The Quack Act

Part V: Sierra's Baby

Paul Everton was a man of suspicion: a Catholic, born and bred, currently masquerading as a cleric of the Church of England, made him rather wary of his congregation as a result. He knew that the majority strictly adhered to the Old Religion, but every now and again he did get some Protestant stragglers wandering in, and when that happened, he had to radically alter his sermon.

This Sunday was one such day, and Paul was consequently rather wary. The service happily concluded and unwilling donations collected, he jumped at the sound of a soft female voice murmuring his name, scattering numerous coins as a result.

"Bloody hell!" he cried, crawling across the floorboards in a clumsy and most undignified manner that made him secretly pleased that his entire flock had left ten minutes earlier.

"Oh, I am sorry," she spoke again, and then he heard the swishing of skirts and tapping of heels that indicated she was moving towards him. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes," he gasped, hand reaching up to rest over his rapidly-beating heart as he straightened, dusting himself off, collection plate balancing precariously in his hand. "You startled me," he told the lady, for that was what she was, dressed in pale silks, a mask covering her face to shield her fair complexion from the wrath of nature, as was the fashion. He peered closely at her for a moment, studying what little of her he could see intently, and she seemed to squirm in discomfort.

"Mr. Everton," she said again, somewhat informally, "it's me!"

"I'm afraid that I—oh! Oh, I see!" he said, grinning toothily at her. "Of course, of course—I didn't recognise you, milady."

Although he was unable to see her face, he sensed that she was smiling at him. Yes, he knew this lady well—he may not know her name, nor had he ever seen her face. but he knew this lady well. For the past four years or so, she had come to him, to "confess"—although every time she did so, it was not a confession, but rather a long and detailed description of what her husband had done the week prior that had upset or frustrated her. He still remembered the first day they had met:

"He stole the bloody Crown Jewels!" she had exploded the moment they had entered Paul's cunningly-disguised 'confessional.' "The stupid prat!"

Paul had flinched, not at the vehement curses themselves, but rather at the fact that the curses, mild though they were, were issuing forth from the aristocrat's lips. It was autumn, and she was fanning herself rather indignantly as she spoke, hand reaching up to adjust the uncomfortably heavy mask.

"I beg your pardon?" he had asked in shock as her words sunk in.

"The Crown Jewels!" she repeated, positively beside herself with fury. "He just waltzed into the Tower and bloody took them!" And she had kicked at a wall, causing a terrible splintering noise.

"Um, excuse me, madam—" he attempted to intervene, for was it not the custom to know the confessor's name, and when she had last confessed?

There was, however, no stopping her.

"He's such a useless, pathetic, thieving—" And she continued to rant in this vein for quite some time, oblivious and uncaring as to Paul's polite attempts at interrupting her. When she was done, he heard her lithe body slump, clearly worn out by her passionate tirade, leaving Paul sitting stunned that one man was able to commit so many thefts without ever being captured. But he supposed that was the protection that the nobility were born to.

"Ah…" Paul said, clearing his throat as he listened to her breathing heavily. "…When was your last confession?" he asked, for lack of better things to say.

When she spoke, he heard the smile in her voice. "Four, five years ago…" she told him dreamily. "Although it wasn't really a confession… It was actually how I met my husband; he was in the other part of the confessional, offering me amusingly inaccurate advice and odd suggestions for penance."

"I see…" he replied, uncertain of what sort of aristocrat would needlessly pillage, plunder, and loiter in confessionals. "And what were your sins?"

She seemed to find this innocuous question offensive. "Nothing!" she snapped, clearly peeved.

"Then might I ask what you're doing here?"

"I'm here to talk, of course."

"About your husband's sins?"

"Not specifically," she answered, irritated. "I just need someone to talk to—someone I've no acquaintance with, someone who I will never see in my day-to-day life, someone who doesn't know me, someone who is unable to tell the world what I've told him under oath."

It appeared to Paul that this last was the main reason for her coming to him rather than friends or family, but he was powerless to stop her in her passions. His patience was rewarded, however, as was his pledge of silence, and so it came to pass that, if ever the lady needed a listening ear, she would come to him, and her visits, though irregular, were not entirely infrequent. He became accustomed to her voice, if not her face, and began to grow rather fond of this grown woman, with her girlish mannerisms and the amusing situations her husband seemed to find himself in.

And it appeared that today's visit was no exception. He led her back to the familiar little room, with its threadbare walls, scratched table and ill-matching furniture—his "confessional." He was able to transform the room into such a thing by the strategic hanging of a large square of linen, a formality that he no longer carried out with the lady—the mask she always wore on her visits to him were as good a barrier as any he could fashion. He knew well why she took such precautions; the things that she told him would reflect terribly on both her and her family should they ever come to light. Not that he dreamed of such a thing as betraying her trust.

She seated herself carefully upon a rickety stool, arranging her skirts about herself, and clasped her fan and parasol tightly in her hands, which were covered in a delicate white netting.

"So tell me, milady," he addressed her, seating himself rather comfortably into an armchair—she had always insisted he take this particular seat. "Exactly what has The Baby done this time?"

'Baby' was the name that the two used when talking of the lady's husband; whether it was an affectionate term of endearment or the lady's personal view of her spouse's behaviour was debatable.

"Well," she said to him, "this is by far the worse of everything that, in all of the years that I've known him, he has ever done to me!"

Paul sat up, alert and concerned; although he had heard of a great many things The Baby had done, not once had he heard of a crime committed against the lady in question; fond of her as he was, Paul couldn't help but feel apprehensive of her next words.

"He—" she began, and stopped, anger and grief waging war within her. Paul waited.

"He won't forgive me!" she burst out in a desperate, strangled cry. "He absolutely refuses to forgive me! After all of the things I've done for him, the years I've spent by his side—"

Paul held up his hands, and she reluctantly fell silent, looking at him in what he assumed was a sullen manner.

"First things first," Paul asked her evenly. "Has he… taken any items that do not in fact belong to him?"

"Well… yes, actually," she admitted, momentarily distracted. "Of course he has; you do realise that the only reason he attends the House of Lords at all is because he always has a plan to loot something of historical and political importance, don't you?"

Paul nodded; yes, she had explained her husband's inclination towards theft to him. Last year, The Baby had brought home a suit of armour belonging to the robust Henry VIII; the year before that, a portrait of the executed Charles I. And every single year, without fail, he would always bring back a crystal chandelier. As such, the lady was now mistress of the best-lit wine cellar in all of Europe. The newspapers always reported such mysterious thefts as the works of a silent phantom, dubbed the "Parliamentarian Poltergeist." But of course, Paul knew otherwise.

"How big was the chandelier?" he asked her politely.

"The biggest one yet—twenty feet in diameter!" the lady exclaimed. "At this rate, the House will have to make do with lanterns and candles!"

"And the other item?" Paul queried, and the lady made a noise of distaste.

"A portrait of Oliver Cromwell," she told him sullenly. "Honestly, I don't how he's able to get all of these items past the guards."

"Your husband is a most talented thief," Paul remarked, and he saw the lady preen, clearly proud of him—or was she proud of herself, for capturing him?

"Yes…" she agreed, hesitating before saying fondly, "Even his imperfections are perfect."

"But you say that he won't forgive you?" Paul quizzed, and saw the lady nodding frantically. "How so? What have you done to upset him so?"

"Oh, nothing, really," the lady waved away with her closed fan. "I saved him from humiliation; he had this absurd idea of passing an act banning duck ponds, duck farms… just ducks, in general."

Paul sat up, alert at this. "You stopped him from banning ducks?" he queried in a disbelieving tone. "Why on earth would you do that?"

The lady frowned, bemused. "I beg your pardon?"

"Ducks," Paul began, rising from his seat and pacing the floor, "are a societal evil that must, at all costs, be destroyed."

"I beg your pardon?" the lady repeated in disbelief. He rounded on her, examining her critically, and there was something in the man's gaze that made her shift uncomfortably in her seat.

"I had a nephew," he told her gently, "many years ago; a brighter, handsomer lad you'll never meet. Ducks ruined his life."

"I'm afraid I don't quite follow…" the lady told him, clearly confused, and Paul sighed.

"He was such a promising boy," he told her forlornly. "A smart youngster; quick-witted, sharp-eyed, and a charming way with words. Such a bright future—and the ducks took that away from him."

The lady placed a hand to her masked lips in horror. "Oh…"

"When he was a very small child, he fell into a duck pond and was left to drown. Thankfully, his mother was able to pull him out. But he was never the same since, I tell you. Before, he could have been anything he wished; a lawyer, an accountant, a banker—anything. But after he fell into the pond, everything changed. He dreamt of becoming a pirate—and when he was old enough, he ran off to see as a merchant sailor. But that was only a steppingstone to his dreams of glory as a sea rover. In a few years, he obtained a ship, and changed his name to Jack Sparrow."

The lady, who had been on the edge of her seat with anticipation, let out a gasp as the cleric unwittingly confirmed her suspicions.

"How do you—How do you know your nephew was called that?" she challenged.

"Well, he kept in touch with me, over the years. We were always quite close; he was my favourite out of all of my sister's children—and let me tell you, she had a fair few."

"He wrote to you often?" the lady asked, surprised at this new information.

"That he did—until about four years ago, when I heard that he was killed on some godforsaken plantation by some landed lord. From what I've heard at the docks, they were fighting over some woman. Apparently she was simultaneously married to Jack and engaged to the nobleman."

"Now that's not—" The lady began defensively, and then stopped. "Well, surely that's not fair on the woman," she amended. "Perhaps her first husband should have taken better care of her; perhaps he should have realised that she expected more, particularly since—did they have children?" she asked suddenly.

"I'm not certain. Perhaps."

"Well, assuming that they did—assuming that the woman was expecting a child, perhaps, and required more… funds, and perhaps a—a companion, of a sort, to help her care for the child, is it so surprising that she would have accepted a nobleman's—Do you know the name of the nobleman?" she enquired sharply, and Paul shrugged.

"His name changes with every version of the tale. Cranleigh, from what I heard," and the lady seemed to wilt, sighing in what sounded like relief. Realising that she was feeling particularly overheated, she flicked open her fan, and proceeded to hurriedly fan herself.

"You're welcome to remove your mask, milady," Paul told her gently. "I shan't expose you or The Baby; I'm a man of my word."

The lady shook her head and politely declined.

"Oh, come now," Paul goaded her playfully before adding, "Will you deny me the pleasure of seeing my niece's face?"

The lady froze, her fan fluttering to rest in her lap. Her hands reached up to rest on either side of the black mask as an automatic response to his words, but she stopped, and, looking at him, asked, "How long have you known?"

Paul smiled at her. "I was always suspicion of your husband's true status," he confessed. "But not once did I suspect him of being my nephew—not until you mentioned his phobia of ducks this very morning. Everything came together after that."

"Oh," was all she said, before reaching back to untie the ribbon. The cloth fell away into her hands as she lowered her head, and all he could see was the outline of an elegant nose and dark lashes. Slowly, she raised her head, and he was looking into eyes of the brightest blue he had ever seen. A beautiful woman, he thought appraisingly. Coupling her face with the glimpses of her personality she had revealed, not to mention her adoration for her spouse, Paul could clearly see why Jack was fond of her.

He gave that face an encouraging smile. "He'll forgive you, eventually," he told her confidently. "I know my nephew well, and if he's anything like I think he is, he won't be able to deny you for very long."

"It's already been a week," she told him, disgruntled. "And I've done everything within my power to make him forgive me."

"Have you tried bribing him?"

"Of course!"

"With what?" Paul asked, and his niece hesitated.

"I'd rather not say…"

"You can tell me," he encouraged her, and she looked up at him.

"Numerous sexual favours of varying depravity," she told him evenly.

"What sort?"

"Oh, really!" the lady snapped, picking up her fan once more. There was absolutely no way she was going to tell this religious man that his favourite nephew had bedded both her and a delicate blonde courtesan at once. "This is highly inappropriate—Jack's your nephew!"

"He's also a man," Paul reminded her. "And I know how men think."

"Yes, well, I thought I did too," she sighed before standing. "I'm sorry, Mr. Everton, but I really must be taking my leave of you," she told him sorrowfully. "My Baby—Jack would get suspicious if I was away for too long."

Paul gently took her hand, studying the delicate fingers briefly. "What is your name?" he asked her softly, and she smiled.

"I go by the name of Cecily Livingstone," she told him. "But you may call me Sierra."

"Well, Sierra," Paul advised her, patting her palm. "I suggest that you wait for Jack to calm down; no rash ploys or stupid lies, understand?"

Sierra nodded her dark head fervently. "I understand," she promised.

"Jack, if you don't forgive me by tomorrow morning, I will have turned into a duck," Sierra calmly informed her husband later that evening.

Jack, God bless him, looked highly unconvinced. "What?"

"I'd have turned into a duck," Sierra repeated. "It's a family curse; if a man or woman is not forgiven for a well-meaning act he or she had committed within seven days by the man or woman that he or she loves, then the man or woman belonging to my family in question will have turned into a duck—and let me remind you that I am a part of my family."

"Really?" Jack asked, so overcome by sceptism that he had forgotten that he wasn't talking to her.

"Yes, really—why did you think I was so desperate, so against your Quack Act from the very beginning? Half of my relatives are ducks!"

"Well, that's their own fault," Jack said, slipping under the bedcovers.

Sierra, determined not to give up, joined him, clinging tightly to his arm, and Jack sighed.

"Why a duck?" he asked in resignation, hoping to catch her out.

"Why not a duck?" she shot back.

"Go to your room," he ordered her, as was his marital right.

"This is my room," she shot back. "You go to yours, if you're so desperate to keep away from me!"

Jack would, but secretly he had no idea where that was, and he didn't like any of their guestrooms.

"Go to sleep," he said instead, and Sierra snorted, clearly finding such an idea preposterous.

"Knowing that my husband, my soul mate, the love of my life, hasn't forgiven me?" she asked in disbelief. "And that tomorrow morning I'd be a bird? Are you mad?"

"It wouldn't surprise if you do turn into a duck," Jack shot back. "With all of your quacking, you're halfway there already."

"I can't help the quacking," Sierra sniffled. "It's in my blood. Besides, my incessant quacking is really your fault."

"My fault?"

"Yes, Jack: There is an animal in every woman, and I'm sorry to say your Quack Act has unleashed the duck in me."

Jack, unwilling to hear anymore of this nonsense, blew out the candle beside him, and rolled onto his side with a pillow in his arms, lest in his sleep he accidentally embrace her.

But Sierra was still unwilling to give up: he heard her sniffle, felt her body move towards him, her hands gripping his shoulders as she turned him over before they came to rest upon both sides of his face as she gave him one last, final kiss.

"I love you, Jack Sparrow," she told him tearfully.

"Oh, shut up."

When Jack awoke the next morning, he was surprised to find that he was alone: as a rule, Jack always woke first, unless he had been drinking excessively the night before, and he hadn't been drinking excessively the night before.

But then he realised that he wasn't alone, not really; he was aware of careful, light footsteps, the slight creaking of a closing door and—as though to mock him—a final quack.

Jack sighed in exasperation, unable to believe her obstinacy, before rolling over and falling back into a dreamless half-sleep once more.

Only when he was fully awake, about twenty minutes later, did he notice the single white feather on the pillow beside him. He frowned at this, confused, and gently picked up the snowy object, frowning as he looked down at it. Shaking his head, he sat up, feather still in hand, slipped out of bed, and went in hunt of his clothes, discarding the feather on his desk without another thought to the odd object.

Strolling down the stairs, his dark hair falling about his face, he gave a passing maid a warm greeting that had her dropping her broom and flushing. "N—No, milord," she replied, flustered, when he had enquired as to her mistress' whereabouts. "I've not seen her—she'll still be abed at this hour, won't she?"

"She wasn't there when I woke this morning," Jack commented to her, which made her redden further, and bade her continue on her way.

Beckham served him breakfast, as was his custom, and before Jack could ask, enquired as to whether his mistress wished to break her fast in bed.

"You mean you've not seen her?" Jack asked sharply, and the butler replied that no, he had not.

"Why do you ask, my lord?" he queried politely.

"No particular reason," Jack said, and dismissed him. When the servant was gone, he looked about himself in contemplation, toying with his food. He'd never realised how large the house was before, nor how cold; Sierra's presence lent the grand dwelling a more familial atmosphere. Despite their "distance" over the past seven days, Jack found that he was missing her terribly.

On the other hand, Jack consoled himself, it is nice to finally have some time alone without her incessant chattering or persistent pestering for money and coition; but most of all, there is absolutely no—

"Quack!"

She could have at least had the decency to allow me to finish my thoughts, Jack thought irritably, leaving his mostly untouched meal and strolling to the door to confront her. He had just stepped over the threshold before leaping back with a curse as a duck waddled pass, wings fluttering in panic.

"Come back!" he heard another voice cry, and within seconds, his own daughter was streaking pass the door, skirts gathered up in her hands as she scurried after the bird. She didn't even notice her father staring at the odd scene in disbelief.

"I'm surrounded by duck enthusiasts," he muttered under his breath, hurrying out of the dining room and towards his study, where his trusty pistol waited. The way he saw it, he'd planned the Quack Act as a way of countering his inability to shoot a particular duck; now that he had the opportunity to right this most heinous of wrongs, he didn't see why he should let it slip through his fingers. This duck in particular was a domesticated one, so it didn't actually resemble the wild mallards that had made his life such living hell, but it was still a duck.

Isabelle was now in the parlour, chasing after the white bird with cries and pleas of desperation issuing from her lips. It appeared to Jack that she was close to tears, which was another reason to blow the bird's brains out, wasn't it?

Pearl spun on her heel, her blue skirts swirling about her legs, and gasped as she saw her father standing in the doorway, calmly cocking a pistol. "Papa—" she began, horrified, even as she moved her slender body in an attempt to block the bird from her father's view.

"Step aside, Pearl," Jack told her calmly, stepping forward and wrapping his arm about her waist to keep her out of range.

"No! Papa, please—"

"You might want to close your eyes and look away," he told her confidently, cocking the firearm and taking aim.

She lost what little rein over her emotions she had left.

"Don't shoot my Si-Si!" she shrieked, and her words stilled his hand. Jack was silent, looking at the squawking bird that was bouncing around the room in panic.

"What did you say?" he asked, and Pearl looked fearfully behind her before bursting into tears. "Pearl!" he exclaimed in astonishment as she slumped in his arms; cocking the safety back on his firearm, he allowed the gun to drop to the floor the better to support her.

"…Not my Si-Si…" she was sobbing, burying her face into his shoulder, and Jack was moved by how fragile and childlike she suddenly was. She hadn't used the name Si-Si in nearly ten years; in the days before she rejected the name of Pearl and insisted on being called Isabelle, her reasoning being it was a more fitting name that indicated maturity.

Si-Si, of course being a child's affectionate nickname for Sierra…

"…If you don't forgive me by tomorrow morning, I will have turned into a duck."

Bollocks.

Jack clung tightly to his weeping daughter, rubbing her back and murmuring soothing words of comfort. At length, Pearl finally calmed down, her tears now reduced to the occasional sniffle; eventually, she drew away, wiping at her eyes and nose with a handkerchief. Jack smiled, suggesting she go clean herself up.

"But… But what of my Si-Si?" she stammered.

"I'll take care of Si-Si," he promised her, and she smiled shakily through her tears.

"I think you two should spend some time together," she proposed, still in that childish cadence.

"We will," he swore, and Pearl beamed happily before retreating to her bedroom.

The moment she was gone, Jack straightened, picking up his pistol, and surveyed the duck critically. The bird must have noticed his stare, for she calmed down, and was looking up at him with black eyes. He stayed still, his eyes never leaving the duck's… And slowly, the bird ambled over, never breaking away from his gaze.

He slowly knelt down when she reached him, cautiously reaching out a nervous hand before pulling it back when the duck made a sudden movement. She looked up at him in a sort of hurt before lowering her head in melancholy. Swallowing, Jack slowly reached out again, and refused to pull back until his fingers brushed her head. The duck closed her black eyes at the contact, and it let out a sort of contented squawk. Jack started, but kept his hand on her head, gently stroking her. The bird moved forward once more, and rested her head on his bent knee.

Eventually, he drew away, and the bird released a quack of disapproval, spreading her wings in urgency, unwilling for the tender moment to end.

"So…" Jack said to her as she waddled towards him. "What do you want to do?"

The house appeared oddly quiet and empty when she returned late in the afternoon, the servants she had brought with her all weighed down with numerous large and weighty packages. St James' Square watched in astonishment at this shameless display of aristocratic decadence as she stepped down from her carriage, dressed in the finest silks and satins, her hair artfully piled upon her head, diamonds glistening at her ears, wrists and neck.

"You all know where everything goes," she told them friendlily, grinning flirtatiously at the muscular footman that had helped her down. Jack obviously hadn't noticed this man's handsome features, or surely the servant would have been dismissed from his post. She allowed her hand to linger in his for longer than was appropriate until he looked up at his mistress—a breach of etiquette that would surely have been sufficient grounds for dismissal had it been with any other member of the peerage. She allowed him to look into her eyes, smiling suggestively—

"Lady Livingstone," a voice spoke, and the moment was shattered; irritated, she looked around, only to spot Beckham at the door, looking at her with polite disapproval.

It's not my fault, she thought irritably as she dropped her hand from the footman's. Jack hasn't touched me in seven days.

"Don't tell my husband," she snapped as she brushed pass him.

"I wouldn't dream of it, my lady," he answered her, though this was a lie: he had long ago pledged to Lord Livingstone to report even the slightest flirtation his coquettish wife indulged in.

"Where is my lord?" she queried as she carefully removed her bonnet and handed it to a waiting maid.

"In the library, my lady," he answered, and she frowned. The library was principally her domain.

"And what of my daughter?"

"Miss Isabelle is currently standing outside of the library with her ear pressed to the door, giggling incessantly," the butler answered, causing her frown to deepen.

"Thank you, Beckham," she dismissed. "See to it that at least one of these barrels is placed in our room, won't you?" She waved at a point behind her, and he nodded. The Livingstones were a family full of strange little quirks; a tapped barrel of rum in the master bedroom was one of them.

Sierra carefully traced the familiar path to the library, and soon spotted Pearl, slumped on the floor, legs drawn up to her chest, shoulders shaking in silent laughter.

"Hello, darling," she greeted, bending down to kiss the girl's cheek. "What have you done to your father?"

Pearl flung her arms about the woman's neck, burying her face in the lady's shoulder to smother her mirth.

"Nothing," she wheezed out between fits of laughter. "He thinks… He…" And she started to cackle.

Sierra placed a finger to the girl's lips. "Shh…" she instructed, craning her neck the better to listen. Unable to hear anything of particular interest, she drew away from the girl, moving towards the door and carefully placed her ear to it. Quietly, she reached down to the handle, and pried the door slowly open.

What the—

Sierra gaped in disbelief at the sight of her husband sitting at a desk, several papers scattered before him, a duck in the centre of the table, a ring of small squares encircling the bird, quill held in one hand whilst he massaged his head with the other.

"Why would anyone pay for any of this?" he asked of the bird as he looked over one parchment critically. "'Slow down, Roland, or reticent unicorns will countermand my trousers,'" he read aloud. "I think you've used 'countermand' in the wrong context, love," and Sierra's jaw dropped as she realised he was addressing the duck. "Come to think of it," he continued, still looking at the duck and so unaware of Sierra standing in the doorway gaping at them, "Have you any under what 'countermand' means?"

The duck merely quacked, flapping its white wings, offended that Jack would think so little of its knowledge of the English language, and the man sighed. "Yes, I suppose you do…"

Sierra decided that her dear husband had humiliated himself enough for one day.

"Well," she said, stepping forward and causing Jack to start at the sound of her voice, "I suppose it depends which context you use it in, but the general gist is to recall or overrule a previous command of a sort."

Jack merely gaped at her, looking from the woman standing at the door to the duck on the table and back again. Which one was his wife?

The woman moved lazily forward, her skirts brushing against his leg as she stood beside him, carefully plucking the parchment from his slack grip. Her blue eyes scanned the words her husband had written in her absence, and suppressed a giggle at what she saw.

"Who wrote all this?" she asked her husband, who was still staring up at her.

"You did," he replied. "Well… She did," and he gestured at the duck. Frowning, Sierra peered at the bird, who was preening her feathers, and then at the squares around it, noting that upon each square was a letter printed in her husband's careful scrawl.

Her eyes returned to her husband. "What are you doing?"

Jack shifted, clearly uncomfortable. "I'm—We're… writing…" he said meekly.

"Writing what?"

Jack glanced uneasily at the duck, who merely quacked and hopped onto a vacant chair, determined to stay out of this domestic.

"We were finishing…" he began, then stopped.

"Go on," Sierra encouraged, and he swallowed before continuing.

"We were finishing your novel," he said quickly.

She was touched. "Let me see if I've got this straight," she said slowly. "You have, for strange and inexplicable reasons, reached the conclusion that I have morphed into a duck, yes?"

"Can't fault you so far," Jack confessed.

"And upon reaching this conclusion, your first course of action was to…?"

"Well…" Jack said, straightening in the chair. "Obviously, I went through all of the options that I could that might reverse this… unusual course of events; witches, wise women, magicians…"

"Quacks?" Sierra added, unable to keep the mischief out of her voice. Jack merely glared at her.

"Aye, those too. But then I thought to myself, 'I can't risk taking my feathered wife out into the marketplace with no idea which option will be effective; it'll put her at too much risk.' So my second recourse was to create an ideal environment for my spouse."

"An ideal environment?" she quizzed.

"By that, I mean a heavily padded guestroom and a full bathtub," Jack confessed, feeling more and more embarrassed.

"Why heavily padded?"

Jack looked down; he was not one to blush, but the man could not deny the heat rushing to his cheeks. "Because my wife might accidentally cause herself irreparable harm in her disoriented state."

Sierra was taken aback by this, and her eyes softened with affection.

"And then I thought to myself, 'Well, whilst the help are preparing such an environment, I should keep my wife occupied.' Now, you know full well how I would normally… occupy you," and Sierra's mouth opened at the barefaced innuendo, "but in your current birdlike state, such activities would be unethical, damaging, and disturbing. So then I asked myself, 'What does my wife enjoy doing in her spare time?'"

"And it was then that you remembered that I've a penchant for writing about fictional people occupying each another," Sierra filled in, and Jack nodded, awaiting a rebuke.

Instead, Sierra glanced back down at the parchment. "'Steady now, Rupert, the banana's narcoleptic,'" she spoke in disbelief. "Who's Rupert?"

"I don't know," Jack said, pointing at the bird. "The duck told me to write it."

Sierra smiled and reached over to pat its head. "I ordered this duck this morning," she told him. "I wanted the cook to whip up duck a l'orange this evening, to see if eating a duck might ritualistically purge you of your hatred, but it appears that the belief of your wife becoming one is an effective enough remedy."

"Pearl is very fond of it," Jack informed her. "She was crying when I was about to shoot it."

"You were going to shoot me?" Sierra cried, alarmed.

"No, I was going to shoot it before I realised that it was you, at which point I relinquished all firearms," Jack hurried to assure her.

Sierra gave him a slow, enigmatic smile, and gently scooped the bird up in her arms, turning on her heel and trotting towards the door, where Pearl waited. "Here you go," she said to the teenager, depositing the bird in her arms with an indignant quack. "Now take your new friend and stay away from here for the next three hours or so, alright? And tell the cook that she is permitted to serve some other meal this evening. We'll keep the duck as a sort of family pet."

"Really?" Pearl asked; for, despite her pretensions, she was still a child inside.

Sierra smiled indulgently at her. "But of course; why, your brother might like it," she added, referring to the infant she had left in the care of his paternal grandmother in the country, fearing that London would damage the young child's constitution.

"Will we be going to Woodmansterne soon?"

Sierra laughed at this. "Of course we will. I miss my son terribly, and I know you do too. Now go."

Pearl beamed and turned away, before hesitantly adding over her shoulder, "I named her after you, you know."

"I know," she smiled, and then the girl was gone.

Lady Livingstone then returned to the library, retrieving a key and locking the doors before rounding upon her husband with a mischievous grin.

"Do you love me?" she asked as she moved carelessly towards him.

"Perhaps," he answered.

"Do you forgive me?"

"I might do just that…" Jack said to her as she wrapped her arms about him, kissing his neck affectionately. "Depending upon the next three hours…"

Sierra smiled happily, pleased that they were at long last reconciled.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she asked him as she drew away, leaning against the desk. At Jack's quirked eyebrow, the lady hopped onto the table and, tossing her head back, said commandingly, "Occupy me."

And he did just that, and gladly so.

THE END

AN: Sorry it took so long to post this last instalment, but I'm sure you'll forgive me when I explain why: I've an idea for a sequel. It took me ages to get the first part written and edited to my satisfaction, but at long last it's at an upload-able standard. It's called , and despite the title, doesn't actually have a thing to do with ducks, so please go check it out.