She'd asked if he was mad, and he was starting to think it was a possibility.
He'd never before bothered with being noble. If he'd come upon the pretty lass of a laundress months before, he'd have pinched her bottom and offered her an eventful tour of the docks. But he'd known poverty in his life, had worn clothes too small and eaten food well past good. He knew where she was coming from, though he'd tried hard to forget it. He leapt the planks and onto the ship in a few bounds, pacing the deck like a cat on the prowl.
"I could go back," he said aloud, nodding as though it were perfectly reasonable to converse with one's self. The ship was as empty, and as quiet as a tomb, every crew member undoubtedly taking their leave as he himself had intended to. Though he was loathe to admit it, Jack never quite trusted being on the Pearl by himself these days. Recalling masses of moving skeletons crawling across the deck and acutely feeling his own bones under his skin, Jack shuddered.
Tired of his own company and craving a woman as he craved the sea, he made up his mind to snag a bit more coin and head back out. Perhaps this time around, he could find a woman less pitiful than he had his first time out.
~~~
Amelia let herself into the tiny, falling-down cottage as quietly as she could, her eyes adjusting to the gloom inside. It took her only a moment to determine the place was empty, and she stepped fully inside, holding the pouch of coins tightly at her side.
There was nowhere to hide in the drafty dwelling, and nowhere to hide money. Amelia had found that out the hard way, day after day, week after week. Though she'd often contemplated just handing her wages over to Philip, she never did. And she never would. Glancing into the cracked and spotted looking glass that hung askew on the wall, Amelia shoved the pirate's gift in the bodice of her dress, pressing and pushing until it no longer left a telltale bulge. It wasn't safe, though. Philip had looked there before, and had been none too gentle about it.
Knuckling a tear away from her eye, Amelia thought about the man—he'd called himself Jack—who had staggered his way in and out of her pitiful existence within a matter of minutes.
She'd have disliked him in any situation, she warranted. She didn't trust men who made their lives on the water, be it legal or no. For that matter, Amelia Hamilton didn't trust the water itself. Her father had been a fisherman, taken away years ago by a storm, a sea monster, a giant fish, or whatever idiot fantasy her drunken mother had wanted to cook up at the time. Her drunken stories about the seas came back to haunt her. Taletha Hamilton had been all sheets to the wind when she herself had wandered down to the beach one night and passed out with a head full of spirits on a beach before high tide. Her fifteen-year-old-daughter had cried for hours in her room after it had happened, not because she was grieving, but because she was ashamed of her mother, and ashamed to be relieved at her death.
Now, nearly ten years later, the shame still lingered, now in the form of her twin brother, abusive and thieving, mistrustful and mistrusted. "Bastard," Amelia whispered under her breath, taking heart from the curse.
She had nothing to stay for, nothing to live for, and until now, she'd never had the means to leave. Fueled by the thought of the money at her breast, Amelia gathered the few things she still owned and ran out the door.
There was just enough time to get away, far enough away that he'd never be able to find her, never be able to lay another drunken fist on her again.
~~~
His spirits distinctly lifted by the renewed prospects of a companied evening, Jack sang under his breath as he re-checked every last rigging on the ship. The ship protected itself; that much he'd figured out long ago. No matter what the Pearl went through, it seemed to have a will of its own.
Satisfied that all was in order, Jack climbed back down to the dock, singing a bawdy number Anamaria was fond of crooning as she worked. He walked slowly, weaving from side to side with the ease of long habit, the rolling gait more at home on a ship than on dry land. Any passerby would have mistaken him for an inn-hopper, and worse, they'd mistake him for a fool. It was any easy mistake to make, and such underestimations had saved his life more than once.
There was someone else on the dock. He could feel it.
Fingering his compass with a calloused hand, the song on Jack's lips died, the rhythm replaced by a more staccato one. Footsteps, light and neat, trailing behind him by what sounded to be only paces.
"Well, then," he said, his voice low and dangerous, mingled with the lapping of the ocean. "Make yourself known. If we're lucky, I'll have killed you in minutes and can get on with my evening." No answer was returned to him, but the footfalls ceased. His heart now picked up the rhythm, steady but a bit faster. As he turned, the clouds shifted and a shaft of moonlight spilled across the deck, his eyes narrowed.
Not a skeletal waste of a cursed mutineer, after all, but a woman. The laundress. Fed up with his all-too-human display of fear and with the changes she'd already wrought in his evening, Jack crossed his arms over his chest and fingered his pistol suggestively.
"Love, such a fine lady knows she ought not go where she's likely to be harmed." He spoke softly, the tone conversational. He may well have been asking about the weather, inquiring about a relative, for all the concern in his voice. "I think it'd be best for you to turn about and carry your arse, small thought it be, off the docks. This is no place for the likes of you."
He was right about that, to be certain. Every glance she took at the water made her blood just a little cooler, her head just a little lighter. And now, faced again by this self-proclaimed captain, she could feel her heart knocking in her throat.
It's your only opportunity, she told herself firmly. If you don't take it, you're a fool as well as doomed. "I've a proposition for you," she said, her voice trembling.
Jack advanced several steps, seeing her inch back nearly imperceptibly. Color flooded in her cheeks suddenly, and he could see again why he'd bothered with her in the first place. She had fire, and fire was a rare thing for a waterman to find. It seemed the seas dampened fire too quickly. "Love, in case you didn't notice, I'm not a propositionin' sort of man. Now, you're uncomfortably close to my ship, and I be mighty particular about who comes close to her these days, savvy?" When she stood firm, he shook his head. "Ye're just askin' for trouble this fine evening, my dearie, wandering about all the rougher parts of town." His curiosity peaked, he stilled his ever-running commentary.
If Dr. Faustus could deal with the devil, she could deal with this man. "I did not want your money, sir," she said, keeping her eyes on his as she reached into her bodice and yanked out the pouch. "And so I'll thank you to accept the return of it. However, I have something to ask of you."
"I'm trig with answers, I am, but you know, I'm awfully busy this evening, having missed out on my first attempt at finding a lass for the night, so if you'll move it along, I'd be eternally grateful, and my gratitude is a wonderful thing, have no doubt." He turned on his heel and walked away from her with a smirk on his face, knowing she wasn't done with the matter at hand.
Women always followed him.
He walked only a few steps, his mind replaying the moment where she'd tugged his pouch from between her breasts, before he was brought short by a hand grasped in the cloth of his shirt, a large, sweaty face lowered to his.
"What do you think you're doing, y'worthless blackguard? Did y'take somethin' of hers? Be it that y'did, it belongs to me."
Jack raised his hands, keeping his eyes wide. The man didn't scare him, as he looked only a flagon away from a ten hours' sleep, but if he believed his prey to be frightened, he'd be much easier to deal with. "Why, hello there. I believe there's been a bit of a misunderstanding, see, because I am on my way into town to partake of—" Jack sniffed at the man's breath—"whatever it is you've been partaking of this evening. I took nothing from the young lady there, and so whatever it is of yours that she has, I've not seen it. However, I believe there was a man that went that way who may have had it." He gestured toward town. "He looked like a likely thief."
With an inarticulate growl, he tossed Jack aside and advanced toward Amelia, rage in his eyes. "You've a nerve, being away from home this late," he said, grabbing her arm and pressing his fingers into it roughly. Though she tried to bite it back, she cried out.
"It's a good thing," he continued, "That you have a brother to look after you."
