Chapter 3
An uneasy look came over the maid's face.
"Lady Beckett, forgive me, we shouldn't be speaking of such things."
"Like hell we shouldn't!" Evelyn instantly blushed at her own language. Weeks on a ship over from England had done nothing in terms of refining her vocabulary. She instantly mellowed her voice and changed tactics. "Please, I beg of you. I know nothing of this man, this man that I will be married to shortly."
Indecision was riddled over the young servants face.
"Please?"
"No one speaks of it Madame."
"No one will know you told me."
"Well—"
"Did he love her?" Evelyn instantly snapped her lips shut. Christ Evie, where did that come from? And besides, what did that matter in the grand scheme of things? It certainly had nothing to do with her marriage.
"Oh yes, Madame!"
Evelyn's eyebrows rose. The question seemed to have been the key to opening up the maid's knowledge.
"Really?" She asked in a low voice. "Um, please, do tell?"
"It was so romantic, my Lady!" The young girl fell into a tangent of foolish romantic delight—losing sight of any fear that she had had only moments before. If Evelyn was thankful for anything it was this—the young and foolish days of her teenage years were far behind her. "He had just been promoted to Commodore, and Miss Swann, well she was the governor's daughter, beautiful and refined—you could hardly ask for a better match."
"Hardly," Evelyn replied dryly. "You mentioned that Swann did something to Captain Norrington."
"Oh, well yes. She fell in love with another man. A blacksmith. After she had already accepted the Master's proposal."
It was funny, but Evelyn had never felt a desire to kill a woman so much in her life. Not because of what Swann had done to Norrington—no nothing like that. Quite frankly, from knowing the Captain less than a day, she couldn't blame the woman for falling in love with—anything else, let alone anyone. But…
"Bloody hell." She winced; her mouth again. "Now I shall have to endure this man's jealousy and hatred of the female sex."
"Madame—" The maid's face had gone pale.
"Because the enviable Miss Swann had to go and fall in love." She gave a harsh laugh. What idiocy. Can women no longer recognize suitable marriages? No one falls in love." Cynicism laced itself suddenly through Evelyn's voice. "And now I shall have to put up what she left."
"Madame—"
"No wonder the man is so insufferable."
"Indeed," James's voice echoed smoothly from the doorway behind her. "No wonder."
James wasn't exactly sure why he had decided to walk past Evelyn Beckett's bedchamber. It was down a separate hallway from his own rooms, and after her journey he assumed that she would have just gone to bed.
And yet he walked past anyway.
Where he had expected to find silence, he had instead been met with the soft hum of female chatter.
That could never bode well.
Upstanding gentlemen never eavesdropped—luckily, James had reminded himself, his days as an upstanding gentleman had sunk to the depths with the Dauntless.
Beckett had been pleading with the maid—whining was more like it—for some sort or information. He pressed closer to the door. The mention of Elizabeth's name had torn through him like a bayonet.
True, he had never known exactly what Cutler Beckett had told his sister, but James had been told very little of her. Apparently the lack of knowledge was mutual. Reason told him to calm down, that Evelyn Beckett had every right to want to know about him and his past, but reason no longer ruled James Norrington. All that he saw was an unbearably childish woman who was long past the age where such indiscretions were forgiven. His heart raged. How dare this woman, this inferior creature, presume to say such things about Elizabeth. About his Elizabeth!
He walked into the room quietly, much to the horror of the young servant girl.
"No wonder the man is insufferable."
"Indeed," he replied, "no wonder."
He had to at least give Evelyn Beckett some credit; she had the decency to look mortified.
"Leave," he bit out, his command obeyed by the maid instantly.
Evelyn swallowed hard, her heart beating in her throat. Norrington had removed his jacket and cravat, and a few strands of his hair fell in front of his face.
James watched her with a sharp eye, struck by the fact that she looked even younger now than she had before. Her long dark hair fell loose upon her slim shoulders, covered by a white lace nightgown that only highlighted how pale her skin was. That he should be seeing her in a nightgown was completely uncalled for, but at the moment he didn't particularly care. In fact, if she felt uncomfortable, all the better. The last thing that he needed was a wife who would become bothersome. Sailors had long ago told him of the benefit of having a wife who feared you.
"Miss Beckett—"
"Lady Becket," she corrected.
James's eyes widened at the force in her voice.
"Lady Beckett," he corrected. "Do you find it common curtsey to gossip about your host while in his home, or is the honor mine and mine alone?"
Evelyn's face turned a bright shade of Scarlet. "Forgive me," she murmured. She looked to her feet, the way she had as a child when an adult scolded her, for that was exactly what this felt like. She had been caught acting unseemly by a person who obviously thought himself so much better, so much more capable of acting correctly—
Her head snapped up.
"But you must admit—"
"What must I admit?" His voice held righteous indignation and his eyes were bright, fixed squarely on her face. It was the first time the she noticed how sharp his jaw line was, and the slight dark growth left by the previous day. His entire body was sharp; his posture impeccable, his stance unforgiving; unwavering—
She wanted to be strong; wanted to yell and scream that she had every right to know who he was and who he had been. Evelyn wanted to rage against the unfairness of it all, that she would have married a man she loved had she been given the option or the opportunity, that Elizabeth Swann wasn't the only woman on God's Earth who deserved such happiness, and that the least he could so was not make her feel so insignificant with only a single scorching look from his beautiful eyes…
Beautiful eyes? God in Heaven, had she just thought that?
Evelyn took in a steadying breath, the air catching in her throat as she tried to calm herself beneath his gaze. "You must admit Sir," she said very slowly. "That curiosity on my part is not so strange a thing."
"Curiosity is a vulgar trait that I have no interest in seeing in any wife of mine." He snapped, raking long fingers through his hair, cocking his head to the side, as if daring her to answer.
"You are not then the least bit curious about me?"
She cursed her voice for how insipid and childish it sounded.
James's face remained still as stone, and he spoke his words with deliberate emphasis on each one. "You are a means to an end, Lady Beckett. The sooner that you understand that, the better off we both shall be in this marriage."
Evelyn held her breath. A means to an end. All her life she had been a means to an end, even by those she had loved and trusted most. Why it should matter that this man, a man who she neither loved nor trusted, thought so was well beyond her comprehension.
She shook her head. "A means to an end," she said quietly, almost to herself. Evelyn looked up, her grey eyes dancing with a strange mix of mischief and anger. "A means to an end." She closed her eyes and whispered. "A means to an end." Opening them, she drunk in the sight of her fiancé standing before her, proud and angry. Evelyn wanted to laugh; Evelyn wanted to cry. "Tell me, Captain, were you always such a bastard or do I have Elizabeth Swann to thank for this?"
James saw red. Worse, he saw black. Black rage filled his heart, his lungs, and every inch of his body. He stalked toward his future wife in a few large strides, backing her up until she was flush against the wall, her body only inches from his own. Evelyn told herself to stand firm, to not be afraid of him as she had been of her father and brother. Fear turned to chains.
But oh, how she was shaking.
Much like James was, though his shaking came from another emotion entirely. "You are unfathomable," he hissed through clenched teeth. "A lady in name only who speaks of things that she does not know, nor has any right to know." The quiver in his voice gave up just how much her words had scarred him. He looked her up and down in disgust. "You will never be Elizabeth Swann."
For some reason, Evelyn felt that remark like a knife to the heart. Elizabeth Swann; brave, beautiful, beloved Elizabeth Swann. She had heard enough gossip to last a lifetime.
"So break our engagement." Her chin jutted out defiantly, her eyes staring directly into his own. "Break the engagement" she dared, "and send me on my merry way back to London."
James choked on silence.
"Now I see," Evelyn said, confidence filling her voice, albeit slowly. "Now I see." She took a step forward; James took a step back. "How very interesting." A step forward; a step back. "Though it's not the most flattering of descriptions, and we clearly dislike one another as it is, I don't see any issue in telling you, Captain Norrington, that my brother has been eager to marry me off for quite some time." Sadness; sadness and regret filled her. "What hold does he have on you? What could you have possibly done to earn yourself a woman like me?"
Another step forward; another step back. Forward, back. Forward, back.
A woman like me? A thousand thoughts swirled like a hurricane in James's head. When Cutler Beckett had informed him that part of the pardon would involve James marrying his sister, he had assumed that the girl would be either of scandalous reputation or an ogress. Evelyn Beckett, though sharp of tongue if tonight was any indication, seemed to truly be a girl of a noble family, and in terms of looks? Well she was actually…
Not completely distasteful.
"You're a chained man, James Norrington."
His nostrils flared at her statement, and his mind reeled. Evelyn Beckett: one minute cowering, one minute attacking.
A military man at heart, James knew now more than ever was the time to make his retreat, before he said something that he shouldn't—before he said more that he shouldn't. The last thing that he needed to do was rage about how she would never understand, how you didn't know about chains until you had felt the heart of Davy Jones beating next to your own—
No, no that wouldn't do at all.
He reached behind him and, relieved, found the knob and quickly opened the door to make his escape.
A woman like me?
What the devil had she meant by that?
"Lady Beckett," he barked. "Why have you never been married?"
Evelyn's eyebrows rose. "Ah," she remarked. "Curiosity. Such a vulgar thing, isn't it?"
And slammed the door in his face.
