Disclaimer: I don't own the POTC characters, but I would love Norrie for my birthday!
Chapter 1: Our Heroine Introduced
Marblehead, Massachusetts
Prudence Martin sighed as her head lowered to her hands. Light from a candle flickered on the walls of what had been, until recently, a haven. A locked haven, Prudence thought wryly as she eyed the door her father had ordered the servants to lock earlier in the day.
Aye, a haven, but now a cage. Movement urged her eyes toward the open window, the one place her father hadn't locked simply because the room was at the top of the home. A sparrow flew through the open window to land on her desk only to quickly fly back out again.
Sparrow. The word brought back the only humorous memory she had in the last few weeks. It seems her cousin Elizabeth, who lived in the Caribbean, had been kidnapped by pirates. She was rescued with the help of another pirate by the name of Jack Sparrow, but Thomas Martin didn't care about that. He began an hour lecture on how Elizabeth had spurned a prominent gentleman for a common peasant blacksmith! Elizabeth had completely ignored her duty by marrying beneath her or so the lecture went. Pru personally focused on Elizabeth's good luck in being allowed to marry for love.
As it turned out, Thomas Martin vowed his daughter would not go the same course:
This unfortunate event with your cousin had put into sharp relief our own situation. Suitors of the appropriate sort think you to be too intelligent for your own good, too outspoken, and too independent. In short, you are an unnatural woman who desires far more than she deserves. We will not allow the folly of emotion to become an obstacle to our goals. Therefore, you will be honored to know that I have selected a husband for you. John Sills will no doubt mold you into a proper female.
Only one second elapsed before Pru had the image of the florid, dull, and unintelligent John Sills filled her mind. Revulsion thickened the air around her, making it hard to breathe, to contemplate ever being happy again. Despite the fact she knew her pleas would fall on deaf ears, Prudence pleaded with her father to listen to reason. When that failed, she refused to marry. All that had earned her was being locked in her room.
So here she was, stuck in a makeshift prison with her only reprieve being a prison of a different sort. Prudence would not wilt. God had not given her brains if he intended to only let her use them on being a dutiful housewife, no matter what her father thought.
Later that night….
The thud of horse hooves plodded slowly along the street, pausing at the grand home on the hill. A thin straggly feminine 'boy' sat straight in the saddle, looking up at that top room. Suddenly, the boy cheekily saluted the home and with a soft voice whispered, "let's ride girl." With a click, the horse began cantering away into the night.
Reason had led her nowhere. When reason failed, Prudence believed in action. The sparrow had given her ideas……