I don't know what has come over me! I wrote this two weeks ago and could have sworn i'd already posted it! (By the way, i have meant to post more in the past two weeks, but unfortunatly i suffer from a rare and frightenning addiction...The Sims 2. Yes i know, it's dreadful and i am in desperate need of treatment, but because of that wonderful game, i have been rather distracted.)

But finally i bring a post! Hopefully i can get the next one up within a week.

Predicament

Elizabeth woke up with a cool cloth being pressed to her forehead and the soft comfort of her mattress against her back. She groaned as she felt a dull ache in the back of her head.

"Shh, Miss Elizabeth." Elizabeth heard Esther's voice soothe.

"What happened?"

"You fainted as the Commodore proposed." Esther smiled to her.

Another groan came from Elizabeth.

"He was incredibly alarmed, has been with your father in his study ever since you were brought back here." She continued. "Requested to see you after you had woken."

Elizabeth groaned again. "Can you tell him to return tomorrow after I have rested." She asked.

Esther looked to her young charge confused. "The man proposed to you, my child. He is now the second highest man in Port Royal after your father. He will not be told to do such a thing."

"Please?" Elizabeth begged.

Esther frowned. "I won't be gone long. I want you to stay in bed however." She placed the cloth in the bowl of water on the table beside the bed.

Elizabeth nodded, just wanting the woman to be gone so she could think. She waited until the door clicked shut before sitting up, leaning against the bed-head. Her mind was spinning at a million miles. James had proposed to her; Anne could see she was in love, and maybe she was, but most definitely William Turner was the object of that love.

Elizabeth pushed the sheets from her legs, swinging them over the edge of the bed, before standing gingerly and moving towards the windows, hugging herself. As she looked through the cracks in the thin curtains at the town bathed in the light of the early evening, clouded over, Elizabeth began kicking herself mentally.

"Lizbeth?" Gingerly Elizabeth turned to see Thomas, his head poking in the doorway. "Are you okay?" He entered the room, closing the door as Elizabeth returned to the bed, pulling the sheets about her legs.

"I'm a fool." She moaned as her brother sat down at the end of her bed.

"Why, because you fainted as a man proposed marriage?" He chuckled, reaching for the cloth, wringing it of excess moisture and pressing it to his sister's brow.

Elizabeth sighed. Could she trust her eldest brother with her heart? Could she tell him of her love for William Turner? Could she reveal their relationship?

"Elizabeth, why are you a fool?" His voice broke her of her thoughts.

She sighed, remembering when Thomas had played matchmaker the few times he had been in hers, and Will's presence. "Because I fell in love with a man I cannot be with because of society, and now, the man who society wants me to be with wants to marry me and I don't know how to get out of it." She held her head in her hands.

Thomas chuckled to himself. "I can understand why you would fall in love with William Turner." Elizabeth looked up at him stunned that he wasn't flying into a rage. "What, the boy is good company and comes from a great Port Royal family. But Lizbeth, the moment I met that young man I knew he was in love with you. And when father and Arthur told me of his history I thought 'who cares'? But you definitely do have a predicament." He sighed.

"Oh Thomas, what am I to do? James is a wonderful, fine man; the type of man any woman would dream of marrying." She moaned.

"But Turner is a fine man too?" He countered.

Elizabeth groaned. "Of course, but I cannot marry him, or be seen romantically with him. How do I tell father, or James for that matter, that I love Will, without causing my family shame?" Both fell into a silence, thinking of way's to counter this problem. "Maybe Will and I should elope."

Thomas laughed. "You could, at least that way you wouldn't have to worry about evading marriage to a man you don't want to marry." He stopped laughing, and seriousness fell across his features. "But at the same time, it is written into father's will that any child who marries without his permission shall not receive a penny."

"But I don't need father's money!" Elizabeth exclaimed.

"Maybe not, but you also whether you realise it or not, don't want to pollute our family name, which is why you're sneaking around with Turner." He explained.

Elizabeth groaned again as Thomas patted her head with the cloth, before re-loading it with water. "How is marrying William Turner a bad marriage? The man is in society, the son and heir to one of the largest fortunes in Port Royal, whose name is only tainted because his father left to be a pirate twenty years ago!"

Thomas sighed. "You know the answer to that question, unfortunately."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes, society."

Thomas chuckled again, both falling into silence as he continued to gently dab at her forehead. Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak again but was cut off by the sound of a commotion from the town, and the dull sound, similar to thunder. Thomas placed the cloth back in the bowl and moved to the window to investigate.

"Well you may have a few days to evade the Commodore's question." He spoke at the window.

"Why?" Elizabeth sat up confused.

"Because that ship in the bay is firing on the fort." Immediately Elizabeth jumped from her bed and rushed to the window, looking down at the bay and the flashes of flight flaring across the water from the ship's cannons.

"Pirates." Elizabeth both asked the question and made a statement. Thomas however, was making his way towards the door.

"Stay here, don't move unless you're instructed." Elizabeth knew that voice, it was his father voice, the one he had used before he had left for England those many years before when Elizabeth was still a child.

As Thomas left the door, Esther scurried in. "If you wanted the Commodore gone, he has, and he wouldn't have without those pirates attacking the town." She then proceeded to pull Elizabeth into the adjoining cupboard, much to the bewilderment of Elizabeth.

"The Commodore's orders. If the house is ambushed, he doesn't want you hurt!"

Elizabeth bit her tongue, knowing precisely what she wanted to say, but at the same time accepting it wasn't the time for jokes.

--ยง--

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