Disclaimer:Everything belongs to Disney, except the words. Those are mine.
Summary: Everyone loves a scandal, and the Governor's daughter has obligingly provided enough material to keep Port Royal in gossip for months...BPS challenge fic, prompt "Insults."

Sticks and Stones

"Have you seen her?"

"Haven't I! Proud as can be, strutting about as if she's the very Queen of Jamaica--"

"Young hussy, I always said her father should have taken a sterner hand with her--"

"My dear, she spent a week at sea," voice dropping dramatically, "with pirates!"

"That's not all, they say." Low, in tones of scandal: "I heard she and that Jack Sparrow were stranded on an island for a day and a night together--" stage-whispering-- "unchaperoned. Imagine!"

"She came home in breeches, brazen as you please!"

"No surprise she's marrying so far beneath her. Damaged goods, you know. That young blacksmith's the only one'll have her." The speaker adds slyly, "He's a wise man, our Commodore, not to taint his reputation with such as that."

In the back room of the shop, William Turner makes a strangled noise, brusquely shrugging off the embarrassed tailor's attempts to finish the measurements for his new waistcoat.

"Enough," he growls. "I've heard enough."

"No, Will." Elizabeth grabs his arm, restraining him. "It's not worth it. Sticks and stones--"

"How can you say that? Weren't you listening?" But he sees the two pink spots glowing on her cheeks, and knows she heard every word. "The things they're saying about you! It's disgraceful!"

"People will talk. Of course they will." Her jaw is set, resolute. "But do you really care so, about what they think of us?"

"Don't you?"

"I do not," she says firmly. "A flock of vicious old biddies, nothing more. This is all I care about," and she clasps her white hands around his work-roughened ones, raises her gaze to his. "I'd go barefoot and...and dressed in sackcloth to our wedding, dear Will, before I'd let their nonsense sour my happiness today, or any day." Then she grins, pure mischief sparkling in her eyes. "But if it'll please you," she adds on an undertone, "come on!"

And she sweeps grandly through the door into the front room of the shop, drawing him in her wake.

"Good afternoon, ladies," she says sweetly, to their unified horror. "I trust you are all well?" When they stutter out their answers, she continues, "I hope to see you all on Saturday for the wedding. I believe Father has arranged a rather lavish party." She leans in confidentially. "I shall even be wearing a dress! A white dress...Can you imagine?"

With that, she turns and glides out of the shop, her head held high, a look of almost unholy satisfaction on her lovely face, leaving behind her a stunned silence and a sense of profound dismay.