To her unspoken relief, the crowded streets at the edge of town presently forced her companion to moderate his pace. They walked together in icy silence through the jostling lanes, save for a brief inquiring pause while he waited for her to supply Will's present address. The quarter was a far from fashionable one. Norrington absorbed the news with a studied lack of reaction that to Elizabeth's over-sensitive mind seemed to speak volumes.
They passed the public pillories and whipping-post in the marketplace -- empty today, Elizabeth registered with unacknowledged thankfulness. "You had uncommon success in persuading Bessie, " she observed into a silence that was becoming absurdly strained.
Norrington followed the direction of her gaze, and smiled somewhat grimly. "You had already appealed to her natural fears and affections, woman to woman, without result. It seemed apparent to me that she considered herself honour-bound by some compact not to speak; thus, the task was to convince her that she might in all loyalty do so -- man to man, as it were."
Elizabeth stared at him, taken aback. "But good heavens, a kitchen-maid can scarcely be considered in the light of your sailors or marines!"
"A woman may pledge her word with as much honour as a man, " Norrington said drily over his shoulder, striding on. His profile hardened imperceptibly. "Or so at one time I had always believed. "
Elizabeth stopped stock-still, feeling as if she had been struck across the face. He could not, in all courtesy, have intended that the way it sounded, she told herself, furious at her own reaction, as she hurried on. It was ridiculous to find oneself reading veiled humiliations into every word.
"You speak of her with great leniency," she ventured instead as a peace-offering, as they turned into the end of her own street, "for one whom I would have expected you to condemn as a common felon."
Norrington said nothing for a few long moments.
"Yes." He spoke at last with some apparent care, each phrase judged to a nicety, weighted and deliberate. "But then I find I can respect a woman who enters into an ill-judged compact for the sake of another, despite the fact that she knows her actions to be wrong, fully intending to adhere at all costs to that sworn word: even when, Mistress Elizabeth--" and this time the biting hurt in his words allowed of no possible doubt -- "it is no longer convenient to her own desires to do so!"
And before Elizabeth, her heart clenching, had time to think of a single word in response, he had turned on his heel and left her isolated on her own doorstep.
A gasp. "Listen to me, James Norrington!" Flung off-balance by the sudden, unwanted glimpse into the older man's pain, Elizabeth clung to a saving fury of purpose. She was no longer an inexperienced girl to be lectured at and dismissed without a hearing. She was a woman grown, and he would hear what she had to say even if it meant shouting after him down the length of the marketplace. Heads were turning, up and down the street. She ignored them.
But he had halted, every line of his figure stiff with reluctance. Swung back, slowly, to meet her angry stare with a blazing ice of his own.
She would not be quelled, Elizabeth told herself, as he came the few paces back towards her, every step a condemnation. She would not.
Without a word, she reached out to the latch and swung open her front door, indicating the narrow passageway beyond with a cold gesture.
"Really, this is scarcely proper--" Norrington frowned, stopping short.
"I have something I mean to say to you." Elizabeth kept her voice light and cool with an effort. "Either inside, or out here before all ears -- the choice is yours."
At that moment, if truth be told, she did not very much care. He must have read that warning in her eyes, for he jerked his head abruptly in token of assent, and stood back to allow her to precede him over the threshold.
Secure at last on her own ground, Elizabeth drew a deep breath, feeling strength seep into her all around from the memories of Will held within these walls. This was their home. Here, nothing could touch her.
The door to the dark little parlour was ajar. With a glance at her, Norrington stooped to enter, his hat clamped firmly beneath one arm, as she shed her own cape and bonnet and turned to close the street door firmly against prying ears.
The room was in some disorder, guttered candles still standing on the table from last night and Will's old cloak flung across the back of the hard wooden settle where she had left it, meaning to sponge off the mud. Norrington was standing by the window, his face once again perfectly guarded. She could read nothing in it of what he must think, of herself or the way she lived.
There was a single wide chair by the fireplace. Elizabeth seated herself on the settle, disposing her skirts neatly around her, and motioned him to take his place opposite.
A shake of the head. "Thank you, I prefer to stand." He set his hat down on the table, thrusting aside an empty trencher with some distaste, and crossed his arms, staring down at her with the air of one who would infinitely prefer to be elsewhere. "If circumstances lead you to take my words as personally applicable, Mistress Turner, subject to the confines of my duties I am entirely at your husband's disposal should he wish me to offer him satisfaction. "
"I can defend my own honour!" Elizabeth flashed out, before biting her tongue. But the last thing she wanted was a duel -- of all the stupid, hide-bound, male ideas....
"Listen to me for once, James Norrington -- for whatever you believe of me, you are wrong." For a moment the next words seemed impossible to find; but she had set herself this task, and she meant to carry it through. He deserved this much frankness from her at least.
"When I gave my word to marry you, it was for the sake of another man; but it was not a bargain entered into lightly, or one I thought even then to disclaim as soon as you had played your part." She swallowed. "I wronged us both when I accepted your hand, but it was a promise I meant to carry through, I swear to you, whatever it would cost."
Marriage to him. The thought was suddenly very real to her, as it had never been back then. Alone in this room with him standing there -- where Will had stood last night, laughing, as James would never laugh -- she shivered involuntarily at the understanding of how close she had come without knowing what she offered. How it might have been for her, with the wrong man.
"I never meant to play you for a fool, James. I saw Will safe, and then I left his side to go back to you and the Dauntless, and sailed back into Port Royal as your affianced bride, to await the day of the wedding you'd planned. You'd paid your price in full--" the crudity of it brought a flush to her own cheeks, but no colour to the frozen face opposite -- "and I was prepared to pay mine."
"And then -- Sparrow."
There was a resigned inevitability in it, as if for an Act of God. Elizabeth nodded, watching her hands twisting in her lap. "If Will had not spoken -- I would be yours now, a dutiful wife."
"But given the choice, you would rather have died at his side than lived at mine." The voice from the window was steady, but almost too low to hear. "You made that very plain, Elizabeth. I could not in all honour have done otherwise."
Silence between them. Her hands wrenched together as if to wound, fingers writhing over each other. Even a married woman could not, did not say such things. If he had thought ill of her before, he must believe her utterly shameless now.
She did not hear him move. But her hands were caught and held apart with surprising gentleness until her struggles stilled; then laid quietly, one after the other, back in her lap.