasp. "Captain Sparrow! Please!"

"Well, since you ask so nicely, how can I refuse? Besides, I love it when a woman begs ..."

As she stretched further and leaned over the tub, he caught her round the waist with a tanned, tattooed – but now squeaky clean – arm, and she suddenly found herself landing with a splash in the tub, atop the semi-naked pirate.

Elizabeth let out a cry of surprise and squirmed in his grasp, bracing her arms on the edges of the tub and arching her upper body away from Jack's, trying to free herself from his embrace. Unfortunately, in doing so, she had inadvertently presented him with a target he couldn't resist ...

She gasped as she felt the pressure of a warm, wet mouth against the swell of her bosom through the layers of dampened cloth. Despite herself, her breath caught in her throat at the unexpected sensation, and the resulting ripple of pleasure that trembled through her body caught her completely unawares.

Drunk as he was, her reaction nevertheless was not lost on Jack. Wrapping both arms now around her narrow waist, he raised his head to repeat the process on her other breast.

"Oh! Oh ... my!" she breathed. Her head swam, and for the second time in her life, she felt close to fainting ...

Her world shifted and tilted, and she suddenly found herself flat on her back next to the tub, with a soggy Jack Sparrow sprawled on top of her. Water dripped onto her chin from the little twin braids of his beard as he raised himself up on his arms to cast a gaze down her body then back up to her face.

"Forgive me, luv, but I was gettin' all pruny in there. Hot baths do that to pirates, you know ... we just shrivel and shrink right away." He lowered himself so that his face hovered just above hers. "Now, what say I thank you properly for your ... hospitality?" He breathed the last word in her face, and the overpowering scent of stale rum enveloped her. He moved in, angling for a kiss ...

Good lord! she thought to herself. Why is it every time we get this close, his breath is reeking of alcohol? An answering voice inside her head retorted, Oh, I don't know ... could it be because he never stops drinking?

With a sudden burst of strength, she heaved him off of her, scrambling to her feet as he landed on his backside. She stood in front of the fireplace, dripping wet, gulping in the breaths he had knocked out of her when he had landed on top of her. "Captain ... Sparrow! Would you ... please ... behave yourself!" she managed to gasp out.

"Sorry, luv, but what's a man to think, wakin' up with nearly all his clothes gone, and a beautiful, half-naked woman running her hands all over his body ...?" His deceptively lazy eyes twinkled with lust and mischief.

Bloody hell! she thought with dismay, and not a little embarrassment, he was awake ... "It was a perfectly innocent ... and may I say, long overdue ... bath!" she said, defensively.

"Not that I minded, mind you ... after all, believe it or not, this is not the first time that's happened to me. In fact, one time, in Singapore, there were these two bathhouse wenches ..." His voice trailed off as his eyes glazed over with the memory, and the leer that spread across his face was positively indecent. Then, with a start, he seemed to remember that Elizabeth was still there. "Well, let's just say it was two of the most memorable, and pleasantly exhausting, days of me life ..."

He assumed an apologetic air, the fingertips of his right hand pressed over his heart. "But I do tender my most abject apologies if I have in any way misinterpreted, misconstrued, or otherwise misjudged the situation, my dear Miss Swann. Far be it for me to offend your sensibilities, or cast aspersions on your most noble intentions," he said in a mildly mocking tone.

She could only glare at him as he scooted up into a sitting position on the floor, arms draped across his raised knees as he glanced around the room. "I don' suppose you have any rum 'round here. All this bathin' and such has made me curiously dry ..." His glance took in the nearly-empty rum bottle on the table. "Ah!" Rising from the floor, with a bit of difficulty, he staggered toward it.

"Captain Sparrow, I should think you've had more than enough rum for one night!" Anger won out over embarrassment. "What else would have caused you to appear on my terrace, in the middle of the night, singing at the top of your lungs ..."

"Did I?" his brow furrowed as he searched his recent memory. "Sorry, luv ... can' say as I recall that ..."

"I'm not a bit surprised," she said acidly, watching him tilt the rum bottle to his lips. "Did it never occur to you how dangerous it would be to come back here ... and what would happen to you, if you were caught? Have you forgotten that there is still a death sentence on your head, which James is determined to see executed?"

He flinched at the word executed, and held his hands up, as if fending off the barrage of her heated words. "Easy, luv ... easy."

"And here you are now, practically delivering yourself back into the hangman's clutches. Whatever could you have been thinking!"

"Considerin' I don't even recall how I got here, I'm not sure I'm capable of doin' any thinkin' right now." His gaze took in the room. "Where is 'here', by the way?" he asked.

"The Governor's Mansion – or, more specifically, the cottage of its groundskeeper," she explained.

"Ah ... then I'm back in Port Royal."

"Yes, of course." Elizabeth stared at him. Had he suddenly gone insane? How could he not know where he was?

His eyes widened as a thought seemed to penetrate his fogged brain, and he slammed the rum bottle down on the table. "But if they catch ol' Jack here, they'll hang me!"

She sighed in exasperation. "That's exactly what I've been trying to tell you, all evening!"

He jumped up and started quickly gathering his things. "Sorry to cut our tender reunion short, Lizzie luv, but I really must dash!"

"I'm afraid that is not possible right now, Captain Sparrow. Dear James – that's Commodore Norrington to you – has taken the liberty of posting guards around the grounds until morning ... for my safety and protection, you understand ... so we can't possibly get you out until they leave."

"I'm willin' to take me chances," he said, heading for the door.

She rushed past him, getting there just ahead of him, and flattened her back against the door, blocking his way. "But I'm not!" she said. "Will and I went through a considerable amount of trouble to rescue you from the hangman ... at great risk to ourselves, I might add! If you think I'm going to let you undo that …!"

"Move away, missy, or I'll move you m'self ... Gotta get back to the Pearl, and get the bloody hell out of here!"

"You see, that's the other problem. The Pearl isn't here ... James has already spied it, and gone in pursuit. So even if you were, by some miracle, able to elude the dozen guards closely watching this house and grounds, you have nowhere to go until the Pearl comes back for you ..." She smirked as she added, unkindly, "That is ... if it comes back for you!"

"Bugger!" he swore, his shoulders slumping in resignation, dropping his personal effects, with a clatter, onto the floor.

"So you see, Captain Sparrow – it looks like we're stuck with each other's company until the guards leave and we can get you safely away." She moved toward him, hands on her slim hips, jaw set, a look of stony determination on her face. "And I'm not letting you leave here, even if I have to sit on you all night ..."

His dark eyebrows rose at her words, and his impenetrable gaze swept her body from head to toe and back again. "Well, luv ..." he said, his voice low and deep, "when you put it that way, I s'pose I could think of worse ways to spend a night." Backing up slowly, his black eyes never leaving her face, he sat in the chair. "Anytime you're ready, luv ..." He leaned back with a suggestive smile, and patted his lap in invitation. "Sit away!"

She sighed and rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Oh, just shut up, and drink your bloody rum!"