"Oh please, oh please, Stella! This is important!"
The blond studied her friend's eyes, widened in pleading, so much like her own except for a subtle shade of blue, one dark royal and another like a sky. They were of a friend she did not want to say no to. Stella clung to little resolve because common sense had to prevail at least some day. "Don't ask me to do this again! I cannot believe we've gotten away with it once and you wish to repeat the experiment. Can you imagine the scandal?"
"I suppose you're right." Beatrice retreated across the room towards a piano and began leafing through a book innocently enough which convinced Stella that she won't give up. "Had the evening been truly awful?"
"I'm still trembling at the mere thought."
Beatrice touched the keys, giving life to romantic notes that filled the room and the heart. "It must have been my imagination when I saw you smiling, especially when the count was so attentive," her voice intertwined with the music. "Shame should the way he's been looking at you be lost."
"I don't know what count. There were so many," Stella answered, except the heat rising up to her cheeks betrayed a lie.
"The one who will be most disappointed to find me in your place."
"I highly doubt anyone in that room wanted me in your stead."
Weaving an intricate melody, Beatrice allowed her friend to reflect as the other approached the piano and leaned beside her to enjoy the melody regardless of all the protests. The question bubbled up until she couldn't withhold it.
"How exactly has he been looking at me?"
Beatrice titled blond head slightly, unwilling to conceal her mirth and Stella knew that once more she's been beaten.
Greedy eye raked over every inch of the opulent mansion like he wanted to strip it down to the nails. "Nice place! Do we get to rob it?" Ragetti exchanged teary-eye glance with Pintel like their suffering years of waiting for the captain to shower them in riches finally paid off.
In response, Jack pressed an expressive assembly of a pink apron and a broom into the pirate's hands. "No," he cut down their expectations. "That wouldn't make sense."
The comment wiped out two satisfied grins.
"So," Pintel clarified, "The point of dressing into female garb that should assist with getting past very dangerous guards in order to get inside the gold and jewel encrusted mansion is NOT to expropriate the riches?"
Jack took a deep breath like he intended to dive into lengthily and entirely satisfactory explanation. "Give me a favor," he said, leaning in like a conspirator, "Try not to horrify, scare, terrify or otherwise frighten anyone prematurely once we're inside."
Leaving the other to encrypt what that means, he headed towards the mansion pursued by Ragetti's whisper, "So, why are we going to be doing the house work?" followed by the sound of someone punching somebody in the face.
As much as it was dubious whether the duo were help or hindrance, reaching the whelp locked up in the basement promised to be harder than getting to him the first time. Jack also risked much by carrying a certain item on his person, if in all fairness that was the safest place, upon which rested success of the entire plan.
Tripping over the dress hems, burdened with brooms and buckets, the pirate-maidens resembled a giant, rattling turtle that rolled towards two astounded East Trading Company goons.
"House cleaning inspection!" Ragetti announced in a high-pitched, feminine voice.
"I've never heard of such thing," the goon confessed as the gaudy woman closest to him suddenly lifted her face that was covered with a bonnet down to her nose and two malicious eyes glowing yellow peered at him from its shadow.
"Oh, it's a local specialty," the ghoul announced and clobbered him over the head with the bucket just the second ghoul mirrored the action. Jack delicately tiptoed past the pileup, borrowing only the key. He avidly motioned the pair to hide the unconscious men.
Knowing the whelp's habit of prematurely clubbing unexpected visitors over the head, he nudged the door open and instantly leapt aside. Contrary to anyone startled by the jail being flung open without a visible man who unlocked it, James did not voice any questions. Tiredness clung to him as he emerged cautiously from the basement, but in no way was he defeated. Jack saw the air of steel determination as if being locked up for three days aged the boy several years.
"If you want my further assistance, you must first provide a truthful explanation why you want me to contact the duke. Secondly, should the first be to my satisfaction, I will need help in removing Lord Beckett from the scene because he never leaves his Excellence's side," he spoke at the sight of a widely grinning captain.
"Mate, you wound me with the lack of a basic greeting when it's customary to thank your savior."
"Thank you," chilling tone could have re-frozen the ice as James brushed past the captain, going off into unknown direction, however, with a strong purpose.
"You do realize that the only way from here is back to the basement unless you cooperate," Jack stated, tiptoeing after James.
"I will never return to this basement again or to this family. I cannot abide when they destroy my friends and my freedom."
Expressed sentiment struck a chord. This was no whelp. This was a man, and a dangerous one at that, who had a short, difficult life that smarted quickly. Something happened that made him give up on a diplomatic solution with his family. As someone who divided the world into black and white, by default they because his enemies to be treated linearly as such.
"Your coveted and no longer recognized relation committed an act that would be enough to bring any hard working, law abiding, aside from the act itself, man to the gallows. If you are looking for ways to trim his influence on your future, it will be in your undivided interests to bring the evidence of this act to a figure holding greater authority than the culprit."
James stopped, which Jack used to the advantage of sliding a letter held in between two fingers over young man's shoulder. "The evidence's right here," Jack whispered, "in a thing so small that can fundamentally alter lives of so many should a trustworthy man pass it to the Duke. Just knowing about it is enough to get a man killed."
James reached for the letter, stopping when his fingers touched the envelope. "You're wrong to assume that I'm looking for revenge. I'm looking for justice."
"It's surprising how blurred the lines become, which slights justice whenever a man is convinced that he's right."
James gripped the letter tight. "I'll risk taking it into my own hands."
Jack relinquished it into his possession.
He took it as an ill premonition when Mercer intercepted him at the entrance of the Duke's mansion. Lord Beckett motioned his sons to proceed to the ballroom while he received the news. Mercer was brief.
"I couldn't arrange for Evans to speak with you. He had to contend with me."
"What did he win in the exchange?" said Beckett ironically.
"Death," said Mercer unperturbed. "He died in fear. He died in pain."
"I'm only interested in what he divulged before dying," Beckett spoke like he intended to tax in gold every moment of his valuable time wasted by the other.
"He claimed to have passed a sealed and signed confession letter to a man named John Fisher in jail right under the guards' noses. They've confessed to chasing away some fishy rascal a week ago. The description fits Jack Sparrow."
"I should hope you've located either the letter or the captain after several days."
"Neither."
"That's not good, Mr Mercer," fury seethed under sternly controlled tone. "That's not good at all. He never showed up to negotiate his demands, whereas several days should have provided an opportunity, which means he intended this letter for someone else." Beckett considered his long list of enemies, estimating which one would want to raise ashes of the past scattered by the wind over ten years.
"Your stepson would stand to gain the most."
"I can handle my stepson."
Mercer didn't object. He had other suspects. "The captain still hasn't left the island. Whoever the receiving party is, they're also here."
Beckett threw at the assassin a look of contempt reserved for those failing in their duties that served as a final warning. "Find them and find the means to keep them silent as a grave."
As Mercer disappeared from his side, Beckett weighted out the options and then turned away from the mansion in favor of calling for the carriage. Intuition screamed that whoever was digging a grave for him was not in pursuit of trivialities such as money or an advantageous deal. They wanted to remove him from power.
He may have dismissed the notion vindictively, however, the voiced suspicion about his stepson threatened to rob him of cool detachment through which he regarded the world. He ignored James ever since locking him up with full confidence that no one will look for him.
"My Lord? Where should I take you?" The carriage driver hadn't expected to see his master before midnight.
"Take me back to my residence as fast as possible," Beckett ordered.
The letter, marred by multiple smudges, was written in wavering hand. Pushing aside the shame of reading what wasn't addressed directly to him, James decrypted unsteady lines that had no mistakes, while the writer's voice belonged to an educated man to whom life had dealt an unmerciful hand.
Let no man be the judge of this confession. The choice between my daughter and a patient from whom I've seen kindness was punishment enough.
Raised by merit, I was the best doctor in the region, which opened doors to noble homes. Ten years ago, a day I remember better than this one, I've been called on by a maid to Lady Eleanor Norrington. The girl was frightened. The way she stuttered that her mistress is badly ill raised my suspicion that she appealed to me without her master's permission. I've known the family when Admiral Norrington was still alive, though that connection deteriorated since the Lady's second marriage. Thus, I've packed my bag and went to see her, putting aside those reservations.
Another doctor might have missed the subtle cause of ailment, but my examination proved it was no natural disease. I've gathered tools with reassurance to the Lady that I will work on the cure as there was no need to alarm her in such weakened state, intending to bring my findings to the magistrate. This impulse faltered outside the bedroom when I was approached by her husband. Lord Cutler Beckett assured me that another doctor already informed him about the horrific reason of her illness. He asked that I allow a constable he hired to proceed with an investigation. It was a private matter, which once turned to the magistrate would become public and cause unnecessary social discontent. In solidarity with a man whose closest relative also suffered, he offered a rare medicine unavailable in England, but obtainable with the help of the East Trading Company. I was astounded that he knew the bitter irony of my circumstance when a doctor couldn't cure his only daughter. It was plain that only complete silence in the matter as well as stepping aside to allow his doctor to find the cure for the Lady will guarantee the exchange.
I wish I had known true price of silence when I took the slim chance of curing the Lady away. She died two days later. My daughter, in spite of the medicine, died a year and a half later. This is when the news reached me of my colleague's death. A man with guilty conscience is suspicious of everything. Through my connections with the magistrate, I've learned that his death was suspicious, but someone removed all evidence. I also found out that there had never been an investigation regarding Lady Norrington's death. The man who knew something about it died under strange circumstances. Thus frightened, I fled England; as it turned out not in vain. For eight long years that brought me to the bottom of society I've been a hunted man and I know why.
Lord Cutler Beckett poisoned his wife.
For bearing this secret, the death's been on my heels. I can no longer outrun it.
God have mercy on my soul.
Doctor Evans.