Once, James Norrington's days had been filled from dawn till dusk with urgent tasks: briefings, drills, inspections, and the overseeing of His Majesty's warships. There were scores of men who needed his direction, and a growing colony which needed his watchful eye upon the threats of the sea to survive.
Now, he slept late into the morning, and his main concerns had become cards, rum, and making Elizabeth Swann come as many times as possible between sunrise to sunrise.
The latter, at least, seemed a worthy endeavor.
Somehow amidst all the ruin of his life he had managed to win the one thing he had wanted most. He became Elizabeth's lover, provider, protector—and he dare say, her friend. Not the type of friend as they had been before, a vague and stiflingly polite acquaintance smothered by propriety, but a true companion with which he shared everything. When she looked upon him, James thought he was not too delusional to think there could even be something like love in her eyes.
Free from the constraints of a proper schedule, they made love at all times of the day. Elizabeth went to sleep in his arms with a satisfied sigh, exhausted by the delights of their carnal adventures. She would wake to James' lips upon her back, his morning cockstand buried deep inside her body still moist from the games they had played the night before.
She could not help but think their intimate life was decidedly more satisfying than what might have been achieved in a connubial bed. It was impossible to imagine James loving her with such rakish daring in their old life; surely respectable husbands did not insinuate one's thumb in their lover's aft at precisely that pinnacle moment, making her come twice as hard around his cock buried deep inside her? Who knew that the Commodore's mouth, usually drawn in such a serious line without a hint of smile, could be used to elicit such sinful pleasures from her nubile young body?
At times she wondered where the former Commodore had learned such tricks, but in the end she decided she didn't really want to know. He was a man of the world, and ten years her elder, after all. She was learning there was much more to James Norrington than what she'd originally thought. There was a fierceness in him that had always been carefully hidden behind an immaculate uniform and inscrutable countenance; now that she'd glimpsed it, she could not fathom how she'd missed the fire that burned within James Norrington.
Sometimes he was rough, all teeth and clenching hands upon her flesh, taking her like a hurricane against the wall of their room. She loved the fury of his ardor in those heated moments, feeling as though she had accomplished some great feat in unwinding this steadfast man.
Sometimes he made love to her with such tenderness that it broke her heart. One such night she had teased him in the thoroughfare, inciting him to chase her up the stairs to their room, and they raced laughing like carefree young lovers. When finally he caught her he'd kissed her in a way that melted her bones, and swept her up into his arms to carry her across the threshold like a bride. The significance had been lost on neither of them, and she'd returned his sweetness with a surprising devotion of her own.
After, only when she thought he'd fallen asleep did she allow her tears of regret to silently roll down her cheeks. And only after James thought she slumbered did he kiss them away, and maybe let slip a few of his own.
There was another thing James Norrington did with his mouth these days that drove Elizabeth utterly wild.
He smiled.
In their short time on Tortuga she witnessed that phenomenon more than in her entire acquaintance with him in Port Royal, and his smile was like the sun shining through the clouds on a rainy day, those emerald eyes flashing with mirth. In those moments Elizabeth felt the world was too beautiful to stand, and too cruel to abide.
Days like this faded into weeks, and weeks melted into a month, and then days more stacked on top of that.
At first Elizabeth kept a weather eye for black sails upon the horizon, hoping that a ship dark as pitch would anchor in the harbor. She knew James did the same, for entirely different reasons. But at a certain point, that particular goal seemed slip away, the need to find Will fading like the memory of an old song she once knew, but could no longer recall the words.
The day Elizabeth realized she loved James Norrington she was unusually quiet, clutching his hand in hers as she looked out through their tall windows. It was a clear day, the sun glittering upon the azure waters of the harbor, but she could not shake the feeling that something crackled in the air. Suddenly she was no longer satisfied with their amusing but feckless existence, winning money with cards and wagers and fast hands in fat purses, just to eat and drink it all away through the night. James was meant for so much more than that, and she dared think, so was she.
James knew something had changed in her, and with a storm in his heart he waited for her to tell him that she would be leaving. That their little tryst had been amusing but she needed to find her true love now.
Instead she surprised him by laying her tattered coat out on the bed, carefully slitting the lining with a razor sharp dagger. He watched with keen eyes as she extracted a leather folio from within, and offered it to him for inspection.
"What is this?" he asked, voice hushed as though he held a holy item in his palms, for all the gravity she paid the papers.
"Read it."
He untied the leather thong, unfurling the documents upon his lap. Immediately he recognized the ornate form for Letters of Marque and Reprisal. "Where on earth did you get these?" he asked with some alarm, his fingers ghosting over the flourished signature at the bottom. Signed by Lord Cutler Beckett himself.
"I took them from Beckett."
"How?"
"He found the business end of a pistol quite persuasive."
James could not help but smirk at the image of Elizabeth pointing a gun at the self-important little man. Though he had never met Beckett himself, word got around of his diminutive size and surly disposition. She joined him on the bed, stretching out beside him like a cat.
"Why are you showing me these?"
Elizabeth looked down. "Well…you are the finest captain to ever sail these waters, James. Perhaps we could use them?"
James' heart thundered in his chest as he grasped her meaning.
A future.
A future that included she and he, together.
It was his fondest wish, and yet he could not help but sigh.
Captaining a privateer vessel was such a pale comparison to his former command.
"You'll make a pirate of me yet, eh Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "Everyone takes prizes, James. Pirate, privateer, or Royal Navy. It's just a matter of who gets a cut of the spoils. Maybe it's your turn?"
In a way she was right. James had certainly taken his share of prizes before, and happily spent the rewards. A navy man certainly couldn't live well on salary alone. And yet he had never been one of those captains who sought to only enrich himself through the spoils of war. He had taken his duty to protect the King's subjects of Jamaica very seriously, even when the admiral urged him to focus more on material gains.
And yet if this was what Elizabeth had thought of him when he had been Commodore—no wonder she found him such a hypocrite for wanting to hang Jack Sparrow. The thought saddened him more than anything. Of course, she was very small when Port Royal had been a brigand's paradise. She did not understand the work he and his men had done to make it a safe place for people and commerce. The toil and sweat and blood spilled.
There had been so much more to the responsibility of his commission than spoils. There were intangible but important things like duty, and honor. None of which, he realized, he possessed any more.
She sensed the sudden change in him, and cursed herself for a fool. Of course he wouldn't see this as some form redemption. And maybe…maybe he didn't want to stay with her. After everything that had happened, how could she blame him? "I see I have overstepped. I apologize, James." She reached for the folio, but James caught her hand, lacing his long fingers between her own.
"Does this mean you have given up on searching for William?"
Elizabeth gnawed her lip between her teeth, ruminating on what to say. "Finding him no longer seems urgent," she admitted.
"May I ask why?"
Drawing circles upon the sheets between them, she sighed, "You know why."
Suddenly feeling like he was drowning, James turned her gaze back to his with a hand upon her cheek, searching her eyes for a lifeline. "Please enlighten me."
A long silence passed between them. So long that James felt certain she would not answer. His insides felt as though a lit fuse sizzled in his belly, and suddenly he very badly wished to retreat from the room. As he gathered the resolve to do so she finally said three words.
"I love you."
She could have pushed him over with a feather.
"Elizabeth?"
"I love you, James Norrington."
Even while his mind was still utterly stupefied his hands acted of their own accord, reaching out to draw her to him, his lips insatiably hungry upon hers. Happily she surrendered to him, to his hands and his mouth and his body claiming her for his own.
"You cannot know how long I have wanted to hear those words from you," he rasped, teeth grazing her shoulder.
"I'm sorry," she answered breathlessly, her head tilting back into the pillow as he thrust inside her. "I'm so sorry. I will make it up to you. I promise, I will."
James laced his fingers with hers, locking eyes as he moved on top of her. "No more apologies," he admonished her. He couldn't stand the thought of her feeling pain for her actions any more. It was done, long done, and now here they were together. "I love you. We shall find our way."
Later, in the quiet after the passion-filled storm while they lay sated in a tangle of sweaty limbs, Elizabeth asked, "How long?"
"Hmm?" Still drifting in a pleasant haze, drawing designs with the tips of his fingers upon her arm, James did not immediately comprehend her question.
"How long have you loved me? Before you proposed I didn't think you paid me any mind at all."
James chuckled, more at himself than anything. What a blunder he'd made of his courtship of her.
"Do you remember the party your father threw when the Dauntless returned from hunting down Bloody Bill O'Brien's bunch?"
Elizabeth's memory swam with so many parties, they were all usually so utterly boring and all ran together. And yet it dawned on her what night he spoke of. "That was the night I found you in the garden."
"Yes." James and his officers had been lauded as heroes, and old Bill had hung earlier that day and hung in a gibbet at the point. Yet the losses had been heavy, and James could not help but feel haunted by the lives lost and the horrible things he'd seen. He didn't feel like a hero at all, and he'd fled the festivities to sit on a bench out in the manicured gardens of the King's House.
Bloody Bill had been a pirate of the worst sort, utterly loathsome, never expressing the slightest hint of remorse for the lives he took. There had been ten young women held as prisoners in the brig, so frightened and misused that most could not even speak. For months James would see their faces when he tried to close his eyes at night, and he hated himself for not finding that devil of a pirate sooner.
It had not been proper, but James had been persuaded by a concerned Miss Swann to tell her a little of the journey and the battle. Somehow he'd felt lighter afterwards. "Speaking to you that night was a boon to my soul. You listened to me intently, you understood me in a way I think no other woman on the island could. You were intelligent and familiar with the workings of a ship and always pressed me for stories of the sea, which seemed like serendipity for I have trouble speaking of anything but nautical ventures. Forgive me for being unkind, but the other ninnies in Port Royal's society would simper and nod and then whisper with a giggle, pray tell, what is a helm?"
Elizabeth laughed at that. Her lifelong interest in the sea and sailing had been much to her father's chagrin. It was unseemly in a little girl and not proper for a lady, as all her interests were. Who knew it would serve to attract such a smart match after all? Too bad she'd sunk that ship to the bottom of the sea before it ever had a chance to sail.
"I was only seventeen that year."
"I know. But you acted much older in so many ways. And when my words failed me because I could not possibly articulate the horrors I'd seen in Bloody Bill's hold, you took my hand and anchored me to sanity. Do you remember that?"
Biting her lip, Elizabeth nodded. He'd squeezed her fingers in his large hand, almost too hard, but she'd let him without a peep of protest. It was the one and only time she'd seen something of the man beneath Norrington's steadfast façade of stoic naval fortitude.
"I was lost to you that night. You snared me hook, line, and sinker. Marriage had not really interested me before then. You were spirited and intelligent and so beautiful, but more than that, I thought we might make very good companions. A thought which grew into..." Again he laughed at himself. "Well. I think you know."
"Tell me," she whispered. She needed to know. She had to know what she'd been too blind to see right before her eyes.
James searched for the words. How did one speak of that wild and insistent yearning he'd carried in his heart? The longing for her on voyages, the aching desire to hear her voice once more? A thing that made his pulse race at the mere sight of her, made him stammer in her company?
"A most ardent devotion," he finally answered, tilting her head up for a kiss. Gladly she granted a press of lips, her mouth lingering upon his.
The fact was after that night Elizabeth had been certain she'd overstepped her bounds, or offended him in some way. He'd become even more seemingly distant, refusing to even meet her eyes when they were in each other's company. She'd thought he did not like her anymore, but now she realized that his feelings had run quite the opposite. She saw it all now, looking back.
What fools they had both been.
XXX
Elizabeth snoozed, and when she woke she regarded James through the curtain of her hair. He sat in their only chair at the little wobbly table in naught but his breeches, the ties only loosely laced. Her eyes were drawn to the dusting of dark hair that trailed his abdomen, up to spread over his muscular pectorals. Scars interrupted the planes of his skin, some small, and some Elizabeth knew marked injuries that must have nearly taken his life.
The thought left her mouth dry with dread, even though it was all over now. It meant he was a survivor, and she should have taken comfort in that, at least.
James clasped the Letters of Marque in his large but elegant hands, his brow furrowed slightly as he read over them for the umpteenth time. She found that look of stern concentration rather endearing; she could nearly hear the cogs whirring in his lighting quick mind. His jaw clenched, and he stroked his beard in thought. He'd kept it because it helped him blend in as James Smith on this pirate island, and because she liked it, though he now kept it trimmed considerably shorter.
A bottle of rum sat on the table, untouched. He hardly drank anymore during the day, unless mixed with water to make grog. This was a fallen man who had been given the gift of hope once more.
Elizabeth prayed she would not let him down again.
James folded the folio carefully and placed it on the table, his expression inscrutable to her.
At last he noticed her dark eyes shining from behind the honeyed curtain of her hair. Instantly his expression changed, a smile softening his handsome features into something utterly radiant.
Ardent devotion.
That was what Elizabeth felt welling in her chest, and though it was not the first time in her life, somehow it felt different. Stronger. Steadfast.
This was not childish infatuation, but a woman's love of a worthy mate.
She realized that no matter how she'd loved Will, a part of her had always expected them to fail. Their worlds were too different. And she was too…something. Something not entirely kind. She did not think James mistook her for a woman who was soft and sweet. He knew all too well what she was capable of.
Somehow, he loved her anyway.
Vaguely, she wondered if they were engaged again. She smiled a little at the thought; well why not? She should be getting good at it by now, with all the practice.
"We're going to need a ship, you know," he finally said, seeming amused.
"We can procure one," she answered cheerfully, clearly excited that he was interested in her gift.
"Steal one, you mean?" he teased with a sideways look at his lover.
"Liberate one. Perhaps from a pirate, or even better, the French?"
James could not help but chuckle at the thought. When in doubt, there's always time to make war with the French. "So now you will turn on your beloved pirates?"
"I was fond of Jack Sparrow, though I would not call him beloved. He saved my life more than once, you know."
Just the mention of that pirate's name darkened James' countenance. True, he had saved one life, but at least by his reckoning taken so many others. Would he have traded the lives of his men for hers?
No.
Damn him, but he knew the answer he would always give to that question was no.
And yet these Letters provided an interesting opportunity, if they dared. Even, a dark voice whispered, another chance for revenge.