I stared at the teacup in front of me, watching the steam rise. I had taken it in such good faith, but now that it was ready to drink it looked like poison. Jack's words of warning echoed in my mind 'it must be someone close to you. Keep yourself safe and tell nobody.' It could have been James who'd killed Will. It could have been George. It could have been both of them. Or neither of them. For all I knew it was Elizabeth and now James was covering it up for her. I felt sick. And tired. I wanted to sleep. I had never wanted anything more.

It must be someone close to you.

I shivered.

Keep yourself safe and tell nobody.

Had I already put myself in danger? If somebody was willing to kill Will, would they do the same to me to cover their tracks? Would I be the next one to be found lying on a cold cellar ground, my empty body surrounded by jars full of my own blood?

Until I had worked out why Will had died and how everyone had forgotten his very existence I would have to be a lot more careful about how I went about investigating this. I had already drawn so much attention to myself by asking about him, searching for him. People close to me had been constantly voicing their concerns about my recent erratic behaviour. They already thought I was close to some kind of breakdown.

Someone close to you.

I picked up the teacup. Stared at it.

Keep yourself safe.

The handle was warm.

Was I really going to take the word of an unknown man (and known pirate) over the trust I had built up in my friend over all these years? George wouldn't try to poison me… Would he? I took the cup to the window and poured it out. Someone could have tampered with it. If it was poisoned I would just wait have to wait and see which one of my 'friends' was surprised to see me alive in the morning. If everything seemed normal then the tea was safe and I would drink it tomorrow night. Maybe then I would finally get some sleep.

I climbed in to bed. My head was spinning. It made all of my thoughts churn around inside it until they were lost in a thick and heavy fog. The events of the day had left my body exhausted but my mind frustratingly awake. I wanted nothing more than to sink into a deep and dreamless sleep where I wouldn't have to deal with any of this. I just needed a moment to pause and relax, I needed a moment of silence. My world was stormy. They say the eye of the storm is quiet and still- probably even peaceful. I needed that. I needed to sit in the eye of this particular storm for a moment if I was going to have the strength to fight through to the other side of it.

At some point sleep did wash over me. It was dreamless, mercifully, but not restful. It felt very much like I had merely blinked and now it was morning. The level of light in my room when I woke up was low enough to let me know that I still had a while before the rest of the world woke up, but still bright enough to confuse and disorientate me for a moment. I felt oddly comfortable in how quiet everything was at that moment. It seemed that the whole Port was still asleep. I wanted to pause this moment. I didn't want to hear any knocks on my door or anyone else walking around in this house.

Never before had I felt the stark difference between being on my own and being alone as clearly as I felt it now. When I was on my own I couldn't come to any harm. Being in a room on my own meant that I was in a room full of people I could trust. But not being able to trust anyone outside of that room meant that I was alone in all of this. There was nobody I could turn to, nobody to help me out. Everyone around me was a potential threat.

On my own I was safe. But alone I had to face all of the hidden monsters at my door.

There was a knock.

I cursed whoever it was under my breath and buried myself deeper into my blankets. The knock had been soft enough that I could probably feign sleep and pretend that it hadn't been enough to wake me up. I waited, staring at the door. Who was on the other side of it? And what did they want at this hour? It was early even for James. There was a pause long enough for me to think that perhaps they had gone away. Then there was another knock, slightly louder than the first one. I closed my eyes this time, as if that would somehow convince the person on the other side to leave me alone.

Keep yourself safe.

What if it was someone who meant me harm? What if that tea had been poisoned and they had come to see whether or not I was dead? Would it be safer to play dead and wait it out, or to get up now and arm myself with something I could use to attack them? I could think of nothing remotely useful in this room… smothering them with one of my dresses didn't seem like an option. A corset could probably kill someone, but I would have to convince them to wear it first.

The door handle rattled and my heart leapt in to my mouth. I could feel it beating in my throat. I heard the handle turn and every hair on my body stood on end. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes more tightly shut. It creaked open. Slowly. I tried to focus on levelling my breathing, making it as even and deep as possible. In the agonising silence that followed I desperately fought the urge to open my eyes. Why had they come in? What did they want from me?

"Belle?" It was a tentative, almost frightened little whisper. Rebecca. I let out a breath I didn't realise I had been holding. I opened my eyes to see her kneeling down in front of me and staring intently at my face. Her eyes. I sat up and looked intently back at her. Her eyes. How had I not noticed this before? Maybe it was because I had just spent an unusual amount of time with him, maybe it was because I had just been thinking about him, but the moment I looked at Rebecca I knew. Her eyes. She had Jack Sparrow's eyes. They were still fixed on me, filled with concern. She looked just like him. "Are you alright?"

I swallowed, studying her face. Was I going mad? "I'm fine, sweetheart," I replied. She looked relieved and I moved over to let her climb onto the bed beside me. Now that I had noticed it, there were a few features of hers which bore a more than a slight resemblance to his. Surely, it was no coincidence that they had turned up in Port Royal on the same day? "Rebecca... your father…"

I stopped. She smiled a small smile so I continued. "Is he a pirate?"

She nodded. "And a good man." She looked proud of him.

Neither of these revelations surprised me. What did surprise me, however, was that Jack Sparrow had not mentioned that he was looking for a missing child. If he was her father, surely he would be frantic with worry by now. Unless he thought that he was somehow protecting her by not telling me. As if my being the sister of the Commodore would mean that I'd automatically want to hang any pirate from the gallows- children included. The very thought of hanging a child for the crimes of their parents made me want to cry.

"He must be very worried about you," I said. She shook her head. "Where does he think you are?"

"I think he would think that I was with my mother."

She rested her head on my shoulder and didn't sound at all sad. The uncertainty in her answer made me wonder whether or not Jack Sparrow even knew that he had a daughter. I had been naïve to assume that Rebecca's parents were still together. Perhaps there was some truth in the things James had told me about pirates. He had been fairly charming… in his own way. It wouldn't have been a stretch to imagine him charming his way in to the beds of many woman he might never see again. And it wasn't entirely impossible to imagine that one of these women might have had a daughter and brought her up knowing that her father was both a pirate and a good man. I decided not to ask any more questions about him for now, but if my path were ever to cross with Jack's again he would be under thorough interrogation.

I thought of him again and hoped he was safe.

Now I had to figure out what I would do with myself today. I struggled to remember a time when my life had been normal and uneventful. How was I supposed to return to that? Attending lunches and high teas while all the time knowing that I may very well be brushing shoulders with a murderer seemed ludicrous to me now. I had uncovered a massive, gruesome piece of the puzzle, but frustratingly it had only lead me to more troubling questions. One of the ones that troubled me the most was how Will's murderer had managed to convince an entire town that he did not exist? Had they genuine forgotten him? Or was fear of retribution keeping them quiet? Who would go to such lengths to wipe Will's very existence from the Earth and not just stage an accident to cover up what they had done?

It was those questions I kept coming back to. And they all lead me to the same conclusions- Someone very powerful had a lot to lose.

"Are you alright?" Rebecca asked me. I nodded.

"Yes, darling, I'm fine," I smiled reassuringly at her. "Just trying to figure out what to do today."

A little glint appeared in her eye. "What about going back to that pirate ship?"

The Black Pearl was still moored in the docks, where James had left it as a trap. But for who?

I sat up.

Jack Sparrow.

He had come back for that ship. Would James have gone to all of that effort to set a trap for one man? My heart began to race. The world outside my window was still quiet, but now it felt too quiet- almost dangerously so. Would Jack be stupid enough to go after the Pearl despite my warnings? I could already feel myself stuffing my feet in to my shoes, which gave me my answer. Yes. Yes he would. He was a desperate man with nothing to lose but that ship. And if he didn't try and get it back now it was as good as gone.

There was another knock at my door. This time the knock was harder and louder, someone who clearly had no worries about the possibility of waking me up. "Isabelle!" James's voice came booming through the door. "Isabelle are you in there?"

"Yes!" I managed to reply before the door was flung open. There was something very business-like about the way he rushed in. I was instantly apprehensive.

"Isabelle, how are you feeling?" he asked.

"Fine, thank you, James."

"George's tea helped then?" he looked relieved.

"Yes," I lied. "And there's more left if I-"

"Excellent," he cut across me. "Now, listen Isabelle I've been thinking-" He stopped, his eyes had fallen on Rebecca. He frowned. "What are you doing in here?"

Rebecca jumped off my bed.

"She just came to say good morning," I told him.

"Good morning James," she smiled.

"You are up early," I commented in an effort to direct his attention away from Rebecca. I also hoped that it would prompt him to realise exactly how early it was and return to bed for an hour or two, so that I could continue to escape and work on my fledgling career as an amateur detective. He nodded and smiled in a way that told me I was hoping for all of this in vain.

"Well, I had a rather enlightening chat with young Master Watson last night and I've been thinking-" He stopped as his eyes fell on Rebecca again. "I'm sorry, Rebecca, would you mind if I just talked to Isabelle alone for a moment?"

Rebecca looked at me as if she was about to cry. It was as if her whole world was falling apart in front of her and she could do nothing to stop it. Puzzled, I gave her a reassuring smile. "I'll come and find you when I'm done," I told her. "And we can have a lovely day together just as we planned."

She relaxed for a moment and moved towards the door.

"Actually, you won't," James interrupted.

"What?" I stared at him.

"I'm afraid I have other arrangements for you two today," he said although he didn't sound all that apologetic about it. As he spoke my maid Ellie returned to scoop Rebecca up and carry her away from me. "Rebecca will be spending some time with Elizabeth and me today, and you, my dear sister, will be spending some time with the lovely George Watson."

The door closed behind Ellie, but not before I got one last look at Rebecca's face and saw the pure terror that was written all over it. I heard her shout something from the hallway, but could not make out exactly what it was. I felt suddenly fearful for her. It had always seemed as if she knew more about what was going on here than I did and, although I had never seen her be anything but warm and affectionate towards James, her reaction to spending the day with him made me look at him in a new light. It made me take very seriously the possibility that James was Will's murderer- one I had not wanted to think too deeply about until this point. I studied my brother in this new light, trying to ignore and eliminate all the parts of him that I knew to be kind and gentle. Those parts were there, I did not doubt that, but those were the parts he showed his little sister. If I were someone else, what kind of man would James be to me? If I were a pirate how would he treat me then? And what about if I were a pirate who stood in the way of something he wanted? Will's death and apparent disappearance from the collective memories of people in Port Royal had two very big advantages for James. It had made the capture and execution of the crew of the Black Pearl possible. It also meant that there were no obstacles in his quest for Elizabeth's affections. And now the crew of the Black Pearl were dead and he and Elizabeth were happily married. I stood up.

"Rebecca can come with us," I said quickly and almost tripped over my own feet in my haste to reach the door. James caught my arm. I looked back at him.

He wouldn't hurt that little girl… would he?

"Isabelle, what do you have on your feet?"

I looked down to see that my feet were still half-in and half-out of my shoes. They weren't even from a matching pair. I looked back up at him. "Rebecca and I were going to go down to the beach… to see the sunrise," I lied because 'I was going to go and stop a pirate I've been running around Port Royal with from walking right in to a trap you'd set for him' wouldn't do me, Rebecca or Jack any favours. I pulled my arm free of James's grip.

"Ah, well," he shrugged. "Some other time."

I nodded and continued to make my way towards the door. "I'll just go and-"

"Rebecca can do without you for one day," he sighed. I stopped, staring at my closed door and feeling more imprisoned than I ever had in my entire life. "I think it would be good for me and Elizabeth to spend some time with her." He cleared his throat. "Especially since I am certain we will be having a family of our own in the near future."

"What?" I felt as if the walls were closing in on me. This was all so sudden. James laughed.

"There's no need to look so surprised, Izzy. It's only a matter of time. We are married you know."

"I know," the words felt like lead on my tongue. And there were more of them, but they were clogged in my throat and making it difficult for me to breathe. There was something about all of this that just felt wrong. James put an arm around me.

"Besides. You and George should spend some time together too… he didn't just come over to drop off that tea last night, Izzy."

"Oh?" I tried to sound like I wasn't on the verge of vomiting up all over him

"No. He also came to ask me something."

"Oh?"

"He came to ask me for your hand in marriage. And I accepted."

"Oh." I think it was the only word I could remember how to say. James laughed.

"I never thought I would see the day that you were speechless. This cannot come as too much of a shock to you, surely you know how much the boy cares for you. And he has made such progress lately that I see a strong Captaincy and many more promotions in his future. He already has the makings of a fine man and an even finer match for my sister."

For a moment I could only nod. There seemed to be no point that I could argue against. It all made total, logical sense. I cleared my throat. "I had no idea he felt this way," I admitted.

"I'm sure he sees all of the advantages as well as I do," he studied me in the silence that followed. "Are you going to react to this at all, Isabelle?"

"Oh… um…"

"I have to admit I don't know quite what I was expecting from you, but this was not it. At first I thought you would be thrilled with the match, but Elizabeth was convinced that you had silly notions in your head about marrying for love."

"Well… well I wouldn't object to marrying for love," I said. Now that all of the shock was wearing off I was beginning to understand why this was bothering me.

"I know," James smiled. "Which is why I think marrying George is an excellent idea. The alternative would be to marry another one of my colleagues who would make a fine match, but considering George is someone you already know, you already like him, he's around your age… I think it's a pretty good compromise."

Again, I couldn't argue with him. I wanted to. But I couldn't.

I just nodded, "I know it is." I paused. "But you love Elizabeth, don't you?"

He looked thrown by my question. "Well yes… yes I do, but-"

"So you got to marry for love?" I smiled because I knew I had him in a corner.

"Well yes… yes I did, but I am very lucky that the woman I love is a fine match for me. Not everyone has that kind of luck," he reasoned. I nodded. "Maybe you will learn to love George."

I thought about his relationship with Elizabeth. He really did love her, but last time I had checked in with her, she did not love him. Had she learned to love him in the short time they had been married? How long does learning to love someone take? What if it never happens? Perhaps a union where both parties are mutually in love isn't ever a real possibility. I sighed, "I suppose you're right. I mean even Mother and Father didn't marry for love, right?"

"Right…" he looked puzzled. "How did you know that?"

"I don't remember," I frowned as a distant memory stirred somewhere in the back of my mind. "She told me once. I think she was trying to teach me something…" I remembered that she had told me about a young love she'd had in the days before she had been set up with my father. I couldn't remember whether or not she had told James all of this too. And I couldn't remember why she had told me. But if she could learn to build a life and raise a family with a man she did not love, then maybe I could too. Plus, it would have been extra hard for her because she'd had someone else she was in love with. I did not. This should be easy for me.

"I think you and George could have a very successful and mutually satisfying life together. He has a lot of potential, you know."

"Yes, you've said."

"So you agree?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Do I have a choice?" I raised one back.

"No. But I was half-expecting more of a fight from you on this. Try and act at least a little bit delighted when George brings it up today."

"I will."

He smiled at me and opened my door, glancing back at me before he left. "He'll be here in about an hour. Please put on something nice. If he arrives with you still looking like this there is a very good chance he'll change his mind."

"Charming," I narrowed my eyes. "Thank you for that vote of confidence James."

The door shut and I wondered how on earth I was going to solve a murder case without arousing the suspicions of my husband-to-be.