Chapter One

The air in the house was filled with the sweet syrup smell of boiling sugar; it clung to every surface, to clothes and hair, the whole building reeked of it. A few metres away, the boiling house still steamed in the late evening – the roaring furnaces still lit under the vast copper vats, heat searing through the bodies of men and women that scampered through the clouds of swirling vapour, like spirits. The screams of men as they were doused with molten sugar, sticking to the skin and boiling it as if it were water, echoed across the plantation to the house. Jane had all but gotten used to the burning in the back of her throat as she breathed in yet more of the tang of sugar floating on air, but could not block out the screams of her parents slaves dying horrifically, one by one, night and day, continuously, all through the year.

Almost drowning in a muslin robe her father had bought her for her last birthday, Jane watched Mary, her chambermaid, fuss over candle and curtains, muttering to herself as she always did.

"Exciting day, miss?" Mary asked aloud, patting down the bed clothes for what seemed like the hundredth time. "I 'eard the More's son proposed. Now there's a fine man, miss."

Jane sniffed quietly and turned away.

"Very fine man, miss," Mary continued wistfully, "Why, any woman would be glad to be promised to 'im, miss."

"You may go, Mary." Jane said shortly, waving her away from the candle as she began to fuss over it again.

"Thank ye, miss. I'll be in in the mornin' for yer breakfast and to make yer ready." Mary backed out, closing the door with a slight click. As soon as she heard the tell-tale sounds of her chambermaid bustling down the stairs, Jane flung herself out of bed to the window to watch the troop of slaves, covered in mud and sugar from head to toe, winding their way back to their huts, as she always did.

A new experience, an unusual challenge, she mused, chin in hand, not something to despair over. It did not matter that she, at fifteen, had much of her life left to live, which would now be cut short to make way for William More and probably a few of his heirs. There would be time for living. That was not important when the essential thing was that she was alive, nearly sixteen years old, and the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in all Jamaica. There were plenty of women who would love to be in her position.

Compared to that, did it really count that she felt a strange burning knot in her throat everytime she tried to imagine her childhood back in England, and notice with a pang that she could remember it only vaguely – all memories of friends and games were but distant recollections of an excited passion rising somewhere behind her forehead, spilling forward in glorious laughter. 'You took it for granted, you stupid, stupid girl,' she muttered to herself – after all, who needed a boring old country house when you could move to a glorious plantation in Jamaica, where the air smelt of sugar and you could run through the port and see pirates everywhere? 'Serves you right,' she continued, 'because now you don't have either.'

She dropped the friends and happiness she had in England instantly for romantic excitement here, in this awful place, where the reality was sugar that seemed to stick everywhere and brutal whippings and torture of slaves. And pirates that stalked through the port, tolerated by the Navy…The Navy, who smiled at her…Thomas Fleetwood, who smiled a lot at her, his calloused hands on hers, her lips brushing his with a silent yearning. It was difficult now to think which was the worst part: that maddening urge to let all emotions that had been bottled up for years spill forth in tears and screams, demanding never to marry this poncy More's son or the crazy longing to be back in her own library in England, holding a book in her hands, letting her hands glide over the pages, the innocent structure of words on paper, entrapping her in every fantasy world she could wish for.

Where were they now?

Where was her Thomas? In her books, the hero would fight through all adversaries and meet his love under her window, take her away to live in happiness with him forever. Surely her Thomas was a hero. Surely, surely, there was some hero waiting underneath her window, waiting for some sign to call out to her, to proclaim his undying love for her, to whisk her away from the jaws of her family and the teeth of duty to love in freedom away from 'must' and 'obliged'.

No, she admonished. That was not love. William More was love. Love was a heart that hurt – not metaphorically, but physically – cringing and writhing under bites of pain. A body so heavy with a feeling of leaden weight that it was an effort to rebel against a narrow throat that tried to force you to sob every time you breathed – love was making alliances, money with money, and putting up with it's consequences.

She did not think of what love could be; a soft voice and gentle hands that ran over shivering skin, a mop of rebel blond hair, sticking up in all places, like a handful of straw, a deliciously warm body pressed against her own. Love so free and unchecked was not worthy of upper crust society. It was quickly rooted out and crushed under foot.

Lightening cracked the sky ominously as she left the window and a sheen of rain began to fall as she returned to her bed. There was neither time nor place for this love. Curling underneath the warmth of her bed clothes, she allowed a fresh rush of tears to soak her pillow, which would have to be forgotten by morning. She would go out for a walk to Port Royal, admire the ships, and return for dinner with William More, who would assure her he and her father had sorted out the financial aspects of their wedding and she had no reason to worry herself.

Her fantasy worlds had no place now.

A/N: I've tried not to make Jane a Mary-Sue. Jack Sparrow comes later, before you ask.