Braving the Flames
Chapter 10
Disclaimer: Here's a big surprise. They aren't mine. Can you stand the shock?
They descended the stairs to supper an hour later looking only slightly ruffled. Elizabeth gave them a suspicions look and remarked, "I expected you to come back down, Edward."
"I got caught up in a book up in my room," he told her.
Diamond gave him a wink that said she knew better, Elizabeth gave them a suspicions look, Will shrugged rather indifferently, and Jack grinned maliciously. "What book?" the pirate asked.
"I beg your pardon?" Norrington asked, caught off guard.
"I said--ow! Leave off, wench," Jack ordered Diamond, who was viciously elbowing him. "I said what book were you reading?"
"Oh, um, the Iliad," he answered a bit too hurriedly as Pearl rolled her eyes.
"You would have read a classic like that many times, I'd imagine," Jack remarked. "Must be very good if it still gets you."
"Yes, well, as you said, it is a classic."
Supper passed amiably enough after that, mostly thanks to Diamond, who elbowed Jack every time he opened his mouth. "Can't keep your hands off me tonight, can you luv?" he asked as he rubbed at his battered and bruised arm.
"Oh, aye. You're just far too charming for me," she returned sarcastically.
The group sat up to chatter away in the library for an hour until the need to sleep overtook them one by one. Pearl was the first to retire, followed by the Turners. Jack and Diamond were both still reading by candlelight when Norrington went up to bed, watching him a bit too anxiously for his comfort. To his credit he only paused a moment before Pearl's door before moving on to his own room.
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For years to come Edward Norrington would count the next month as the happiest extended amount of time in his life. Pearl grew steadily better. She joined their sword fighting, steadily winning more and more matches as she regained her grace and muscle. While she never did beat Will fairly she did have claim to a good half of the wins when she took Norrington on. She took long walks every day and rarely napped. She regained her old energy, and her old shape as the muscle came back to her. As Norrington remembered his plan to ride each day it became a habit for most of the group (Jack stubbornly maintained that he would never ride anything but waves) to spend some time on horseback. Pearl pleasantly surprised him by being a capable rider, something he could not say of Elizabeth, Will, or Diamond although they all managed to remain mounted. Pearl had a love for the horses that sometimes seemed to border on empathy.
As time went on Diamond took to staying in the house with Jack. There was something between them, Norrington was certain of it now. They spent a great deal of time together, and their eyes seemed to meet far more often than a person would expect. They flirted with one another, the same as always, but there seemed to be a passion to it that surprised the Commodore.
Rose and David made regular stops in the afternoon to devour biscuits and entertain the adults with pirate stories.
And Norrington and Pearl flirted. It was overt at best; a glance here, a brush of the hand there. Diamond always seemed to catch them at it, giving them a smile of approval, and Elizabeth would give them suspicions glances from time to time, but they enjoyed it all the same.
It seemed every other night Norrington found himself drawn to Pearl's room, or found her waiting in his. Somehow she had convinced him that he had already sinned enough that a few more wouldn't really be that much worse. And she constantly reminded him that all too soon she would be well enough to return to the ship.
It alternately tore at his heart and delighted him to see her regain her former self. And finally the night came when Jack announced that they should pack the next day and leave the day after. "Can't leave the ship for too long," Jack remarked. "I may trust my crew, but it doesn't do to ask for trouble. Asides, I miss my mistress. The sea, she's a demanding one."
"And I've not made any money in a long while," Diamond put in. "Who knows what trouble Ruby's managed to get herself into by now."
"Mister Brown has probably made a sufficient mess of the shop by now," Will remarked with a sigh.
"I should return as well," Norrington said. "Put Port Royale back into some semblance of order." But disappointment rang clear in all their voices.
The next day was spent in a mass confusion of packing, maids running from one end of the house to the other.
As evening approached, just when Norrington thought he was about to go positively stark raving mad, a harried-looking maid approached him to announce that a carriage was coming up the drive.
"A carriage?" he repeated. "Who is it?"
"I assure you I do not know, sir, but it appears they have come some distance."
His eyes widened suddenly. "No. Surely not." He stood from the chest he was packing to rush down the stairs, chanting to himself, "No, no, no, no."
Surely enough he pulled open the front door just in time to see his future wife step out of the carriage. "I'm dead," he sighed, resting his exhausted head against the door.
"Edward!" He looked up just in time to catch the excited redhead as she threw herself into his arms. She hugged him enthusiastically before pulling away, nearly bouncing with excitement. "Are you surprised to see me?"
"I...yes. You have no idea how surprised."
She giggled. "It wasn't easy, of course. Father didn't want me to go without a proper chaperone. My brother shall be here in a few days. I told him you were a man of good with proper morals and surely he could trust us together for a few days."
"Surely," he answered numbly, the high recommendation haunting him already.
"May come in?" she asked cheerfully. "It was frightfully hot in there."
"Of course. You must forgive the mess. We planned to leave tomorrow."
"You'll stay now that I'm here, won't you?" she asked, toying with a large emerald hanging around her neck.
"Of course," he told her with a smile that made her face light up.
"I've the best Fiancé in the entire island," she commented, pecking him on the cheek.
"You're too kind," he informed her, looking around for a maid. Perhaps he could get a quick message to the Sparrows to behave themselves. If he didn't--
His heart sank as he heard shouts and the sound of clashing swords. Praying Will and Jack had crossed swords over something he turned with Maggie to look at the top of the stairs.
His luck failed him yet again as Pearl appeared with her father, both in full pirate garb he noted with an internal groan, sword clashing violently. He hadn't noticed how much of the pirate had come back, the transformation had happened so slowly, but Jack now looked almost entirely the way he had when he first set foot in Port Royale, minus the beads and heavy eyeliner.
Norrington knew they were just blowing off steam, but to someone inexperienced with such matters, such as Maggie, it had to look like a furious fight. Both were so involved in the match they failed to notice the spectators below.
Jack skillfully pushed Pearl back toward the stairs. At the last moment before he forced her to tumble down them Pearl switched the sword to her left hand, grabbed the twisted marble panicle on the banister, and pulled herself around it to hack at Jack from the other side. He stumbled back to avoid the hasty jab before returning the attack.
Rather than engaging Pearl spun, planting one booted foot on the railing and pushing off with the other. Maggie cried out, and Norrington nearly echoed her, as the girl skated down the curved rail on one foot with a great deal of arm waving to retain her balance. She hopped off at the first landing, spinning to meet her father who had clomped down the stairs after her. Turning away his attack she hopped backward onto the rail again. This time, however, she jumped backward, landing in a practiced crouch on the thick rug.
This time Maggie screamed in truth, causing Pearl to turn and reflexively raise her sword against an unseen attack. Naturally, this only made matters worse. Frightened in truth Maggie screamed again, shrinking back against Norrington.
"Twenty gold says she's a noble," Jack remarked from the landing as Pearl put her sword away with a heavy sigh.
"What was your first hint?" she called up to her father. "The shrieking, the silk dress, or the jewel the size of southern Jamaica around her neck?"
"Mostly the shrieking," he answered, putting his sword away.
Pearl, ever the dramatist, stepped forward to give the woman a very proper bow. "Margaret Neats, I presume."
"How do you know that?" she asked, eying the girl with confusion.
Pearl shrugged. "Lucky guess. Showoff," she added to her father as he jumped down behind her, sword safely away.
"That's Elizabeth's uncle," Margaret said. "Does that make you Bethany Maltrey?"
"Yes," Pearl answered with a grin. "And at the same time an overwhelming no. Very long story." Her eyes strayed up to Norrington's, questioning. "How much do you trust her?"
"I'm going to marry her," he said defensively.
Pearl shrugged. "You asked me to marry you, and you should never trust a pirate."
"Pirate?" the girl asked.
"Yes. And at the same time an overwhelming no," Pearl replied.
"I trust her," Norrington put in.
"Enough to tell her?" Pearl asked. "The whole truth?"
"Of course."
Pearl nodded. "Let's sit in the library then. Can't have her fainting away and hitting her head on the marble."
"Oi! Wait!" Jack cried. "This is my neck you're putting in the noose too."
"Are you afraid of the poor little noble?" Pearl asked her father.
"Aye! When she can get me hung!"
"Don't worry about it. If they did try to hang you you know I would swing in and save you."
"Right. But I'd prefer you not having to swing in and save me."
"I won't," she promised as she led the group into the library.
"Are they, um, balanced?" Maggie whispered to Norrington.
"No," Norrington sighed. "I'm afraid they're both fairly mad. Fortunately they aren't dangerous," he added quickly.
Maggie shook her head. "I think I'm going mad."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Jack remarked, wrapping an arm around the woman's shoulders, earning a confused look from the woman. "I find madness is actually a much more comfortable state of being."
"Jack, kindly unhand my future wife," Norrington ordered.
Jack gave him a thoughtful look, pretending to seriously consider his request, a grin slipping onto his face to reveal how thrilled he truly was at thoroughly annoying the Commodore.
"Jack!" Pearl finally snapped. "I appreciate teasing Edward as much as the next person but not at the expense of sweet, innocent girls. She's no Lady of Tortuga."
Jack nodded. "Well said, Fledgling," he remarked, releasing Maggie to take a jittering step, dancing to a tune apparently hidden in his own head, moved to loop an arm around his daughter's shoulders.
"Stop calling me that," Pearl ordered. "We'll be back on the ship soon, and you know I have enough trouble getting the sailors to take me seriously."
"Being taken seriously is seriously overrated itself," Jack announced.
Pearl rolled her eyes as they reached the library. She seated herself on one of the small couches on the end nearest another couch that made a right angle. Norrington moved to seat himself on the end of the second couch nearest her but Pearl held out her hand to Maggie, seating her close enough to retain ownership of her hand. With a mental shrug Norrington took the seat next to his future wife as Jack sprawled onto the couch next to his daughter, propping his boots up on the table before him.
"First things first, I suppose," Pearl began. "You should know straight off that I'm not Bethany Maltrey. Well, I am, but not really. There is no Bethany Maltrey, just me in silk skirts, a brown wig, and a veneer of proper manners and rich upbringing. My real name is Pearl Sparrow. And this my father, Jack." Jack, who had thrown his head back and tilted his hat down over his eyes, merely waved at the mention of his name.
"Like the pirates?" Maggie asked in obvious confusion.
"Hmm. Quick one here. I'm impressed, Edward. Not your average noble," Pearl remarked. "Exactly like the pirates, as point of fact. It's a very long story, but I've helped Edward out of a tight scrape a time or two."
"I would have managed on my own," Norrington put in.
"Oh, aye. You would have managed to get yourself run through is what you would have managed to do," Pearl informed him. Leaning toward Maggie she added in a conspirative tone still loud enough for both men to hear, "You'll learn eventually how to handle their rampant ego. You need to learn to either pet them continually and tell them how lovely they are or put them in their place. They're the world's most insecure creatures in the world, men are." Maggie looked at her in obvious confusion, glancing back at Norrington on occasion, unsure whether to laugh or agree or disagree. The rules of proper manners were failing her entirely.
"You're hardly one to talk," Jack saved the poor girl by informing Pearl.
"Yes, well, my father raised me poorly," Pearl snapped back at him. "Anyway, when I turned up sick Edward agreed to give me the use of his country house to recover."
"That was very kind of you," Maggie remarked to Norrington.
"Yes, well, it was the least he could do, really, after I saved his life and all. That's the long and short of it, really. I'm well now, so we're heading back out."
"Yes, of course," Maggie remarked, looking down at her clenched hands.
"I like her," Pearl remarked to Edward. "She's a good choice. Quick wits, this one. Stronger than most powdered finery. I'm impressed."
"Thank you," Maggie said. "I think. But how can you know all this? You've only just met me."
"Elizabeth, in part," Pearl said with a smile. "But mostly I see it in your eyes. I was raised in Tortuga. I know a thing or two about reading people."
Maggie swallowed convulsively. "Tortuga is real?"
"As I am," Pearl answered with a smile. "You thought it was a figment of some housewife's imagination?"
She nodded. "I have heard such things about that place. That it is teaming with houses of ill repute and taverns."
"Stop, you're making me homesick," Pearl sighed, wiping a fake tear from her cheek as Jack chuckled.
"You aren't, that is, a woman of, that is, I don't wish to insult you, I'm sorry. I should not have asked."
"Not at all," Pearl answered flippantly. "No, I'm not a prostitute. My mother is, and my sister, but I'm making enough as a pirate to avoid that particular eventuality."
Maggie stared at her in amazement. "I apologize. I do not wish to upset you."
"You aren't," Pearl answered. "Speaking the truth very seldom upsets me, and you do deserve answers. I would say you are being miraculously patient."
"I am glad you think so," she said, eyes suddenly drawing down to her hands. "I would ask you something if I thought I had the courage, that would most likely ruin your high opinion of myself."
Pearl laughed, her strong boisterous laugh that rang up from deep in her throat that removed any doubt of there being a Lady hiding in the pirate. Maggie seemed startled by this, jumping just a bit and looking at the woman in concern. "Maggie, darling, I'm the daughter of a pirate and a prostitute. There is very little you could say that would trouble me, and I doubt you've seen enough of the world to know any of it. Ask. I promise not to be angry."
Maggie went back to wringing her hands. "I just wished to know, that is, if you and Edward were, had been, that is, so to speak, intimate."
The last word came out in a rush. Pearl's eyes moved to Edward's. "Recently, or are you asking about when I knew him before?" Pearl asked. Then she dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. "Never mind, the answer is the same."
Leaning forward Pearl took Maggie's hand, looking deeply into her eyes. "Do you want the truth, or do you want me to tell you what you wish to hear? Because that is all most nobles would accept."
"I want the truth, of course," she answered.
Pearl nodded, drawing back with a smile. "Aye, I believe you do, and that is what I will give you. Before I answer you, however, I must make something perfectly clear. Edward did love me, when he first met me. Or proclaimed that he did. He asked me to marry him. His intentions were incredibly pure. I fear that's something I cannot claim. Yes, Margaret my dear, I fear I have been with your future husband." Her eyes widened and her head whipped around to study Norrington, who was suddenly very interested in a speck on his trousers. "You mustn't blame him, Maggie. It was all my doing. I fear I did a good deal of seducing, and being a prostitute's daughter I am frightfully adept at it." Jack snorted, and Pearl kicked at his shin before reclaiming Maggie's hand. "Promise me, Maggie, please, that you won't blame him. It isn't the sort of thing he does on a regular basis. And he will be true to his word. He will marry you and you shall be infinitely happy. And if it makes you happy, I'll swear never to touch him again. Once a man is joined in marriage I won't tear that apart."
"Thank you," Maggie remarked. "For that. And for being honest with me."
Pearl nodded. "We'll let you talk," she remarked, hitting her snoozing father before standing to leave the room. "But remember what I said. Every word of it is true. You couldn't find a more secure man to marry, not if you searched the world over. You're a lucky woman, Maggie, and I envy you."
The pirates left the room, leaving a very uncomfortable Commodore with a very confused woman. "I'm sorry, Maggie," he finally said.
"Do you love her?"
He sighed. "Yes. And part of me always will. But she couldn't be happy as my wife, and I wouldn't be happy with her as a wife."
"Do you love me?"
"I'm beginning to, I believe. I will more fully in time, I'm certain. I want to marry you, I know that."
Maggie's gaze went to the door. "She's interesting."
"She is that," Norrington agreed with a laugh.
Maggie nodded. "All right then."
"All right what?" Norrington asked.
Maggie shrugged. "Just, all right. Let me help them off and we'll start planning our wedding."
"You still want to marry me?" he asked.
"Of course," she answered. "What she said is true, Edward. You are loyal. When you were alone with her you had every reason to owe her your loyalty. Now that I am here, when we are married, then I shall have that. I see no reason to worry."
"Oh, Maggie," he sighed, sweeping the girl into a hug. "Thank you."
When they left the room a maid informed them that supper was waiting for them. The couple walked into a room bursting with noise. Jack and Pearl were arguing, as usual, over something completely inconsequential--Norrington had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the china. Elizabeth and Diamond were trying to calm them down (Will had apparently given up long before) although Elizabeth seemed to be doing more joining in the arguing than actual calming anyone down. Maggie surveyed the scene with wide eyes.
Elizabeth noticed them first, jumping from her seat with a gasp to run over and hug the girl with a cry of "Maggie!"
"You didn't tell them she was here?" Norrington asked Pearl and Jack.
Pearl shook her head. "This is much more fun."
"Wait, this is the strumpet that is stealing my daughter's love away from her?" Diamond asked.
"Mother!" Pearl cried. "I'm the strumpet that's trying to steal him away from her."
"You had him first," Diamond argued.
"And she has him now. Besides, she's quick, but I don't think she's cunning or ruthless enough to be a strumpet."
"You'd know," Jack remarked. "Oi! Stop that!" he added as Pearl's dinner knife suddenly embedded itself in the table a hair from his left hand."
"It slipped," Pearl informed him, glaring across the table as Jack attempted to wrench the blade from the wood.
"Would you please stop attempting to murder my furniture?" Norrington asked.
"No," Jack and Pearl chorused, punctuated by a thunk as Jack finally removed the knife and embedded it in the table just short of Pearl's right arm. Not even blinking, Pearl wrenched the knife from the table and began cutting up her ham with it. "She started it," Jack said defensively when Norrington glared at him.
Maggie stared at the table in horror, looking wide-eyed up at Elizabeth. "Could both of you please PRETEND to be civilized?" Elizabeth demanded. "You're frightening Maggie."
"No," they chorused again.
"I'll see to it they behave," Diamond promised. "Come sit, my dear. I apologize for them."
"Can we look forward to good weather tomorrow?" Will asked as the gentry seated themselves.
"Yep. Rain will start up day after tomorrow. We'll be well home before we even see clouds," Pearl promised.
"So, Maggie, what news from the Port?" Elizabeth asked.
As Maggie began prattling on about the latest gossip Jack and Pearl settled into a serious discussion of the benefits of certain rigging. Norrington put in his thoughts from time to time.
The discussion ended suddenly when Jack announced, "Well, it's my ship, and I'm the Captain, and that's all there is to it." Pearl responded by flinging a spoon full of potato, complete with gravy, directly into his face.
"Pearl!" Elizabeth and Diamond cried at once.
"What? That was a perfectly-well formed and thoroughly thought-out response," she defended herself.
A large amount of mashed carrots embedded itself in her red curls, bringing a dangerous gleam into her eye. "So is that," Jack announced.
"Jack!" Diamond and Elizabeth cried together.
"That's Captain Jack to you," he replied easily.
"You know, some day they're going to realize that screaming our names does no good," Pearl remarked.
"Heaven only knows what they'll do then," Jack remarked.
A mass of tomato soup dripped suddenly down Jack's freshly laundered white shirt. "Give you a taste of your own medicine," Elizabeth said, polishing her spoon on her napkin.
"That was pretty good aim for a Governor's daughter," Pearl remarked.
"Maggie, dear," Diamond whispered as the gathered people began to glare at one another.
"Yes?" she whispered back.
"Under the table, now," she hissed, grabbing the girl's hand and diving just as various vegetables began to fly.
Chortling evilly Diamond's hand reached up onto the table to retrieve her plate. "What are you going to do with that?" Maggie asked.
"If you can't beat them, darling, you may as well join them," Diamond answered with a shrug. "And stay out of the line of fire while you do."
"Hey now, no fair cheating," Jack announced, flinging potatoes onto the two crouched girls.
"Let them hide, or at least Maggie," Pearl called. "A prissy noble girl like her probably couldn't hit the broad side of a navy destroyer."
"Only one way to prove her wrong," Diamond remarked with a grin as she offered her the plate.
A bit hesitantly she picked up a piece of roast beef dripping with gravy and grease.
Lifting her head above the edge of the table she quickly hefted the piece of meat at the grinning pirate woman. It landed on her chin, sliming its way onto her shirt and falling to the floor with a final splat.
"I stand corrected," Pearl remarked. "I'm impressed."
The remark was followed closely by a large amount of peas, only half of which bounced off, the other half remaining mired in various remnants of previous ammunition. "Be careful how you talk about broad groups like nobles," Elizabeth remarked.
Diamond took advantage of the distraction to loft her bowl of cooled tomato soup into Jack's face. "What about bloody old pirates?" she asked.
"Or nasty Tortuga whores," Jack returned, dumping the contents of his entire plate onto Diamond's head.
Maggie squealed in pure joy as she tried to protect herself from what missed the woman or flew off of her. She squealed more loudly as Pearl, forgotten by Jack and Diamond as they focused on one another, as well as Elizabeth and Will who were busy smashing potatoes into each other's hair, suddenly appeared around the table to pelt the helpless girl with carrots. She returned fire with the chocolate pudding left on the table as Norrington tried to protect his future wife, mostly getting in the way of the pudding himself.
They stopped short when a sudden scream from Jack cut through the laughter. He was collapsed into the chair, trying to roll himself into a ball. Diamond had apparently grabbed her hot cup of tea and poured it into his lap.
"That be me favorite body part, you bloody whore," he cried at her.
"Which makes it the perfect target," Diamond responded. "Stop your whining. It isn't that hot."
"Hot enough," Jack responded. "I seem to recall you enjoying this particular organ yourself."
Diamond chortled, ignoring Maggie's stricken look. "Indeed, but I do that for a living, so I know a thing or two about that organ myself. And I can assure you that you will come to no permanent harm. Think of that next time you call me a 'bloody whore.'"
"Bloody sensitive woman," Jack muttered.
"Bloody insensitive pirate," Diamond returned.
"Can we get back to supper?" Elizabeth asked helpfully. "I believe there's enough left that we can all get our fill."
"Excellent idea," Pearl announced.
They settled down to supper again. "Pearl, what is it like to be a woman on a pirate ship?" Maggie asked after a time. "I've always imagined it's very exciting."
"It's much like being a man on a pirate ship, I suppose," Pearl remarked. "Except my father threatens the men more, and I've gotten very good with knives and such."
"I'd imagine you'd be very good with pistols as well," Will remarked.
"You'd think, wouldn't you?" Jack asked.
"Oh, hush," Pearl ordered, waving her spoon full of potatoes threateningly. "What he's getting at is no, I'm not. I'm a bloody awful shot. Good with my knives, though, so it evens out. You only get one shot with a pistol anyway."
"But don't you want to marry?" Maggie asked. "What about children?"
Pearl laughed. "The sea is as much my mistress as Jack's. I'll die upon her alone and childless, but happy even for that. It's the way of things. I have a pirate's soul, if not the proper body for one."
"But what do you do on the ship?" Maggie persisted. "You can't work as hard as the men. A woman's body isn't built for labor. Any man of learning will tell you that."
Pearl shook her head. "The body, any body, will do exactly what you ask of it and go. Any gypsy will tell you that. I work as hard as any of the men on the ship, and harder just to prove that I can."
Conversation tapered off after that, exhaustion from the day's packing or travels coming over them all.
They went to bed early that night as the Turners and Sparrows had to leave early in the morning and Norrington intended to send them off. The Commodore looked wistfully at Pearl's door as he passed by. Once again he had expected to have more time to say goodbye to Pearl, but his conscience would not allow him to go alone into her rooms, even with the intention of talking. He had betrayed his future wife enough to let his guilt guide him to his own empty bed.
Chapter 10
Disclaimer: Here's a big surprise. They aren't mine. Can you stand the shock?
They descended the stairs to supper an hour later looking only slightly ruffled. Elizabeth gave them a suspicions look and remarked, "I expected you to come back down, Edward."
"I got caught up in a book up in my room," he told her.
Diamond gave him a wink that said she knew better, Elizabeth gave them a suspicions look, Will shrugged rather indifferently, and Jack grinned maliciously. "What book?" the pirate asked.
"I beg your pardon?" Norrington asked, caught off guard.
"I said--ow! Leave off, wench," Jack ordered Diamond, who was viciously elbowing him. "I said what book were you reading?"
"Oh, um, the Iliad," he answered a bit too hurriedly as Pearl rolled her eyes.
"You would have read a classic like that many times, I'd imagine," Jack remarked. "Must be very good if it still gets you."
"Yes, well, as you said, it is a classic."
Supper passed amiably enough after that, mostly thanks to Diamond, who elbowed Jack every time he opened his mouth. "Can't keep your hands off me tonight, can you luv?" he asked as he rubbed at his battered and bruised arm.
"Oh, aye. You're just far too charming for me," she returned sarcastically.
The group sat up to chatter away in the library for an hour until the need to sleep overtook them one by one. Pearl was the first to retire, followed by the Turners. Jack and Diamond were both still reading by candlelight when Norrington went up to bed, watching him a bit too anxiously for his comfort. To his credit he only paused a moment before Pearl's door before moving on to his own room.
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For years to come Edward Norrington would count the next month as the happiest extended amount of time in his life. Pearl grew steadily better. She joined their sword fighting, steadily winning more and more matches as she regained her grace and muscle. While she never did beat Will fairly she did have claim to a good half of the wins when she took Norrington on. She took long walks every day and rarely napped. She regained her old energy, and her old shape as the muscle came back to her. As Norrington remembered his plan to ride each day it became a habit for most of the group (Jack stubbornly maintained that he would never ride anything but waves) to spend some time on horseback. Pearl pleasantly surprised him by being a capable rider, something he could not say of Elizabeth, Will, or Diamond although they all managed to remain mounted. Pearl had a love for the horses that sometimes seemed to border on empathy.
As time went on Diamond took to staying in the house with Jack. There was something between them, Norrington was certain of it now. They spent a great deal of time together, and their eyes seemed to meet far more often than a person would expect. They flirted with one another, the same as always, but there seemed to be a passion to it that surprised the Commodore.
Rose and David made regular stops in the afternoon to devour biscuits and entertain the adults with pirate stories.
And Norrington and Pearl flirted. It was overt at best; a glance here, a brush of the hand there. Diamond always seemed to catch them at it, giving them a smile of approval, and Elizabeth would give them suspicions glances from time to time, but they enjoyed it all the same.
It seemed every other night Norrington found himself drawn to Pearl's room, or found her waiting in his. Somehow she had convinced him that he had already sinned enough that a few more wouldn't really be that much worse. And she constantly reminded him that all too soon she would be well enough to return to the ship.
It alternately tore at his heart and delighted him to see her regain her former self. And finally the night came when Jack announced that they should pack the next day and leave the day after. "Can't leave the ship for too long," Jack remarked. "I may trust my crew, but it doesn't do to ask for trouble. Asides, I miss my mistress. The sea, she's a demanding one."
"And I've not made any money in a long while," Diamond put in. "Who knows what trouble Ruby's managed to get herself into by now."
"Mister Brown has probably made a sufficient mess of the shop by now," Will remarked with a sigh.
"I should return as well," Norrington said. "Put Port Royale back into some semblance of order." But disappointment rang clear in all their voices.
The next day was spent in a mass confusion of packing, maids running from one end of the house to the other.
As evening approached, just when Norrington thought he was about to go positively stark raving mad, a harried-looking maid approached him to announce that a carriage was coming up the drive.
"A carriage?" he repeated. "Who is it?"
"I assure you I do not know, sir, but it appears they have come some distance."
His eyes widened suddenly. "No. Surely not." He stood from the chest he was packing to rush down the stairs, chanting to himself, "No, no, no, no."
Surely enough he pulled open the front door just in time to see his future wife step out of the carriage. "I'm dead," he sighed, resting his exhausted head against the door.
"Edward!" He looked up just in time to catch the excited redhead as she threw herself into his arms. She hugged him enthusiastically before pulling away, nearly bouncing with excitement. "Are you surprised to see me?"
"I...yes. You have no idea how surprised."
She giggled. "It wasn't easy, of course. Father didn't want me to go without a proper chaperone. My brother shall be here in a few days. I told him you were a man of good with proper morals and surely he could trust us together for a few days."
"Surely," he answered numbly, the high recommendation haunting him already.
"May come in?" she asked cheerfully. "It was frightfully hot in there."
"Of course. You must forgive the mess. We planned to leave tomorrow."
"You'll stay now that I'm here, won't you?" she asked, toying with a large emerald hanging around her neck.
"Of course," he told her with a smile that made her face light up.
"I've the best Fiancé in the entire island," she commented, pecking him on the cheek.
"You're too kind," he informed her, looking around for a maid. Perhaps he could get a quick message to the Sparrows to behave themselves. If he didn't--
His heart sank as he heard shouts and the sound of clashing swords. Praying Will and Jack had crossed swords over something he turned with Maggie to look at the top of the stairs.
His luck failed him yet again as Pearl appeared with her father, both in full pirate garb he noted with an internal groan, sword clashing violently. He hadn't noticed how much of the pirate had come back, the transformation had happened so slowly, but Jack now looked almost entirely the way he had when he first set foot in Port Royale, minus the beads and heavy eyeliner.
Norrington knew they were just blowing off steam, but to someone inexperienced with such matters, such as Maggie, it had to look like a furious fight. Both were so involved in the match they failed to notice the spectators below.
Jack skillfully pushed Pearl back toward the stairs. At the last moment before he forced her to tumble down them Pearl switched the sword to her left hand, grabbed the twisted marble panicle on the banister, and pulled herself around it to hack at Jack from the other side. He stumbled back to avoid the hasty jab before returning the attack.
Rather than engaging Pearl spun, planting one booted foot on the railing and pushing off with the other. Maggie cried out, and Norrington nearly echoed her, as the girl skated down the curved rail on one foot with a great deal of arm waving to retain her balance. She hopped off at the first landing, spinning to meet her father who had clomped down the stairs after her. Turning away his attack she hopped backward onto the rail again. This time, however, she jumped backward, landing in a practiced crouch on the thick rug.
This time Maggie screamed in truth, causing Pearl to turn and reflexively raise her sword against an unseen attack. Naturally, this only made matters worse. Frightened in truth Maggie screamed again, shrinking back against Norrington.
"Twenty gold says she's a noble," Jack remarked from the landing as Pearl put her sword away with a heavy sigh.
"What was your first hint?" she called up to her father. "The shrieking, the silk dress, or the jewel the size of southern Jamaica around her neck?"
"Mostly the shrieking," he answered, putting his sword away.
Pearl, ever the dramatist, stepped forward to give the woman a very proper bow. "Margaret Neats, I presume."
"How do you know that?" she asked, eying the girl with confusion.
Pearl shrugged. "Lucky guess. Showoff," she added to her father as he jumped down behind her, sword safely away.
"That's Elizabeth's uncle," Margaret said. "Does that make you Bethany Maltrey?"
"Yes," Pearl answered with a grin. "And at the same time an overwhelming no. Very long story." Her eyes strayed up to Norrington's, questioning. "How much do you trust her?"
"I'm going to marry her," he said defensively.
Pearl shrugged. "You asked me to marry you, and you should never trust a pirate."
"Pirate?" the girl asked.
"Yes. And at the same time an overwhelming no," Pearl replied.
"I trust her," Norrington put in.
"Enough to tell her?" Pearl asked. "The whole truth?"
"Of course."
Pearl nodded. "Let's sit in the library then. Can't have her fainting away and hitting her head on the marble."
"Oi! Wait!" Jack cried. "This is my neck you're putting in the noose too."
"Are you afraid of the poor little noble?" Pearl asked her father.
"Aye! When she can get me hung!"
"Don't worry about it. If they did try to hang you you know I would swing in and save you."
"Right. But I'd prefer you not having to swing in and save me."
"I won't," she promised as she led the group into the library.
"Are they, um, balanced?" Maggie whispered to Norrington.
"No," Norrington sighed. "I'm afraid they're both fairly mad. Fortunately they aren't dangerous," he added quickly.
Maggie shook her head. "I think I'm going mad."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Jack remarked, wrapping an arm around the woman's shoulders, earning a confused look from the woman. "I find madness is actually a much more comfortable state of being."
"Jack, kindly unhand my future wife," Norrington ordered.
Jack gave him a thoughtful look, pretending to seriously consider his request, a grin slipping onto his face to reveal how thrilled he truly was at thoroughly annoying the Commodore.
"Jack!" Pearl finally snapped. "I appreciate teasing Edward as much as the next person but not at the expense of sweet, innocent girls. She's no Lady of Tortuga."
Jack nodded. "Well said, Fledgling," he remarked, releasing Maggie to take a jittering step, dancing to a tune apparently hidden in his own head, moved to loop an arm around his daughter's shoulders.
"Stop calling me that," Pearl ordered. "We'll be back on the ship soon, and you know I have enough trouble getting the sailors to take me seriously."
"Being taken seriously is seriously overrated itself," Jack announced.
Pearl rolled her eyes as they reached the library. She seated herself on one of the small couches on the end nearest another couch that made a right angle. Norrington moved to seat himself on the end of the second couch nearest her but Pearl held out her hand to Maggie, seating her close enough to retain ownership of her hand. With a mental shrug Norrington took the seat next to his future wife as Jack sprawled onto the couch next to his daughter, propping his boots up on the table before him.
"First things first, I suppose," Pearl began. "You should know straight off that I'm not Bethany Maltrey. Well, I am, but not really. There is no Bethany Maltrey, just me in silk skirts, a brown wig, and a veneer of proper manners and rich upbringing. My real name is Pearl Sparrow. And this my father, Jack." Jack, who had thrown his head back and tilted his hat down over his eyes, merely waved at the mention of his name.
"Like the pirates?" Maggie asked in obvious confusion.
"Hmm. Quick one here. I'm impressed, Edward. Not your average noble," Pearl remarked. "Exactly like the pirates, as point of fact. It's a very long story, but I've helped Edward out of a tight scrape a time or two."
"I would have managed on my own," Norrington put in.
"Oh, aye. You would have managed to get yourself run through is what you would have managed to do," Pearl informed him. Leaning toward Maggie she added in a conspirative tone still loud enough for both men to hear, "You'll learn eventually how to handle their rampant ego. You need to learn to either pet them continually and tell them how lovely they are or put them in their place. They're the world's most insecure creatures in the world, men are." Maggie looked at her in obvious confusion, glancing back at Norrington on occasion, unsure whether to laugh or agree or disagree. The rules of proper manners were failing her entirely.
"You're hardly one to talk," Jack saved the poor girl by informing Pearl.
"Yes, well, my father raised me poorly," Pearl snapped back at him. "Anyway, when I turned up sick Edward agreed to give me the use of his country house to recover."
"That was very kind of you," Maggie remarked to Norrington.
"Yes, well, it was the least he could do, really, after I saved his life and all. That's the long and short of it, really. I'm well now, so we're heading back out."
"Yes, of course," Maggie remarked, looking down at her clenched hands.
"I like her," Pearl remarked to Edward. "She's a good choice. Quick wits, this one. Stronger than most powdered finery. I'm impressed."
"Thank you," Maggie said. "I think. But how can you know all this? You've only just met me."
"Elizabeth, in part," Pearl said with a smile. "But mostly I see it in your eyes. I was raised in Tortuga. I know a thing or two about reading people."
Maggie swallowed convulsively. "Tortuga is real?"
"As I am," Pearl answered with a smile. "You thought it was a figment of some housewife's imagination?"
She nodded. "I have heard such things about that place. That it is teaming with houses of ill repute and taverns."
"Stop, you're making me homesick," Pearl sighed, wiping a fake tear from her cheek as Jack chuckled.
"You aren't, that is, a woman of, that is, I don't wish to insult you, I'm sorry. I should not have asked."
"Not at all," Pearl answered flippantly. "No, I'm not a prostitute. My mother is, and my sister, but I'm making enough as a pirate to avoid that particular eventuality."
Maggie stared at her in amazement. "I apologize. I do not wish to upset you."
"You aren't," Pearl answered. "Speaking the truth very seldom upsets me, and you do deserve answers. I would say you are being miraculously patient."
"I am glad you think so," she said, eyes suddenly drawing down to her hands. "I would ask you something if I thought I had the courage, that would most likely ruin your high opinion of myself."
Pearl laughed, her strong boisterous laugh that rang up from deep in her throat that removed any doubt of there being a Lady hiding in the pirate. Maggie seemed startled by this, jumping just a bit and looking at the woman in concern. "Maggie, darling, I'm the daughter of a pirate and a prostitute. There is very little you could say that would trouble me, and I doubt you've seen enough of the world to know any of it. Ask. I promise not to be angry."
Maggie went back to wringing her hands. "I just wished to know, that is, if you and Edward were, had been, that is, so to speak, intimate."
The last word came out in a rush. Pearl's eyes moved to Edward's. "Recently, or are you asking about when I knew him before?" Pearl asked. Then she dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. "Never mind, the answer is the same."
Leaning forward Pearl took Maggie's hand, looking deeply into her eyes. "Do you want the truth, or do you want me to tell you what you wish to hear? Because that is all most nobles would accept."
"I want the truth, of course," she answered.
Pearl nodded, drawing back with a smile. "Aye, I believe you do, and that is what I will give you. Before I answer you, however, I must make something perfectly clear. Edward did love me, when he first met me. Or proclaimed that he did. He asked me to marry him. His intentions were incredibly pure. I fear that's something I cannot claim. Yes, Margaret my dear, I fear I have been with your future husband." Her eyes widened and her head whipped around to study Norrington, who was suddenly very interested in a speck on his trousers. "You mustn't blame him, Maggie. It was all my doing. I fear I did a good deal of seducing, and being a prostitute's daughter I am frightfully adept at it." Jack snorted, and Pearl kicked at his shin before reclaiming Maggie's hand. "Promise me, Maggie, please, that you won't blame him. It isn't the sort of thing he does on a regular basis. And he will be true to his word. He will marry you and you shall be infinitely happy. And if it makes you happy, I'll swear never to touch him again. Once a man is joined in marriage I won't tear that apart."
"Thank you," Maggie remarked. "For that. And for being honest with me."
Pearl nodded. "We'll let you talk," she remarked, hitting her snoozing father before standing to leave the room. "But remember what I said. Every word of it is true. You couldn't find a more secure man to marry, not if you searched the world over. You're a lucky woman, Maggie, and I envy you."
The pirates left the room, leaving a very uncomfortable Commodore with a very confused woman. "I'm sorry, Maggie," he finally said.
"Do you love her?"
He sighed. "Yes. And part of me always will. But she couldn't be happy as my wife, and I wouldn't be happy with her as a wife."
"Do you love me?"
"I'm beginning to, I believe. I will more fully in time, I'm certain. I want to marry you, I know that."
Maggie's gaze went to the door. "She's interesting."
"She is that," Norrington agreed with a laugh.
Maggie nodded. "All right then."
"All right what?" Norrington asked.
Maggie shrugged. "Just, all right. Let me help them off and we'll start planning our wedding."
"You still want to marry me?" he asked.
"Of course," she answered. "What she said is true, Edward. You are loyal. When you were alone with her you had every reason to owe her your loyalty. Now that I am here, when we are married, then I shall have that. I see no reason to worry."
"Oh, Maggie," he sighed, sweeping the girl into a hug. "Thank you."
When they left the room a maid informed them that supper was waiting for them. The couple walked into a room bursting with noise. Jack and Pearl were arguing, as usual, over something completely inconsequential--Norrington had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the china. Elizabeth and Diamond were trying to calm them down (Will had apparently given up long before) although Elizabeth seemed to be doing more joining in the arguing than actual calming anyone down. Maggie surveyed the scene with wide eyes.
Elizabeth noticed them first, jumping from her seat with a gasp to run over and hug the girl with a cry of "Maggie!"
"You didn't tell them she was here?" Norrington asked Pearl and Jack.
Pearl shook her head. "This is much more fun."
"Wait, this is the strumpet that is stealing my daughter's love away from her?" Diamond asked.
"Mother!" Pearl cried. "I'm the strumpet that's trying to steal him away from her."
"You had him first," Diamond argued.
"And she has him now. Besides, she's quick, but I don't think she's cunning or ruthless enough to be a strumpet."
"You'd know," Jack remarked. "Oi! Stop that!" he added as Pearl's dinner knife suddenly embedded itself in the table a hair from his left hand."
"It slipped," Pearl informed him, glaring across the table as Jack attempted to wrench the blade from the wood.
"Would you please stop attempting to murder my furniture?" Norrington asked.
"No," Jack and Pearl chorused, punctuated by a thunk as Jack finally removed the knife and embedded it in the table just short of Pearl's right arm. Not even blinking, Pearl wrenched the knife from the table and began cutting up her ham with it. "She started it," Jack said defensively when Norrington glared at him.
Maggie stared at the table in horror, looking wide-eyed up at Elizabeth. "Could both of you please PRETEND to be civilized?" Elizabeth demanded. "You're frightening Maggie."
"No," they chorused again.
"I'll see to it they behave," Diamond promised. "Come sit, my dear. I apologize for them."
"Can we look forward to good weather tomorrow?" Will asked as the gentry seated themselves.
"Yep. Rain will start up day after tomorrow. We'll be well home before we even see clouds," Pearl promised.
"So, Maggie, what news from the Port?" Elizabeth asked.
As Maggie began prattling on about the latest gossip Jack and Pearl settled into a serious discussion of the benefits of certain rigging. Norrington put in his thoughts from time to time.
The discussion ended suddenly when Jack announced, "Well, it's my ship, and I'm the Captain, and that's all there is to it." Pearl responded by flinging a spoon full of potato, complete with gravy, directly into his face.
"Pearl!" Elizabeth and Diamond cried at once.
"What? That was a perfectly-well formed and thoroughly thought-out response," she defended herself.
A large amount of mashed carrots embedded itself in her red curls, bringing a dangerous gleam into her eye. "So is that," Jack announced.
"Jack!" Diamond and Elizabeth cried together.
"That's Captain Jack to you," he replied easily.
"You know, some day they're going to realize that screaming our names does no good," Pearl remarked.
"Heaven only knows what they'll do then," Jack remarked.
A mass of tomato soup dripped suddenly down Jack's freshly laundered white shirt. "Give you a taste of your own medicine," Elizabeth said, polishing her spoon on her napkin.
"That was pretty good aim for a Governor's daughter," Pearl remarked.
"Maggie, dear," Diamond whispered as the gathered people began to glare at one another.
"Yes?" she whispered back.
"Under the table, now," she hissed, grabbing the girl's hand and diving just as various vegetables began to fly.
Chortling evilly Diamond's hand reached up onto the table to retrieve her plate. "What are you going to do with that?" Maggie asked.
"If you can't beat them, darling, you may as well join them," Diamond answered with a shrug. "And stay out of the line of fire while you do."
"Hey now, no fair cheating," Jack announced, flinging potatoes onto the two crouched girls.
"Let them hide, or at least Maggie," Pearl called. "A prissy noble girl like her probably couldn't hit the broad side of a navy destroyer."
"Only one way to prove her wrong," Diamond remarked with a grin as she offered her the plate.
A bit hesitantly she picked up a piece of roast beef dripping with gravy and grease.
Lifting her head above the edge of the table she quickly hefted the piece of meat at the grinning pirate woman. It landed on her chin, sliming its way onto her shirt and falling to the floor with a final splat.
"I stand corrected," Pearl remarked. "I'm impressed."
The remark was followed closely by a large amount of peas, only half of which bounced off, the other half remaining mired in various remnants of previous ammunition. "Be careful how you talk about broad groups like nobles," Elizabeth remarked.
Diamond took advantage of the distraction to loft her bowl of cooled tomato soup into Jack's face. "What about bloody old pirates?" she asked.
"Or nasty Tortuga whores," Jack returned, dumping the contents of his entire plate onto Diamond's head.
Maggie squealed in pure joy as she tried to protect herself from what missed the woman or flew off of her. She squealed more loudly as Pearl, forgotten by Jack and Diamond as they focused on one another, as well as Elizabeth and Will who were busy smashing potatoes into each other's hair, suddenly appeared around the table to pelt the helpless girl with carrots. She returned fire with the chocolate pudding left on the table as Norrington tried to protect his future wife, mostly getting in the way of the pudding himself.
They stopped short when a sudden scream from Jack cut through the laughter. He was collapsed into the chair, trying to roll himself into a ball. Diamond had apparently grabbed her hot cup of tea and poured it into his lap.
"That be me favorite body part, you bloody whore," he cried at her.
"Which makes it the perfect target," Diamond responded. "Stop your whining. It isn't that hot."
"Hot enough," Jack responded. "I seem to recall you enjoying this particular organ yourself."
Diamond chortled, ignoring Maggie's stricken look. "Indeed, but I do that for a living, so I know a thing or two about that organ myself. And I can assure you that you will come to no permanent harm. Think of that next time you call me a 'bloody whore.'"
"Bloody sensitive woman," Jack muttered.
"Bloody insensitive pirate," Diamond returned.
"Can we get back to supper?" Elizabeth asked helpfully. "I believe there's enough left that we can all get our fill."
"Excellent idea," Pearl announced.
They settled down to supper again. "Pearl, what is it like to be a woman on a pirate ship?" Maggie asked after a time. "I've always imagined it's very exciting."
"It's much like being a man on a pirate ship, I suppose," Pearl remarked. "Except my father threatens the men more, and I've gotten very good with knives and such."
"I'd imagine you'd be very good with pistols as well," Will remarked.
"You'd think, wouldn't you?" Jack asked.
"Oh, hush," Pearl ordered, waving her spoon full of potatoes threateningly. "What he's getting at is no, I'm not. I'm a bloody awful shot. Good with my knives, though, so it evens out. You only get one shot with a pistol anyway."
"But don't you want to marry?" Maggie asked. "What about children?"
Pearl laughed. "The sea is as much my mistress as Jack's. I'll die upon her alone and childless, but happy even for that. It's the way of things. I have a pirate's soul, if not the proper body for one."
"But what do you do on the ship?" Maggie persisted. "You can't work as hard as the men. A woman's body isn't built for labor. Any man of learning will tell you that."
Pearl shook her head. "The body, any body, will do exactly what you ask of it and go. Any gypsy will tell you that. I work as hard as any of the men on the ship, and harder just to prove that I can."
Conversation tapered off after that, exhaustion from the day's packing or travels coming over them all.
They went to bed early that night as the Turners and Sparrows had to leave early in the morning and Norrington intended to send them off. The Commodore looked wistfully at Pearl's door as he passed by. Once again he had expected to have more time to say goodbye to Pearl, but his conscience would not allow him to go alone into her rooms, even with the intention of talking. He had betrayed his future wife enough to let his guilt guide him to his own empty bed.