Charlotte was deeply unhappy at how her father denied her from seeing her childhood friend Jack. She had gone past the point where she felt any daughterly love towards her father after she discovered that her father was actively tracking Jack down to kill him and take his ship. Then, he had taken Jack's ship and that was the last straw.
She was afraid for Jack. The pirate was one of the smartest people that she'd met and she'd hate it if her father snuffed the pirate out so quickly that the Caribbean would be devoid of him and the Wicked Wench. The pirate was like a brother to her and she loved him like a brother but Cutler Beckett seemed so determined to rob his daughter of a true friend.
As Charlotte thought about Jack, she imagined that he'd be in Tortuga with his crew and finding a ship to go on the pursuit to get the Wicked Wench back from Beckett. She had to laugh at how Jack used his smarts to commandeer an unfortunate trade ship that would happen to be sitting in the harbour while their masters had indulged in such debauchery that shocked Charlotte and her female propriety.
The girl did not want to be an object of the court especially Nigel Penwallow that her father seemed so sure to marry her off to the leech that was only interested in buggering her until she had no use to him. The thought left a bitter taste in Charlotte's mouth as she thought of the future if Beckett killed Jack. And she was determined to make sure that Jack was well far away from her murdering father. That meant defying him and Mercer and she had begun it.
The house was eerily quiet which Charlotte peeked out into the hallway to only find Mercer fast asleep on a chair with a pistol in his hand. Charlotte sniggered quietly to herself that Mercer had gone to sleep. As the house went quiet let alone the snores of Mercer, a memory came flooding back into Charlotte's memory.
Charlotte was sitting on a barrel as she watched the bustling activity of the port in Port Royal. She watched merchantmen and sailors offloading goods from their ships while there were men who were looking at ships that sat in the harbour as these ships looked like they were too big to be moored at the port. There were also sailors rowing their boats that looked like they were coming from the large ships that sat in the harbour.
Then, Charlotte spotted a person that looked rather familiar to the young lady. The person was a man with raven black hair and he looked rather handsome but he had piercing blue eyes. That's it, it was Charles Beckett, her uncle and her father's brother.
She watched Charles tie the rowboat to a pole before he climbed himself onto the boardwalk. Charlotte stood up and cleared her throat before opening her mouth to call out her uncle's name as he had begun to walk on the boardwalk towards the bustling town of Port Royal.
"Uncle Charles?" Charlotte called out Charle's name as loud as she could go with her seemingly petite and female voice. She hated how her voice made her sound like she depended on a male to help her around which was not the case at all.
The man's head turned around to see where his name was called out and he spotted Charlotte. He immediately smiled which Charlotte returned the smile. Charles Beckett was a handsome man with striking facial features that included a pair of piercing blue eyes. He was more handsomer than his brother Cutler which Charlotte mentally agreed on.
"Charlotte? Is that you? Oh my, you have grown!" Charles beamed as Charlotte ran up to him before giving him a greeting hug. There was several uniformed officials looking at Charles which he detected them with his eyes.
Sensing that the men were his brother's men, Charles grabbed Charlotte and took her to a restaurant.
"I apologise about that, your father wouldn't be too happy if he saw me with you." Charles looked uneasy as he looked at the teenager in front of him. Charlotte was confused to why Charles was being nervous around her.
"Charles, are you afraid of Father?" Charlotte looked at her Uncle in interest, she wanted to know why her father would not be happy if she was seen with his brother.
"Charlotte.. You shouldn't be asking." Charles quickly looked over his shoulder to ensure that none of Cutler's men had followed him and Charlotte into the restaurant where they were at to get away from the public eye.
"Are you?" Charlotte was persistent in her voice.
"Well, yes." Charles said in a hushed tone which meant that he didn't want to tell his niece but it was going to happen anyway. Charlotte was dumbfounded, her loved uncle was hated by her own father. Charles was more like a decent father than Cutler was to Charlotte.
"Why?" Charlotte asked in a quiet tone, she was having a hard time processing this information into her young brain of hers.
"Your father and I disagreed on a large amount of things especially I didn't like how he handled Jack Sparrow." Charles looked at Charlotte in a sorrowful manner, he'd sworn his brother that he was not to tell his niece of what happened to Jack Sparrow. The memory of Jack Sparrow's disappearance was still raw in the young girl's mind.
However, Charlotte was sick of the silent treatment that she was getting from Charles so she snapped. The young woman wanted to know what her father had done to her best friend.
"What did he did to Jack? Tell me!" Charlotte demanded with fury tinged in her voice, her patience was wearing thin like a crisp layer.
"No, Charlotte, you are too young to comprehend it. If I'm still alive by the time you're a woman, I will tell you." Charles said as he gritted his teeth while trying to get his niece under control in the damned restaurant where there could be Cutler's men around the two of them. Charlotte was now determined to find Jack Sparrow.
"Fine but I'm going to find Jack!" Charlotte said as she folded her arms while looking out the restaurant window.
"Charlotte, it's too dangerous!" Charles hissed with anger, he loved the girl like a daughter but Charlotte was headstrong.
"I don't care!" Charlotte shouted quietly.
"How can you be sure of that?" Cutler was sceptical, he knew that women didn't always mean what they say but Charlotte was a whole other story.
"I'll find him!"
"How, Charlotte? How? Your father will not be pleased and girls like you shouldn't be going after pirates. It's dangerous." Charles argued but he was met with a scoff that came from Charlotte.
"Oh really? What happened to Grandfather when he found out that you joined Calico Jack's crew?" Charlotte retorted with a glare at her uncle.
"Don't." Charles seethed, that girl knew that he was a damned pirate but couldn't blame her because his brother used to preach hate about pirates in the Caribbean Sea and how they were a menace to society. However, Charles could remember the day that Cutler told him that their father Charles Snr had passed from a broken heart over Charles sullying the Beckett name to become a pirate.
"Oh yeah, I shouldn't be knowing about you being a 'merchantman' but you're actually a pirate. You know Jack." Charlotte stood her ground, she wanted answers where Jack was and the person who knew where Jack was, was sitting in front of her. Charlotte wasn't about to back down.
Charles looked like he was at a loss on what to tell his niece. He knew that the girl had made a friend in Jack Sparrow. Once Charlotte Beckett wanted something or someone in this instance, she was never going to back down unless she got it.
"Fine! But, I know something that may help you find Jack." Charles leaned in closer before he whispered in a quiet tone in case Beckett and his men came sniffing around.
"What?.. Tell me." Charlotte's face dropped but she listened intently to what Charles was going to say to her regarding Jack Sparrow.
"Promise me, you are not to tell your father of this. Will you?" Charles had to make sure that his niece wasn't going to spill the information to her father or anyone at court.
"Your secret is safe." Charlotte muttered, impatient for Charles to tell her the information regarding Jack.
"Good. Now just before Cutler cut ties with me, he told me that he had a map that he has left under the desk that has clues to what he did to Jack." Charles revealed at last.
An epiphany came to Charlotte like a lightning bolt, it meant that Cutler Beckett had left vital clues about the whereabouts of Jack's ship in his office. After checking that the coast was clear, Charlotte quietly stepped afoot into her father's office where she was told that she was not to enter it in any circumstance but she could not care less about him.
Charlotte went over to the desk where she knew that Beckett had paperwork strewn all over it, she quickly ruffled through it until she reached under the desk. Charlotte had found the map that Uncle Charles had mentioned, it had the name of Jack's ship written on it. So this is the clue to where the Wicked Wench is, Charlotte thought to herself as she looked at it until she heard footsteps.
She quickly grabbed the parchment and ran to the open door that led into the garden area. The garden meant that Charlotte would run from the mansion with the parchment that held the clue to where the Wicked Wench was. Charlotte Beckett had run from the clutches of her father. For the second time already to Jack.
After sorting out his rage over his daughter, Cutler came back to the house only to find a sleeping Mercer and he forcefully woke him up. Mercer shot awake and looked at Cutler who looked like he was in between anger and remorse. Cutler loved his daughter with all of his being but he could never understand why Charlotte decided to mingle with the likes of Sparrow.
"Where is my daughter?" Cutler hissed through his teeth as he shot daggers at his right-hand man with his cold eyes.
"Uh, she's sleeping." Mercer mumbled but Cutler did not buy it, it seemed sus since Charlotte was known to cause a racket upstairs with her singing all the time while she was upstairs in her room.
"Oh, really? I will check if she is in her room." Cutler acerbically said before he went on his way upstairs to check on Charlotte. Once he entered her room, his normally lucid face turned bright red as he saw that Charlotte was not in her room and that she had run. Again from him to join that brigand of a pirate. He cursed every word that was known to the King himself before he threw every single thing that his daughter had owned about in that room.
Cutler knew that his daughter was sullying the good name of the Beckett family by associating with a pirate but he also knew that Charlotte wasn't the only one in his family to have run off to a pirate. He could remember his older brother had run off to join Calico Jack's crew when he was twenty years old.
Cutler could remember his father Philip being furious that Charles had disappeared but only to find that the boy had run off to Calico Jack and his crew. The poor father was sent to an early grave as he could not cope with the fact that Charles Beckett had turned from a respectable man into a pirate who liked to roam the seas.
However, the thought of Charlotte and Charles being pirates turned Cutler's blood into red hot fury and it made the man to run downstairs to Mercer who had several men with him. Mercer looked at him while having several men standing behind him, the right-hand man was at the ready awaiting his master's orders.
"Prepare the Endeavour, we're sailing at dawn." Cutler spat with spit flying from his thin pursed mouth. His face was red hot with fury, his daughter had just openly defied him to get back at him for what he had done to Jack Sparrow. The pirate was going to pay for corrupting Charlotte.
