Author's Note: Another chapter. Thank you for reading this! If you do, please remember to review.
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Esther awoke the following morning and wondered for a moment why she had done so. She sat up slowly and looked around her tiny bedroom. It looked quite normal, bathed in early morning sunlight pouring in the window. It was a small room, with space only for her bed, a wardrobe and a dresser.
She had just put her head back on the pillow when she heard voices in the kitchen down the hallway. She got up again, pulling a robe over her white nightdress and heading towards the kitchen, sweeping her long hair over her shoulder.
She stopped in the doorway suddenly, blanching as she saw that Admiral Powell and the dark Captain from yesterday were sitting at the round, scrubbed wooden table.
They looked at her shocked face and at once the Captain rose, sweeping his hat from his head. "Miss Esther! What are you doing here?"
Esther swallowed. "It's Miss Chambers. And… and I should be asking you the same thing." She was trembling in fear and wondered if her father was up yet. It was possible he had already left the house to see a patient.
"Oh!" The Captain looked sincere, although he wore a silly smile. "Don't be afraid, Miss Chambers. We mean you no harm. We're looking for Doctor Chambers- who is, I assume, your father?"
"He is," Esther said. "But I'm not sure if he's here or not."
"In that case the intelligent thing to do would be to check and stop wasting our time," the Admiral said coldly.
Esther caught the Captain's eye and was sure that there was almost an apology lingering there. She frowned. "Yes, Admiral," she said coolly, glad for an excuse to leave the kitchen.
The house was long and narrow; downstairs there was a kitchen, Esther's room, and a long hallway which had stairs up to the second level. Up there was a study which also contained her father's bed, and Anatole's room. Sighing painfully at the thought of her brother, Esther climbed the stairs and pushed open the door to her father's study. It was empty; the white sheets had been placed neatly on the bed.
She closed the door and turned around; she had intended to go back down but her eyes lingered on Anatole's door. She found that she couldn't resist pushing the door open just a crack and peering in. Anatole's scent drifted out and captured her senses.
She swallowed around the aching lump that had suddenly returned to her throat. The Captain had lost her brother. She hated him.
"Miss Chambers?" It was the insufferable Captain himself, standing halfway up the stairs, staring at her. "Are you alright?"
She glared at him, hating everything about him from the ridiculous white wig on his head to his perfectly shiny shoes. "Fine," she said shortly, snapping Anatole's door shut. "My father isn't here."
"Where is he?"
"Well, I don't know!" she retorted sharply, placing her hands on her hips, a gesture she had inherited from her mother.
The Captain's expression was unreadable. His light brown eyes held her flaming eyes steadily. "Fine," he said quietly. "Will you please return to the kitchen?"
Esther was sorely tempted to decline and see what the Captain would do, but she was a little afraid. The Captain seemed placid enough, but she remembered his strong grip on her yesterday and swallowed. Also, the Admiral seemed coldly fierce. So she didn't reply at all, merely held her head up high and stalked down the stairs, brushing right past the Captain. As she did so she caught a scent that was masculine and intoxicating, and for a moment she thought it quite pleasant.
When they reached the kitchen, the Captain sat down beside the Admiral, who looked at Esther and said, "Perhaps you should have a seat."
Indignant at being asked to sit in her own house, Esther forgot her fear. "Perhaps I should not," she replied.
"I wasn't asking."
Esther hesitated, the tip of her tongue on her top lip. Then she sat down opposite her enemies and glared at them. "Why are you here?"
"Regrettably, it is necessary to billet an officer in this house." The Admiral's blue eyes were two chips of ice.
"There is no room- my father is a doctor, half the time this place is full of patients," Esther exclaimed, horrified at the idea of one of the persecutors staying in the house.
"I believe it was your brother Lord Beckett took with him yesterday," the Admiral drawled, "so I should expect there to be one spare room here."
Esther lost her temper. Kicking the chair back, she rose and glared at the Admiral, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her hands were clenched into fists so tightly that her fingernails were pressing into her skin. "You horrible, scummy little man!" she shrieked. "How dare you?"
"Miss Chambers-" began the Captain desperately, but he stopped as the fiery, fuming woman reached for a heavy saucepan. The Admiral was on his feet, and the Captain saw his hand itching to reach for his pistol.
It was lucky that Doctor Chambers returned at that moment.
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Esther had been sent out of the kitchen with a comforting kiss to the temple from her father, although the fatigued lines around his eyes offered her no reassurance. Leaving the men to it, she went back to her bedroom and sat on the bed.
Poor Anatole. As tears threatened to well up again inside of her, she flung herself down angrily, pulling a pillow close and clinging to it.
She could hardly believe it. All her life she had loved Tortuga; fair enough, it had its fair share of trouble, but it was free. People could do as they pleased, without answering to a greedy, self-obsessed megalomaniac. She remembered Beckett's toad-like face and for a moment wished that she had shot him. Then she sighed. She didn't really wish that, deep down. How would she feel if she fired a gun at someone? Took someone's life away from them? She was crying now without realising it.
"Miss Chambers?" It was Captain Sparrow. He was standing in her doorway.
"Go away," she said stoutly.
The Captain lowered his soft eyes. "I want to apologise." When she didn't reply, he stepped forward. "Miss Chambers? Oh, don't cry."
She reached up with a small hand and found the tears on her cheeks. Surprised, she just stared at the Captain. "I don't want to talk to you."
"About Anatole Chambers…" The Captain cleared his throat. He could see that Esther Chambers was seconds away from dissolving into the passionate tears he had seen after Anatole had been taken. It was time for drastic action. Without speaking, he pulled the powdered wig from his head and threw it. It hit her square in the nose, and she stopped crying suddenly, shocked.
"Why did you do that?" she asked, cocking her head. She was looking at his real hair, so soft and shining.
He smiled at her. "Because I did not want to see you cry."
"You're mad."
"Perhaps a little." His eyes twinkled. "May I have my wig?"
She was truly tempted to decline playfully, run away from him with the wig, laughing, like in the childhood games she had once played with her father. But somehow that would be too strange. This man was an important member of the Navy. He was her enemy. So she tossed the wig to him and he replaced it.
She watched him for a moment before sighing. "Who are they putting in our house?"
"Captain Jack Sparrow."
She was looking at him with deep grey eyes. She swallowed. "But isn't that you?"
"Yes."
A rush of emotion filled Esther, and she sat up straight. "How can they put you here? You have lost my Anatole," she said, only just remembering this herself.
"Miss Chambers, I was-" he began.
"No! Go away, Captain!" she interrupted. Before he left he took one last look at the disconsolate woman, with her flaming hair and white face. Her eyes would haunt him all day, as he went into the main town with the Admiral.
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That night, sitting in Esther Chambers' room, Captain Sparrow wrote a letter. The doctor had insisted that there was no way the guilty Captain could have his son's room, so Esther was going to sleep up there.
In his letter, the Captain addressed Cutler Beckett and almost begged for the return of Anatole Chambers, writing that it would make the islanders trust the Navy more.