Gentlemen And Rakes
Chapter Eight: Le Havre (Jack's PoV)
"This is absolutely ridiculous," Andrew muttered darkly, huddling beneath a lace-trimmed parasol as rain continued to fall.
"It most certainly is not!" I contradicted gallantly, adjusting my bonnet and placing a hand on my hip. "God, I can't half breathe in this…"
"Well, that's just what happens when you ask me to lace up your corset, so let it be a lesson," Andrew replied bitterly. A silence passed between, broken by the patter of rain and the creaking of the hull.
"You're only jealous," I said confidently, tossing the long curls of my wig over my shoulder and looking up at Andrew through my lashes in what I hoped was a feminine manner. Judging from his disgusted grimace, I had succeeded. "You're jealous because this shade of green complements my colouring whilst making yours look a little washed out, and you're stuck with that pink shirt—"
"It is not pink!" Andrew snapped defensively, shrugging my arm off and looking out towards the crashing waves. Andrew was being very childish and immature lately; I think it had something to do with his seasickness, or rather my lack thereof. It came as a surprise to both us to discover that I would never be afflicted by so common an ailment, and he'd been ignoring me ever since.
"It's pink," I insisted, glad that he was talking to me again.
"No, it isn't!"
"What do you call that, then?" I asked. "Rose?"
He raised his eyes from the soaked floorboards of the merchant ship we'd boarded under the guise of a young couple eloping to Paris: Mr Andrew Patrick Wilson and Miss Petronella Marietta Baldina Pigglesworth. For some very peculiar reason, we received rather odd looks from whichever passenger Andrew and I deemed safe to introduce ourselves to.
"It's naught more than an extremely pale shade of red," he insisted.
"Which, oddly enough, is what the rest of the world classes as pink—oh, Andrew!" I added in exasperation as his hand went suddenly to his mouth; he dropped my parasol and darted, slipping and sliding across the deck to the stairs. He didn't return, but I couldn't blame him; who'll wish to be outdoors in this weather? Besides me, but I was protected by several petticoats and a recently-retrieved parasol.
Waving my fingers in a rather flirtatious manner at a miserably drenched sailor, who simply glared at me in response, I turned my body to look over the railing towards what I believed was in the direction of London. After another eleven days as Señorita Esperanza, Andrew had returned to rescue me from the brothel. Why a man in a brothel needed rescuing was slightly beyond me, although I would admit that it wasn't as fun as I'd expected: impersonating a whore as successfully as I had, all the other women had come to think me as such, and had welcomed me into their social circles with open arms (which, unfortunately, was the only thing that was open).
It was during these little gatherings of theirs, and usually well into the night, that the reminiscing began: of their homes, their families, their sweethearts, their childhood, and more often then not, how they'd found themselves on their backs for a living. One of the girls, a red-haired angel by the name of Elaine, had been cast out of her home by her mother, a widow who was to be wed to a wealthy wine merchant. Coming from Ireland after the death of her father, the family of four had been Catholic; however, Elaine's mother was soon propositioned by the wine merchant, who promised to wed her on the condition that she and her brood of three renounced the Catholicism and turn Protestant. Elaine was, and still is, extremely devout, and had clung desperately to her faith with such obstinacy that her mother had sold her into the trade.
But Elaine's tale was by no means the least pleasant; many of the other girls had been raped, or seduced, or lured into a false promise of marriage; another, Mary, had been abused by her father for as long as she could remember, and had eventually fled her home in fear of her life: there were scars along her arms from when she'd shielded her pretty face from her father's wrath. And then there was Fiona, who had been raped by her sadistic drunkard of an elder brother, and many other horror stories besides those two. It would appear that most women found in brothels weren't there by chance, and well, it was hard to simply use them so selfishly when one realised that it was never their choice to be used so in the first place…
And now, I no longer feel comfortable in brothels; isn't that depressing?
I forced my thoughts to turn away from such disheartening subjects, thinking instead of my mother. Andrew had told me that she was close to death, and after what had happened, I couldn't say that I'd particularly blamed her. In a last-minute attempt at comfort, I'd written her a letter, hand-delivered by Andrew, in which I'd lied through my teeth about changing my name and becoming a cloth merchant and promised to one day visit her. Of course, I'd probably die before such a day came, but let's not dwell on such pesky details.
But my troubles hadn't ended yet. We'd been at sea for four days, two of which had seen Andrew lying as though dead in our cabin, twisting under the cheap covers; his little disease had resurfaced, and I had reason to believe he was silently blaming me for it. But he was back to a ghost of his former self yesterday morn, his colourless skin and tired, gaunt face being the only symptoms of his illness, and after a slow "recovery," had immediately thrown up. How a man can throw up that which he had not consumed was slightly beyond my understanding.
I sighed, subtly clinging to the wig I'd taken to wearing.
Four more days. Four more days until we'd reached the port of Le Havre.
(Andrew's PoV)
"What do you think of that one?" I asked irritably. Having just landing at Le Havre, earlier this morning, John had insisted upon inspecting each and every galleon, sloop, brigantine, and rowboat in the harbour for reasons he refused to divulge. All I wanted, on the other hand, was to strangle him and sleep.
"No. Definitely not."
I scowled at his stubborn conviction, more cantankerous than was normal due to my unpleasant bout of seasickness. "What's wrong with her?"
"What's wrong with her? What's wrong with her? What's right with her! She's huge!"
"That's a tad harsh, John. It's not her fault she's a little heftier than most."
"But she is. She dirty and gigantic and absolutely ugly."
"Since when did beauty ever matter? They're ships, not wives!"
"Beauty always matters, my naïve young Andrew."
I sighed in exasperation. "You're a hard man to please, you know."
"Aye, that I do," he agreed nonchalantly. "But if you think about it, that's a good thing; if I'm so bloody difficult to satisfy, that makes the one that I choose to be my lifelong companion all the more special, doesn't it? And I'll treat her well because of it, and then everybody's happy. But you—oh, you, Wilson, will just have any old thing, won't you? And you'll drop it as soon as you so much as spy something even slightly more attractive."
I felt my cheeks heat at his audacity. "I absolutely do not! Do you really think I'm that fickle? I'm not! I'm just trying to make sure I get the right one, is that a crime? Once I found the one—the one, John, I'll reach out and grab her and I won't ever let her go. You—You're just being picky."
"I don't like wasting my time," he dismissed. He froze suddenly, flinging out his arm to stop me from moving further. "Look at her," he whispered, an expression of awe and utter devotion on his face.
I did, raising an eyebrow. The ship that had caught John's eye was a fine specimen of what I supposed was a galleon; faded, perhaps, from lack of care and use, but absolutely beautiful. Not as large as the majestic Spanish vessel I'd pointed out earlier, but still incredibly intimidating. It looked completely abandoned, devoid of all life, save for a suspicious-looking figure swathed in black hurriedly clambering down the gangplank, arms wrapped defensively about himself, as though guarding a plundered treasure. I was immediately wary of the character.
John, however, suddenly began to advance towards the disembarking sailor's path. "Excuse me, sir," he said pleasantly in French, "but I couldn't help but notice—"
His opening line was rudely cut by a mellifluous female voice: "I'm sorry, but I don't speak French." After identifying the person as female, my distrust only grew: why would a woman be dressed in the garments of a man, lest she was a criminal? John, apparently, had deemed this cross-dressing as nothing out of the ordinary, which, seeing as he'd only recently wriggled out of a corset, was not completely unexpected.
"Oh thank God," he sighed, swiftly changing tactics and removing his new hat as he gave her a small bow, "my nautical vocabulary is extremely limited in that language."
She looked up at him curiously with bright blue eyes, clutching what looked like a wide assortment of papers in her hands. She was dressed in shabby black clothing that were clearly a few inches too large for her; the darkness of the materials merely accentuated her fair English skin and her pale yellow hair. Catching my look, she explained in a quiet voice I barely heard, "My father has passed away recently, and as my mourning clothes have yet to be finished, my brother…" And she spread her hands in a wordless gesture. I didn't believe a word she'd said, and I doubted that John was convinced either, but he hid his scepticism well.
"Well then, may God care for his immortal soul," he'd said briskly, feigning sorrow quite convincingly as he held the hat solemnly over his heart and inclined his head in silent respect.
The girl merely shot him a withering look. "Thank you," she spoke icily, stepping around us both.
The look on John's face at his sudden realisation that he had just been rejected was simply beyond description.
"Ah, excuse me, Miss—?"
"Armistade," she answered as she turned back to watch the two of us following her.
"Miss Armistade," John repeated charmingly as she neared a waiting carriage. "Yes; I was wondering—"
"About the price of the ship, Sir?" she'd guessed easily, pointing at the vessel she'd just stepped off of. "The… Fortune?" she added scathingly; clearly, she wasn't exceedingly fond of the name.
He nodded, staring intently at her.
"Well, you'll have to discuss it with my brother, won't you?" she answered him, opening the door and pausing, clearly debating with herself before she met his gaze. "We are currently lodging at La Mouette, the coaching-inn, to the west of the docks."
"'We'?" John echoed.
"Of course," she replied disinterestedly, gracefully climbing in and pulling the door firmly shut behind her.
"Bloody teasing prude," John mumbled darkly as the horse started forward, glaring after the carriage as though his very life depended upon it. "I'll bet she says her prayers every night without fail and attends church for every Mass…"
"You're in love," I told him, slightly shocked at the discovery.
"Beg your pardon?"
"You like her," I interpreted confidently. "You're just hurt she hasn't fallen at your feet and declared her undying love for you just yet…"
"That's a possibility," he acknowledged, turning away to stare lovingly at the beautifully constructed ship. "Armistade, the Fortune, La Mouette," he repeated to himself, effectively committing it to memory.
"Maybe you should write it down," I suggested.
"I'll have you know that I've a perfect memory—I can still recall the day I spoke my first word in great detail—"
"Yet you regularly forget where you place your left shoe."
"Oh, shut up," he snapped at me.
"I don't like it here," John confided in me.
I looked around the tavern of La Mouette, failing to see what could have unsettled him so greatly. "Why, is it too clean for you?"
"It's too dead," he emphasised, taking a sip of locally-brewed wine and chewing contentedly on a small little French pastry. "Look at all of the people here."
"It's a coaching-inn, John. Everyone here is a traveller, simply weary travellers. All they want is decent food and a still bed for the night."
"Which is precisely why I tend to avoid respectable establishments; everybody in them are all so very calm and tired and polite, they must all be mad." In John's highly-esteemed opinion, the whole concept of matrimony was completely wrong, so I tended not to pay him any attention. "And they actually respect the privacy of their guests, which is just plain unnatural…"
See? Completely insane.
"Where do you think the disgustingly respectable brother and sister could have gotten to?"
"Shopping?" I tried tentatively. "Wait, I think that's her—turn around—"
I had just spotted a slight, black-clad figure entering the doorway, accompanied by a taller figure, also swathed in black. Both were arguing with the other furiously, and the man suddenly shoved his sister away, back out into the darkening streets. I grabbed John's sleeve as he stood, sensing that now was not the time for financial negotiations, and tugged insistently as he attempted to escape from my fingers.
"Will you stop that? You're fraying the filigree!"
"It's all faked anyway, I'll buy you some more," I hissed, pulling so hard he suddenly toppled into my lap. The unexpected fall was too much for my chair, which broke with a snap much too audible in the quiet of the inn, and the both of us fell back with undignified yelps and, on John's part, uncivilised cursing that could not have been any more inappropriate had he tried.
And as if this wasn't bad enough, we took the table down with us.
"Ow! Wilson you bloody cunt, you're breaking my arm!"
"Get off of my knee, John, it's not meant to bend that way!"
We were both suddenly hoisted to our feet by the barman, tall and portentously large, who yelled at us both in livid yet extremely polite French as he easily dragged both John and I to the entrance, throwing us into the cobbled street without any evident regard as to whether a carriage or cart was coming from either direction.
"Nice work, Andrew!" John beamed happily, lying on his back in a surprisingly contented manner as I sat up and shook my head. "Free drinks!"
I stared down at him in incredulity. "Are you going to be lying there for the rest of the night?"
"Maybe," was his reply, and he closed his eyes and started humming a little country ballad with a grin on his face so wide that it gave me cause to wonder how strong French wine was. Dusting myself as I stood, I was simply adjusting my coat and sword when the door of the coaching-inn opened suddenly and two hats came flying out to land at my feet.
It was only after I retrieved my own hat and dropped John's onto his face (effectively muffling his humming) that I saw Miss Armistade, sitting on the step leading into La Mouette, arms wrapped around her black-skirted knees, her yellow hair covered by a black bonnet trimmed with midnight ribbon and adorned by a single white rose, clearly fresh out of someone's garden. Her shoulders were shuddering palpably as her right hand clung tightly to her black reticule, and as I drew nearer I saw that she was wearing a glove made of a transparent black material patterned with black roses and vines. Clearly, her mourning dresses had been collected.
"Miss Armistade?" I tried timidly, uncertain if she wished to remain undisturbed.
Slowly, she raised her head to meet my gaze. "You're one of the two gentlemen," she told me, her fingers wiping traces of her tears away. "Enquiring about my late father's ship, is that right?"
"Well, 'twas only my companion that was interested," I told her truthfully, still examining her face.
She'd flushed under my scrutiny, and turned away. "My brother is within, if that is all that you desire."
Just as I was about to offer her my hand, John's flashed before me. "If you'll do me the honour, milady," he'd extended pleasantly, hat correctly perched on his head, smiling sympathetically down at her. Looking up at hearing the unexpected voice, she'd accepted the proffered limb in wonder, staring up at him.
"My… My brother," she began, but John cut through her protest immediately.
"I couldn't give a damn about some old ship when such a beauty is in such obvious distress," he'd told her with a chaste kiss on her hand. Her blue eyes widened at his forward manner as I started to cough—this man was unbelievable. Couldn't he ever leave a vulnerable maiden alone for one instance?
"I… Thank you, sir," she said with a modest bow of her head. "Although I should be returning—my brother—"
"If you'd rather spend the evening within the presence of a man who'd thrown you out on the street for the foreseeable future than with a gentleman who'd never dream of inflicting such abuse, mild though it may be, I will not dream of standing in your way."
I'd stopped coughing and was simply staring at him now, mouth agape. This prattling of his seemed to actually be working…
"I suppose you overheard our rather heated exchange, sir," she murmured docilely to him, eyes fixed firmly on the ground. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that actually, he hadn't, he'd simply seen the siblings quarrelling and interpreted the situation correctly. "And the reason you're showing such kindness to me is because you wished to purchase my ship, yes?"
John and I met each other's stunned gazes: Her ship? "I beg your pardon, Miss Armistade?" I asked.
Now she did meet my eyes. "Well, yes," she confirmed. "My brother was saying that it was most unnatural, for a merchant to die and leave his business to his son, but his fastest and most beloved ship to his daughter, when it could not be more apparent that a woman would never find a use for such a vessel, and it was on these grounds that he was attempting to swindle me out of my inheritance." She opened her reticule, pulling out several sheets of folded paper. "These are the documents my father had left aboard the Fortune," she told us both shyly, confidentially, "naming me the lawful owner of the craft. When you saw me on the docks earlier today, I was merely retrieving these articles from my father's cabin, before my brother could find them."
"But… Why would a merchant leave a ship to his daughter and a business to his son?" John asked in seemingly innocent confusion, though I sensed that he was secretly working on how best to turn this latest development to his advantage.
She smiled shyly again, ducking her head in embarrassment. "My father always said that I was his favourite child; he'd have left everything to me, but I've not a head for money and figures. 'Tis nothing more than a last sentiment, sirs." She sniffled slightly, her hand rising to her face in embarrassment. "Please excuse me, gentlemen, I've not been mistress of my emotions of late," she apologised, quietly withdrawing her hand from John's and turning away to hurry back into the coaching-inn. She paused, hand resting on the closed door, and turned to look at us both, studying us intently with those bright blue eyes of hers from beneath the brim of her bonnet.
"I apologise if you find me rude, but I had not yet asked for your names," she said, looking inquisitively from one of us to the other.
"Andrew Wilson," I said as her eyes sought out mine, and she looked away, blushing faintly. Which I couldn't really understand at all; it was clear John was more to her liking.
"You can call me Jack," John spoke up suddenly, examining her courteous black-clad form lazily. I turned to look at him, a stunned expression upon my face.
Miss Armistade smiled faintly. "I always dine alone at noon," were her parting words, and she was gone.
"'Jack'?" I repeated as soon as the door was closed against the cold night.
"Yes?" John replied.
"Your name's not Jack."
"Of course it is."
"No it isn't."
"I think you'll find that it is."
"And I think you'll find that it isn't; your name is John: John Anthony Raven."
"Actually, it's Jack: Jack… Charlie?" I stared at him, but he wasn't paying the least attention to me. "No, that would never work," he muttered to himself, adjusting the lapels of his coat and flicking imaginary dust off of his sleeves. "Perhaps I should just skip the middle name altogether… Jack Raven's horrible as well, actually, and it'll be too suspicious if one Raven shows up just as another disappears… Jack Fowler? Jack Blackbird? Jack Duck? …No…"
"Um, John?" I asked tentatively, wondering if he'd completely lost his mind.
"Jack Goose, Jack Quill—why the hell was there a Jack Rackham before me? That's quite a difficult name to outdo—Jack Kingston, Jack Black, Jack Daniels, Jack Richardson—"
"Jack Ass?" I contributed.
"I appreciate the input—Jack Thomas, Jack Dales, Jack… Jack…" he paused, looking down at the thick silver ring that had been his father's as though entranced. "Of course…" he murmured, more to himself than anybody else. "So simple—if I was a superstitious man, I'd say it was predestined, but I threw out my chicken's foot years ago…" His right hand dropped and he started to swagger away, humming another ballad vaguely familiar to me and leaving me standing in front of La Mouette like a very confused-looking idiot.
"John!" I called, striding after him, but he paid me no mind, hands placed in the pockets of his coat as he continued to hum the cheerful tune of a maid and her sweetheart on May Day. "John! Jack!"
He stopped humming and turned to look at me pleasantly. "Yes?"
"Have you completely lost your mind? 'Jack Duck'?"
"Who's Jack Duck?" he asked, brown eyes wide, completely at a loss.
"You!"
"I'm afraid you must've confused me with someone else," he said, smiling pleasantly. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."
I stared at him as he smiled widely at me, as though I should have known that he was no longer John Raven.
Jack Sparrow. It would never catch on.
-x!x-
AN: As always, apologies for the slowness of my updating, but at least I'm finally getting somewhere with the story.
solitairebbw218: Thanks so much, I'm glad you're enjoying my little contribution to the world of fan fiction, and I hope this made up for the wait… I need to start writing faster…
Kitty-Kat26: Yay, glad you like. What do you think of this latest offering so far?
Anne la Jordanie: Jack would've seduced Andrew, except it was pretty obvious that Andrew was having none of it, seeing as he'd grudgingly admitted that Jack was pretty. Ah, Jackia… I need to get over my writer's block for that one, I'm starting to miss Flavio… Oh, and the neediness IS Andrew's charm—you know, there are some women out there who are very maternal and like to look after people, and then there are others who enjoy how he seems to worship them on his knees, and those are the types of women Andrew attracts, hence his charm, although most just find him annoying… Whatever, he's rich.
TigerTiger02: We have weirder conversations—there was one about the technical definition rape, which, looking back, was actually really disturbing… I class myself as amateur, as I don't write professionally, unfortunately; you know I write just for fun, just for the reviews, just because I'm high, although I do have a few ideas for original stories that need a little work before I can put it to paper, so it's just fan fiction for the time being. Come to think of it, some of my ideas are based on my fan fiction, so it'll probably be easier if I started with those first…