**Author's note: It was pointed out in a review that Captain Cameron would have been of Scottish extraction rather than Irish; I was thinking of a Scottish father and an Irish mother. Just an F.Y.I. ;-) Happy reading!**
Indecisiveness was not a trait Amelia admired in anyone, much less herself, so as she stood only feet away from the doorway she'd watched Jack enter, she didn't bother taking the time to hash over consequences or outcomes. She followed.
Though the light outside was growing scarcer by the second, there was no light to speak of when she stepped inside. Blinking furiously to regain her bearings, Amelia held her breath, trying to hear in absence of sight. She heard voices, low and laughing, from somewhere in front of her, muffled by a wall or door. Blowing out her breath slowly, she closed her eyes and counted to ten, helping her eyes adjust. When she opened them again, she could see a bit more. A chair stood directly in front of her, and what appeared to be more than four floor-to-ceiling walls bisected the room in several places. She reached out a hand, still listening for the voices, and touched one of the strange walls.
A wall it wasn't, she realized with a gasp, but a bookshelf. Every wall she'd seen was a bookshelf, crammed from side to side and top to bottom with books and pamphlets. Forgetting her purpose for a moment, she walked down one shelf and turned to look at another and another and another, her eyes straining to read the titles on the well-organized books.
Hearing the voices—one the distinct slur she'd grown to enjoy and the other a dry, foppish voice—grow nearer, Amelia turned to escape, hide, anything. Amidst the dark myriad shelves, however, she couldn't figure out from which way she'd come.
"Damnation," she mouthed, keeping herself silent as she picked her way slowly shelf by shelf. She was finding her way out, she was certain, but she was also drawing nearer to Jack and his companion.
"Well, the distraction was certainly worth the small detour I had to take," Jack said, and the sound of coins clinking reached Amelia's ears. "I trust that takes care of my debt from last time and the multiple beauties you lavished upon me today."
She narrowed her eyes, pausing at a junction of shelves. Done already? she thought, her nose wrinkling. A feminine satisfaction followed, a catty thought all but purred in her mind. Well, he certainly wasn't that quick to be finished with me.
"That takes care of it at least twice over, Jack. 'Tis good y'are to yer old shipmate."
Jack laughed then, the sound turning its way through the bookshelves and distorting with each bounce. "It's hard for a man to find a good discreet book-dealer these days, Yancey. A discreet abbess is easy to find, but keep me in books and you have my business for life."
"However long that may be," Yancey said, his laughter joining Jack's in the stacks.
A slow, sick realization crept upon Amelia. "Books?" she said aloud, forgetting herself. 'Twas books he'd been speaking of?
At the new voice, small and feminine, Jack drew his pistol and stepped directly into the shelves, turning without error until he came face-to-face with the speaker.
"Amelia?" He leaned forward, all but nose-to-nose with her to be sure it was her.
"Books?" she repeated dumbly, staring at the volumes in his arms.
"I'm in hell," he said decisively, nodding curtly as he grabbed her arm and led her out of the shelves and toward the door. "Yancey, this is Amelia, the bane of my existence. Amelia, meet Yancey, whom you'll never meet again and absolutely shouldn't have met this time, he's a long acquaintance, old friend, tra-la-la, we'll be on our way now, Yancey, and I'll be depositing this poor, lost girl back at the orphanage where I found her, good day!"
Long past being surprised at any action of Jack Sparrow's, Peter Yancey settled himself back into the chair in the corner and closed his eyes with a smile. Even some land-bound days were interesting.
"You know, though I feel somewhat obligated to ask you what you are doing here, I've quite decided I don't care." Jack weaved through the streets without hesitation, dragging Amelia along in his wake.
"I thought… I thought you were doing something else." She felt like a bloody fool, was what she felt like. It seemed everything she did in regard to this man was wrong, and she was starting to decide there was no "right" with a man like Jack Sparrow, there was only what you felt like doing and didn't feel like doing.
Right now, she felt like killing the both of them, him and herself.
"You know, love, have you ever given thought to the thought that perhaps you think entirely too much? Because that's what I think." Letting go of her hand and tugging a book from under his arm, he tossed it to her, not looking back to see if she caught it. "There y'are, love, that one was positively written for you. It should be subtitled 'The Story of Amelia Hamilton.'"
The Taming of the Shrew. "I warrant you think you're clever," she said through grated teeth, but she held the book close to her as she ran to keep up.
"Ah-ah, beau'iful, we've a bit o' business to attend to." The voice snaked into her left ear as an arm wound around her waist and brought her to a halt. "'Ey, Cap'n. It looks like I finally got what I deserves." Daniel Carrington brought his face close to Amelia's and grinned. "'Ow's it goin', lovey?"
Amelia didn't scream and didn't struggle. She knew the sound of a man who liked a struggle, and so she kept perfectly still.
Jack turned, already having recognized the voice. He thought quickly as he moved slowly, knowing that Amelia would most likely be harmed if he drew a weapon now. He held his hands in the air, looking at his crewman jovially. "Hello, Danny. It looks like ye've taken a bit of trouble off my hands for me. Best, really, as she's too much for me to deal with."
"Ye're both no smarter'n a pair of fishes, if y'think no one would notice ye both missin' from the ship. And y'know, if 'twere that ye went missin' on yer little leave, the ship'd leave without ye. Too bad." He spat on the ground and brought red-rimmed eyes back to Jack's. "Even an idiot could figure out ye'd gone."
Amused, Jack crossed his arms over his chest and cocked an eyebrow at Daniel. "Though I'm disinclined to disagree, I wonder if you realize you more or less just declared yourself an idiot, Daniel?"
With a growl, Daniel propelled himself forward by a few steps, thrusting Amelia forward into Jack in an attempt to knock the captain off balance. Jack caught her by reflex, his eyes staring into hers for a brief moment before he turned his attention back to Daniel.
Amelia saw his eyes widen and his hand reach for his pistol. Gripping the book with both hands, she pivoted and raised it above her head just as Daniel's sword thumped into the cover. It took no more hesitation than that for Jack to have his pistol out and at the ready. Looking Daniel straight in the eye, he lowered his arm and sent the round directly into the mutineer's leg.
Even as Daniel fell, Jack was walking toward Yancey's door. "'Ey, Peter," he called, stepping on and over Daniel as though he were part of the sidewalk. "There's a bit of trash on your sidewalk out here, and he just so happens to be a known pirate. Can I trust you to turn him over to a bit o' red for me?"
Yancey appeared in the doorway like a specter and regarded the man lying screaming on the sidewalk with distaste. He heaved a large sigh and nodded. "I s'pose y'can, Jacky. Best you get on now." Reaching into his ragged vest, he drew out a gun, emptied the ammunition, and tossed it to Jack.
Jack dropped the gun on Daniel's chest as he turned and looked at Amelia. She stood looking at Daniel, her fingers tracing and retracing the groove his sword had cut into the Shakespeare. Passers-by were beginning to stop and look at the man bleeding on the sidewalk, and so Jack did what he was unequalled at.
He turned on the charm.
"'Ello, everyone. Don't mind my friend 'ere, e's had a bit of an accident, nothing what can't be remedied by a few days' rest, aye? Clumsy sort of lad 'e is, shot himself in the leg." Winking at a matronly woman who was trying to be covert in her nosiness, Jack spread his hands. "Move along, ye don't want him to be more embarrassed now, do ye?"
"What has occurred here?" The crowd parted as a man's voice rose over the din, the self-important voice of a man who obviously likes to hear himself talk.
But no one liked to hear themselves more than Jack Sparrow. "Bloody good thing you arrived, sir, as this man just shot 'imself! Poor oafish bastard. Bit o' the barrel fever methinks he's got, the pitiable bull calf. He'd drunk as an emperor," Jack exclaimed, then leaned down and yelled in Daniel's face as though the man were deaf. "Aren't ye, ye big dull-swift?"
The yelling was all it took for the soldier to take action. "Sir," he said coldly, eyeing first Amelia then Jack. "If you and your wife could please move aside. As… detailed… as your account of the matter seems to be, I think you've told me all I need to know. Now move along and let me take care of this man."
Jack kept his eyes wide as he nodded enthusiastically. "Right, then, I'd hate to be interferin' with your duties and all. 'Tis an important job you have." He reached out his hand as though to shake the soldier's, then whipped it back when the man reluctantly reached for it. "No, no, mustn't keep you any longer, sorry, beg your pardon." Turning his back to the now-bewildered soldier, he slipped his arm through Amelia's and began walking down the street, his steps so large it looked as though they were marching.
The last thing she should have felt like doing was laughing, but Amelia found herself stifling an outburst as they all but ran down the street. "I shouldn't laugh," she finally said. "Jack, we could have been in such a mess. I'm sorry." She stopped them, grabbing his arm. "I am, you know. Sorry."
Embarrassed by the apology and eager to see what had happened aboard the Pearl, Jack flapped a hand in a dismissive gesture. "Go on, love, it's no matter 'tall."
But he didn't say another word as they traveled back to the docks, lashed their boats together, and headed back to the Pearl.
