Steal my heart and hold my tongue.
I feel my time, my time has come.
Let me in, unlock the door.
I've never felt this way before.
The wheels just keep on turning,
The drummer begins to drum,
I don't know which way I'm going,
I don't know which way I've come.
Hold my hand inside your hands,
I need someone who understands.
I need someone, someone who hears,
For you, I've waited all these years.
"Til' Kingdom Come" -Coldplay
Chapter 4
She watched him from her balcony, watched him as he stood on the beach and just stared out at the see. His hair had blown free of its ribbon in the heavy winds that had kicked up, and by now his black boots were probably dusted with the salt of the waves. Evelyn could not see his face, could not see how the confusion mixed itself with reluctant joy as well as a deep, languishing pain.
Norrington had been standing there for over an hour.
She assumed that Cutler had gone to see him; Evelyn had not seen her brother since his impromptu visit that morning. Had he told him of the admiralty?
A heavy breeze blew across the balcony, sweeping Evelyn's long skirts about her body. The dress she wore was a pale lavender, so pale that it was closer to grey, covered in embroidered soft crème tulle. It was one of several gowns that she had ordered before leaving London, and if she were truly honest with herself, a part of her, just the smallest most hidden part, had hoped that her fiancé might find her beautiful.
Not that it mattered, though.
The man who would be her husband in one weeks time didn't seem to care whether she were breathing or not, let alone how she looked in satin and tulle.
And Evelyn didn't care. No, she didn't, not at all. She did not care, she could not care and she would not care. She did not care what James Norrington thought of her, or why he thought what he thought, or anything along those lines at all. Marriages were not contracted for love, they were contracted for convience and for profit.
Marriages made for love were a joke.
Evelyn had learned that the hard way; apparently, so had Norrington.
She smiled in spite of herself. At least she and he husband would have some common ground.
Down on the beach, Evelyn saw Norrington sit down in the sand, cradling his head in his hands.
No! This was absolute insanity! Why would she possibly feel the sudden urge to go down there! To check on him, to speak to him…to comfort him? Disgust at herself left a foul taste in Evelyn's mouth. She was a grown woman, smart enough to know when and where she was not wanted. She would rather die than grovel for James Norrington's acceptance.
But perhaps…perhaps she should go down there. Perhaps she should at least try to show some sort of amiability before they were officially married. After all, she had been ignoring him for the better part of a week…
No! She had been ignoring him for a reason! He was a cold and callous man, one who was lucky to at least be receiving civility from her…
But maybe the marriage wouldn't be completely miserable if she made an attempt at peace…
"Bloody hell!" Evelyn hissed, clamping a small hand against her forehead. This was ridiculous! Her own mind was splitting in two, and over what! James bloody Norrington? Because he looked as if he might be distressed! Perhaps the heat really had gone to her, because she was certainly losing her mind.
"You are not going down there, Evelyn Beckett," she muttered angrily to herself. "You are not."
He was still sitting in the sand when she reached him on the beach.
James had been alerted to her presence at first by the strange noise of skirts brushing against sand. He had been surprised to see her—shocked, really—Evelyn Beckett had been avoiding his presence since her arrival.
Which, of course, could not have relieved James more.
But now, for some reason, she was here, and could not have possibly looked more foreign standing upon the warm Caribbean beach. Everything about her screamed restrained civility, from the delicate beauty of the dress that she wore, to the gentle arch of her eyebrows. He had wanted restrained civility once, only to fall in love with a girl who was a hell cat. Elizabeth—fiery, uncontrollable, beautiful, wild Elizabeth. Now, civility had never looked so dull.
Yes, dull, that was what Evelyn Beckett looked right now—or something like it…he supposed.
Even if her eyes were the color of the storming ocean.
"What are you doing here?"
Evelyn was taken aback by his voice. First, because she hadn't thought that he had noticed her, and secondly because the question had been soft, barely more than a murmur. For half a moment, Evelyn debated the merits of pretending to have gotten lost and returning to the house. Yes, it would seem a plausible enough excuse—
No, no, no.
"Captain Norrington, are you all right?" She forced herself to say, cringing at the way her voice sounded so hopelessly idiotic.
"Your brother didn't find the Pearl."
Ah, so Cutler had been to see him.
"You are worried for Miss Swann." Evelyn almost bit her tongue out. What on God's Earth had possessed her to say such a thing!
Norrington looked up at her, his green eyes filled with so much checked emotion that Evelyn almost felt her knees buckle in pity. He did not answer.
"Captain Norrington," she forced herself to continue, swallowing hard, "You have my deepest sympathies. And I must apologize if anything that you heard me say about Miss Swann came across as crass. My behavior was unacceptable."
"You were curious."
"I was jealous."
Jesus Christ Evelyn!
He turned to her suddenly, his eyes riveted upon her form.
"Not of you loving her, of course," she quickly amended. "That would be ridiculous, naturally." She laughed a little, but then coughed it away when she was met with only silence. "It was your concern for her, Captain. For her well being. I have rarely been so considered by men."
Evelyn was surprised at how truthful that statement actually was. She was even more surprised then, with what James answered.
"When you are my wife, you will be mine to protect, and I will protect you always."
The statement shocked her to her very core, and never in her life had Evelyn wanted to believe something so much. Never had she wished or prayed to God so strongly in just one single instant. Someone to protect her. All of her life she had been subject to the "protection" of men, and it had always proved a forced and false sort of protection. Would James Norrington's protection become the same sort of emptiness? Or would he, as no other had, truly protect her? His words sounded so true, she did not want to doubt them. It was just that he sounded as if he were protecting an heirloom rather than a woman.
Don't be a fool Evelyn. Her subconscious, like an angry ghost, roared in her ears. She had heard the promises of men before and seen exactly what those promises wrought.
There was no such thing as protection. Not truly.
"Captain Norrington," she said quietly. "Perhaps you should come in now; it looks as if there is a storm coming."
"Have you ever lost someone close to you, Lady Beckett?" His question was as sudden as it was unexpected.
"Yes, Sir." She said.
And said no more.
"I'm going to be an admiral," James mused, the words sounding awestruck on his lips. "All my life—all my life, this is what I have lived and bled for, and now it comes like this." He shook his head at the absurdity of it all.
At those words, Evelyn sat down beside him, slowly, as if he were a frightened animal, arranging her skirts tastefully about her.
"You were a Commodore," she stated plainly.
James nodded. "Yes," and he smiled tragically. "And for one, brief instant of my life, I had everything that my heart had ever desired. "I was an officer of the royal navy, I had captured one of the greatest pirate threats in the Caribbean, and I—"
He never finished the sentence, but a black part of Evelyn knew that he had been about to say "and I was engaged to the woman I loved."
"And then what?" She asked without looking at him.
"I was obsessed with catching Sparrow. I lost my ship and my crew…" His voice faded, lashed with the painful memories of a time in his life that was not so very long ago. When Evelyn took his hand in her own, he jumped, but settled instantly, strangely intrigued by the sensation of her warmth. No, she was not his Elizabeth, but for the moment, James was content to allow the comfort of her soft hand to sooth the maelstrom of thoughts crashing together in his mind.
"So what comes next?" Evelyn asked quietly, terrified to break the strange trance that had seemed to come over them both, the quiet peace that was all too fragile.
Again, James said nothing, and Evelyn just let it be, knowing that there was nothing really that she could say to him. A million questions popped into her mind regarding Swann, the blacksmith—questions that she didn't not have the courage to ask.
They stayed like that for quite some time, hands entwined, two strangers who had no idea what to say to the other or what the other needed or wanted to here.
And for the moment, that was fine.
