After Elizabeth had finished changing, she took Will's hand, swept him down the stairs, through the back doors of the mansion's foyer and into the gardens. While a paved and covered whistling way crossed the doors' threshold, the long walkway was framed by intentionally overgrown bushes, fronds, palms and such, concealing the expanse of the governor's property behind lush walls of jungle-like mystery—the gardens were kept in a such way that they were meant to look a little wild and untamed. However, directly before them there dipped a single gap in the wall of leaves, cut by a dirt path which took a sharp turn to disappear into the bush, inviting the garden's visitors to begin a journey of exploration.
He followed her down this brief route, rounding the thick, lush greenery, with Miss Trattles close behind. The path soon opened to reveal that a clearing sat on the other side of the leafy wall. It was lined with spurts of flowering hibiscus and shaded under thick, wide-stretching arms of a towering, deeply ribbed cotton tree. In the center of the clearing, from one thick, silvery branch there hung a single swing, which swayed a little with the wind currently teasing the tree's magnificent canopy.
His guide turned to look at him in a silent question.
"I don't remember this," Will admitted to Elizabeth, turning his head from the view before them.
"Father had it put in after you'd left to live with the Browns," Elizabeth explained to Will as she released his hand, and began to saunter towards the swing. She turned her head as she walked, throwing Will a soft little smile. "I'd been quite despondent with you gone, and he thought it'd cheer me up."
Will heard Miss Trattles make a little noise that seemed to express that was an understatement. While the maid walked across the clearing to take a seat upon a nearby bench with a book she'd brought, he felt one corner of his mouth reflexively tug in the same direction as his heartstrings, pulled by his amused understanding of his and Elizabeth's past shared sadness.
"Did it?"
Elizabeth shrugged and grasped one of the swing's ropes, using it as a support while she turned to take her seat in a practiced pirouette. Then she simply let herself sway where she sat. "A little. Although I recall being quite disappointed he wouldn't hang it in front of the guest house. I wanted to be able to fling myself into the pond—he wouldn't have it."
Now the corners of Will's mouth pulled fully into an unvoiced laugh as he walked towards the base of the tree. That sounded very much like something she would have done. "I assume you were imagining the pirate games we might play?"
She stuck her tongue between her teeth when she grinned, answering him with the mischief written upon her wrinkled nose, and he felt something flutter warmly inside of him.
It was a moment, only an instant shared—soon she'd touched the ground with the tips of her toes to turn away from him, winding her swing up once and twice, and letting it spin her back around again slowly. Her turns upon the swing drew Will's eyes to the allure he saw in her from all sides: the contentment in her expression, the graceful lines of her neck and shoulders under her falling hair, the spots of leaf-laced sunlight fluttering upon her body… When she'd tipped back to relinquish her foothold upon the ground and spin about lazily, she revealed the soft seeming skin beneath her jaw, and he felt a little impulse to draw her close and plant a kiss upon her throat.
Ah, he was already beginning to regret their bargain.
Before they'd left the house, they'd agreed on some additional rules to guide the terms of their wager. Of course, the first and most obvious one was that there were to be no kisses exchanged without forfeiture. And it might have been left at that, clear and simple… until had Elizabeth joked she would just lick Will instead.
So it was that Miss Trattles had pronounced they could not touch any other part of each other's bodies with lips, teeth, tongue or any other intimate part of their own bodies. Before another slightly licentious loophole could come out of Elizabeth's opened mouth, Miss Trattles simplified the rule and instead preemptively declared that no physical contact was permitted that would be considered shocking or uncouth in polite company.
Then, knowing some of the way her mistress' mind worked, she had added: no articles of clothing could be removed or altered to increase the exposure of their bodies; each person must always be capable of leaving any situation or position they were in without struggle or resistance; and finally, they were not permitted to lie down together at all.
He agreed to it, for some reason. Now he felt he should have just let Elizabeth claim she was stronger than him. But he hadn't—the competition was on. And as such, no kisses of any kind would be permissible. So Will simply watched his lady turn about, making no attempts to reach for her despite the increasingly strong urge to do so.
Once she'd become bored of her lazy turns, Elizabeth let the swing right itself, and her gaze fell back upon him to meet his eyes. She quirked an eyebrow at him in an inquisitive condemnation.
"You're looking at me."
He would have liked to spar with her, to say something clever that would challenge her to tease him back all the more. But he felt himself quite tongue-tied, and all he could manage was a shrug.
"Pirate?"
A pleased smirk was her answer to him. He was near the tree's trunk off to her side now, and to better look at him she moved to clutch the rope that was on his side of the swing with both hands, leaning her cheek against her clasped fingers. Maybe it was the light, but it appeared to him suddenly as though her eyes had become dark and sultry.
"Come over here," she beckoned in a low, soft voice.
"Oh, no," he whispered as much to himself as it was to her with a shake of his head. He heard Miss Trattles laughing at him. It wasn't the light at all—Elizabeth was already on the attack.
"Why not?" she asked, openly pretending at innocent ignorance. "I won't bite… Unless, of course, that's what you want."
The rush in his veins was instantaneous. If this was her way of going about it, she hadn't been joking about her claims that she'd never really tried to bring him down before. And one thing he hadn't accounted for in his boasting was the way she had already been assaulting his defenses throughout the morning, kissing and cuddling him the way she had earlier. Remembering it all, he had far more than half a mind of throwing the game aside entirely to continue kissing her right now, soundly.
But she would never let him live it down, hardly managing five minutes under her influence after bragging as he had that she underestimated him.
No, this would not do. He needed to cool things down, throw her off balance so he could gain an upper hand… He knew exactly how.
Will straightened his shoulders, standing upright as he brought his arms smartly to his sides. Then he dipped his chin in a practiced, polite show of deference. "Considering your father's instructions, I'm not so certain it's a question of what I do or do not want, Miss Swann."
The horror that passed over Elizabeth's face, as she slowly stood and let her mouth fall open in disbelief, proved the effectiveness of his tactic. She shook her head and pointed at him in an angry accusation.
"Oh… no you don't!"
He suppressed a smile, taking his own turn at pretended ignorance. "I don't what, Miss Swann?"
"You know perfectly well what!" she hissed with narrowed eyes.
He was about to let his smile slip out, to toss her another teasing retort, when all of the sudden Elizabeth was marching towards him, her hands clenched into fists and her face twisted into a surprisingly fierce glare. He felt the humor of the moment drain away. Before he knew it she was upon him, looking up into his face with eyes shining and fierce as a night sky pierced with lightning. All he could do was blink in surprise. Had he gone too far?
She took a shaking breath and began to blink rapidly herself, while she spoke with her jaw jutted defiantly, "Do whatever you like, I don't care about any games or otherwise—but Will Turner, I never want to hear you call me by that name again as long as you or I live."
Will's heart dropped into his stomach. Yes, he had gone too far. He had known it would get under her skin to revert back to old formalities, but he hadn't expected this much of a reaction or that it would cause any sort of genuine hurt. It was a mistake.
"Alright. I'm sorry, Elizabeth," he conceded as quickly and gently as he could. In a cautious motion, he reached out to take her hand, which she accepted without resistance even though her piercing eyes never left his. "I swear: never again from my lips."
For a while, she said nothing in return, her eyes shining with emotion, staring steadily into his face. Although he wasn't worried he'd done any irreparable damage, still he found he held his breath. Stepping back to think it over, he realized he had been thoughtless. She had been going about things in good jest, going after his weak spots with deft tickles and temptations, meanwhile he had responded by idiotically poking at what he now remembered was not a mere weakness or pet peeve but an old wound. It wouldn't have been all that unreasonable for her to be upset with him for the rest of the day.
Somehow, she let her fingers curl around his hand instead, holding him the same gentle way he held her. She nodded her acceptance of his apology.
Then Will sighed in relief as his love stepped into him for an embrace. He enfolded her in his arms while she wound hers about his waist and nestled her cheek against his shoulder, not saying a word. When he felt her hold on him tighten, her fingers clutching at the rough fabric of his waistcoat, his heart clenched in response and he squeezed her a little in return. Almost by instinct, he nuzzled his cheek into her forehead, smiling when he was rewarded with the puff of a little laugh at his intentional tickling of his whiskers against her skin. He turned his head to place a kiss upon her face…
Then he caught Miss Trattles' movements as she leaned forward from the corner of his eye, and he froze just before his lips touched her skin.
Was this…? No. Was it?
Sensing his suspended motion, Elizabeth turned her head to try and look Will in the eyes, a question clear upon her face, wondering why he had stopped. Her vision fell upon his mouth…
It was. She knew what she was doing.
"My god, you're cunning," Will gasped, and loosened his hold from around her.
Immediately, she planted both her hands to his chest and shoved herself away from him, cursing, "Dammit!"
Miss Trattles began to laugh and gave a little clap from her seat. "Oo, that was close! You had me well near convinced, miss!"
He should have been offended that she could so easily and convincingly utilize his feelings for her to her advantage. But this was the game they had agreed to, and there had been no rules against such tactics. In all honesty, he was more impressed with his 'opponent' than anything, and could not resist the astonished smirk that crossed his face as he shook his head.
"And here you had me thinking I had actually done you wrong."
"Oh, don't misunderstand me, Will," she retorted seriously from over her shoulder, walking back to take hold of the swing. "That might have coincidentally headed towards a fortunate conclusion for me, but I meant every word of what I was saying. Rebuff me as part of the game if you must. But I really, truly never wish to hear you call me something so impersonal ever again."
A whisper of a breeze passed between them, making the plants roundabout shift and whisper little secrets to each other that echoed the feelings flowing freely in clearing. Elizabeth's hair and dress fluttered about her, but her eyes upon him were level and serious.
"I called for you every time I saw you, Will. There has never been anyone else I've wanted to share these parts of myself with so deeply. Those words sat like a wall between us for far too long—and I asked you so many times before you let it fall..."
"That was wrong of me," Will confessed. His throat had grown tight with his genuine regret. As he spoke, he came to meet her beside the swing so that they might speak softly to each other, taking hold of the rope just below where she held it in her own hand. "I'd thought that being near you, seeing you once every blue moon, was the best I could possibly hope for—it was all I'd allowed myself to hope for anymore. I was afraid of your father pushing me further from you than he already had. And I..."
He couldn't say the rest. It felt utterly foolish now, how he'd allowed such meaningless rules control him the way they had for as long as they had. For years he'd tried to build a shield around himself. He'd bowed his head and bit his tongue, and all the reward he'd gotten for it was to be left behind, watching as his life's work was re-attributed to men with more power. To make it worse, he'd practically driven Elizabeth away, to the point she'd nearly walked out of his life entirely. Part of the problem was that he was a swordsmith, not an armorer. And he'd thought himself brave. He'd practiced with his swords to become brave, believing they could protect him and help him cut a path to a safer world—if not for him then for her, at the very least. And they had proven their worth as tools, certainly. His blades and swordplay had their place, when they were needed.
It turned out none of it really mattered as much as finding the courage to simply open his eyes, ears, and goddamn mouth.
As glad as he was for learning as much, he was finding he now maybe needed to re-learn when to keep it shut too.
Elizabeth's lips parted a little as she studied him thoughtfully for a moment. After a minute or so she let her hand slip down the rope to fall upon his in a soothing touch.
"It doesn't matter anymore. You've changed. So have I. And now we're here… Let's let that part of the past stay in the past."
"Agreed," he nodded. No more dredging up things they wanted buried.
In response, Elizabeth's mouth twitched into a smile of gentle reassurance, one he could not help but respond to in kind. One more time he felt the compulsion to touch his lips to her, any part of her, and he felt himself sway for a moment as he fought with himself over it. Her smile widened and her eyes sparkled knowingly at him before she looked pointedly down at the swing.
"Would you like to try it?" she asked, her voice bubbling with a bit of her held-back laughter, once more loud enough that Miss Trattles could hear them.
Will shook his head in answer. "Not yet. I think I'd prefer admiring you at it, first."
She mused to herself for a moment with an impish look in her eye. Soon after, she removed her hand from his as she sat herself back down upon the swing. "I could give you quite the view if you stood just right." She pointed with one foot to the space of the clearing that was directly in front of her. "Over there, for instance?"
Will cocked an eyebrow at her bold suggestion. She was wasting no time in picking up where she'd left off her flirtation—if it could be called that. "That wasn't what I meant, but if you're offering…"
He removed his own hand from the swing and made a show of walking slowly towards the area she'd indicated before her.
"Don't be cheeky, Will Turner!" she laughed, and gave herself a small kick backwards off the ground to get her swing into motion. "Don't you know we aren't officially courting yet? What's Estrella to think?"
"That it's only part of the game!" he called back as he reached the edge of the clearing—although as he'd walked, he'd actually turned his path left towards the tree, so that he was standing more to the side compared to Elizabeth's joking, more provocative angle.
"No," Miss Trattles cut in for herself, not looking up from her reading, "that you're both hopeless. And you're the one busy making insinuations, miss."
"Hm," Elizabeth hummed in a show of being thoughtful. She hadn't bothered to start moving her body in time with the swing, and it was already beginning to drift back into a still position. Eventually she did kick her legs out again to add one more push to her movements, preventing her swing at the last minute from coming to a standstill. As she did so, she playfully called to her maid, "You're dismissed. Goodbye!"
This did make Miss Trattles raise her head from her book, and Will shook his head at the boldness of the glare she was leveling towards her mistress. "You would like that, but I have your father's orders to see to first. Besides, I have to see who's to win your contest."
By not watching, evidently. She had already bent her head back down over the story she was attempting to make her way through. Not that Will could blame the servant woman—this was her job in the end, nothing more.
Elizabeth said nothing in return to her maid, turning the conversation to a new topic. "Well, if you're not inclined to try this just yet, Will, then maybe you ought to push me."
Again, her single kick hadn't taken the swing far, seeing as she hadn't bothered to feed her momentum yet. In fact, her movements were quite lazy and quickly slowing. A part of Will believed Elizabeth was up to no good with this invitation, but couldn't yet see what harm there'd be in playing along for now. So he walked up behind her, caught the swing by its ropes, then bent low enough that he could grasp it by the far edges of the seat.
He took his time for a moment, deciding to try and tease her by placing his mouth near her ear as he asked, "Like this?"
He gave her a light push, half-hearted and hardly better than what her light kicks had achieved.
"Mm…" she answered, sending a disappointed look at him over her shoulder as her swing came to its low peak and she began her trip back towards him.
He smirked as he caught her, then shifted his fingers on the swing's seat so that he was gripping its front edge from underneath.
"Or maybe I ought to pull you instead…" he suggested as he drew the swing with Elizabeth backwards, farther and higher until he had shifted his hands and lifted her well over his head, "…like this?"
She had tensed her body and was clutching at the ropes in anticipation. He held her like this as long as his arms would allow him, building the anticipation with what he hoped was a little unpredictability. Then just as his arms began to shake, he pushed her as hard as he could with the position they were in. With the distance Will had put between her and the ground, not much strength was needed to send her practically flying fast into her arc. This time, Elizabeth did lean her body into the motion, and she laughed and whooped as she reached the swing's forward peak with a happy kick of her feet.
"Higher!" she called to Will over her shoulder, grinning like mad.
Will grinned back at her as she made her return. Although he stepped to the side for a moment to dodge her back swing, as she began to pendulum forward again, he chased after her, placed his palms against the back edge of the swing, then pushed forward and upward while he was at a run, shoving Elizabeth high over his head in the process of passing under her. For himself, Will barely stopped himself from running headlong into the bushes. Miss Trattles gasped. But Elizabeth shrieked in surprised delight, as she pinnacled at such an angle she temporarily became unseated and made the tree branch bounce on her way back down.
Once more, she kicked her feet with giddy glee as she moved down and backwards. As she did so, the shoe on her right foot came off and flew well over Will's head, across the garden until it made contact with a stone building Will could barely make out from between the bushes lining the clearing.
"Careful, miss! You almost caught a window!" Miss Trattles called.
"Sorry!"
As Will looked in Miss Trattles' direction, he realized that the path that had brought them to the clearing was meant to continue at a point that wrapped behind her bench. In fact, it looked like it probably led behind the greenery that separated them from the landing spot of Elizabeth's wayward slipper. Without saying a word, he walked towards the path and began to follow it.
"It's fine, Will!" he heard Elizabeth's voice call to him from her swing. "We'll pick it up at the end—don't worry about it! Come back and play!"
However, he'd already walked far enough up the path that he could see the second clearing at its end. Rather than turn around, he pushed onward while calling out his guarantee, "I'm coming back!"
He reached the end of the path in a few strides. This second clearing was more open to the sky, with no shady branches reaching overhead—only a few tall palm trees and plenty of bush. A decently sized stone fountain—bigger than anything Will could dream of affording, anyway—sat in the very center of the space, trickling water artfully down tiers of elaborately carved stone basins. A pair of beautiful wrought-iron benches sat facing this fountain at perpendicular angles. One bench sat near the path on the east, while the other was placed across the clearing towards the south. Each had whitewashed, vine-wrapped pergolas to provide a bit of extra shade for garden goers. That second, south pergola was also pressed up against the wall of the building that Will suspected had been struck by Elizabeth's shoe.
Crossing the clearing quickly confirmed his guess, as the gilded slipper had managed to ricochet onto a patch of green right before the bench. Elizabeth was actually lucky it hadn't fallen short and dropped into the fountain. Without a moment to waste, he plucked the shoe from the ground and returned to the neighboring clearing, where Elizabeth awaited him upon her swing.
As he re-emerged from the path, Elizabeth turned her head towards him, obviously awaiting his return but saying nothing to him at all. Still seated on the bench to his left, Miss Trattles held her hand out for the slipper. Will kept it in his own hand instead, running an idle thumb over its embroidery as he sauntered toward Elizabeth, drawn in by her mesmeric motions beneath the shade of the sprawling cottonwood.
After a handful of passes, she began to allow herself to slow down, leaning back and leaving her legs stuck out straight before her to avoid catching the dirt below while her oscillations became gentler and more shallow. Seemingly aware of the view this provided onlookers of her calves, silk stockings and all, she tossed her hair back into the wind for a moment. Then once she began to swing backwards again, she flexed her feet and pointed her toes like a dancer, eyes twinkling at Will over the silliness of attempting to appear "alluring" while only having one shoe.
He loved her. He wasn't sure why the realization had struck him again at that exact moment, but it had. And for several minutes all he could think about was what she had said to him before, about the ways she had called to him in the past, even when he'd failed to answer her in the way she deserved. Even now she kept calling to him, inviting him to stay, to play… to be with her. As always, he felt his heart calling back.
It was time to really answer her invitations.
Will stepped towards Elizabeth as she swung forward one more time, their eyes fixed firmly upon each other. This time, as she began to swing back, he reached out with one hand and caught her by her ankle.
She gasped in a sound that echoed his name at the sudden stop. But when Will met her wide eyes again, he found the beginnings of a smile had already formed on her parted lips. For a moment he simply admired her, trying to unravel the myriad feelings that were flashing upon her face, to catch any hints of disapproval. The curve of her lips grew wider, and clear curiosity crept across her countenance. He decided to play her pirate for a moment, and openly, slowly marveled at her magnificence from the stunning depths of her eyes down to the elegant tips of the shoeless toes he held aloft in his hand. The moment his regard returned to the fantastic familiarity of her face, he became aware of the way she had been doing the very same thing: looking over him with no disguising of desire. Eventually, her gaze returned as well and touched his afresh.
He hadn't meant to start it, but a fire had ignited between them.
Saying nothing still, he broke the stare that held them, to gently slip her lost shoe back upon her foot. Then finally giving in a little to impulse, he clasped her with his newly freed hand about her calf. She gasped a little again, and he drew her closer to him, until he could reach out and take hold of the swing, drawing her knees against his stomach, her face level with his.
"What was it you were wanting to play?" he asked her in a conspiratorial whisper, trying to goad her a little into closing the gap between them.
There was a dazzling little dance in Elizabeth's eyes as she ran her bottom lip through her teeth for a moment, tracing the swing's rope with her fingers and considering her answer.
The impish flash in her visage didn't help him expect that answer to be the touch of one of her legs attempting to wrap around his waist.
Without thinking, Will dropped his hold on the swing, and Elizabeth swayed out of his reach as his mind frantically tried to process what had just happened. She stopped herself with one foot touched to the ground, and allowed herself to pivot about a little before turning back frontwards with a rather sullen expression upon her face.
"Spoilsport," she accused.
"Cheat," Will retaliated reflexively.
Elizabeth waved one hand in a dismissive motion. "I touched your waist, that's all. There's no rule against that."
Touched his waist! He was pleasantly burning a little where her thigh and foot had grazed him.
"Wrapping your legs about me is hardly 'polite contact.' That's a fault."
Elizabeth's maid decided to finally re-insert herself into their business, interjecting, "Well, you do have a fault against you as well, Mister Turner. And technically you earned it first."
Alright, so maybe hauling her to him by her leg had been a bold move. Technically, that had been over the line. But he still felt compelled to argue in his favor, retorting, "I was restoring her slipper—she's the one who was removing her clothing. It was both chivalrous and enforcing the rules."
Elizabeth snorted. "You were trying to fondle my leg, you liar."
"It's a fault for both of you," Miss Trattles pronounced firmly, pointing her open book at each of them to emphasize her point with more authority.
They chose not to argue their demerits—with Miss Trattles anyway. Instead, Elizabeth tossed her hair in a haughty motion then threw in Will's direction, "You're just resentful that I was winning."
He raised his eyebrows at that. He'd hardly call her obvious cheating, "winning." He found himself wondering, not for the first time, over how he was the one labeled a pirate by the world, while she was simply known as a lady. She'd always had twice the pirate's heart he had—after all, she'd always played a little dirty in their competitions, especially compared to him.
Well. Maybe before she had been twice the pirate he was. Perhaps the gaps could be closed a little, and now he could give her a little taste of her own medicine.
He began his response with a shrug. "Retreat is a perfectly acceptable strategy. Especially when combined with an effort to relaunch an attack."
Then in three long strides he closed the distance between himself and Elizabeth, bending before her to bring his face back in line with hers, his hands planted upon the wooden seat on either side of her for support. While she began to giggle a little, she didn't miss a beat and tipped her chin towards him in a defiant invitation for him to come closer. He did, but he remained careful to try and hover along the tenuous edge of their senses, retaining a tiny fraction of distance in mindfulness of the way she was still able to sway a little above the ground.
Their eyes danced with each other, flickering up and down between their challenging glances and inviting mouths in turns of temptation. Elizabeth's breath brushed against his face, as she reached out to touch a soft finger to the bit of exposed skin at the base of Will's throat. His breath hitched for a moment. In response he shifted one hand to take the swing's rope, allowing him to comfortably tip his head to the side a little and risk drawing a little closer. He was leaning near enough that he could almost feel her lips tickling his own, and his heart was pounding in his ears.
"Kiss me, Will," Elizabeth sighed, and he caught sight of the pink of her tongue perching between her teeth, waiting for him to give in.
He wanted to. He brushed the tip of his nose against hers, touched it against her cheek in soft, slow preparation. Then as he was about to finally bring his lips down upon hers, he whispered to her, "No."
He felt her take a breath, watched her press her lips together as a dozen different emotions ran through her eyes. Still he stayed where he was, challenging her with the next move, daring her to retreat as she had made him do, or to come closer at last.
Eventually she turned her eyes and face from him, just enough to disrupt the spell between them, though she did not budge her actual body one inch.
"You'll have to do better than that, sir," she taunted with a raised eyebrow and little smile.
He was out of cards that didn't involve touching her, and bending this way was beginning to become difficult. So he let the moment pass, standing back up and conceding her small victory with a quiet, "Hm."
He had to admit she was good at this. But he wasn't quite ready to admit defeat just yet.
Probably.
With Will's back turned, Elizabeth let out a quiet sigh of relief that he had bought her bluff. Even though he wouldn't admit it out loud while their game was in play, his advances had affected her much more than she hoped she had let on. She'd even temporarily considered swaying into his mouth for a moment and then blaming it on the swing.
Oh, but she liked this game. He really was more competitive than she had anticipated, and she was quickly realizing that there were very few ways the very risk of losing could be so pleasurable. Glancing towards Estrella earned her a pointed look that communicated her maid had very much predicted this would be the way of it. She would have to take her advice more often.
That last encounter with Will had left her a little breathless, feeling what she could only describe as a delicious tingling sensation creeping over her body as he walked away. Truthfully, compared to some of the more practiced skirt-chasers who had attempted overtures to her throughout the years, he certainly was more rough around the edges, even a little clumsy. But his boldness still managed to catch her off guard after his years of temerity—and it was all made more enticing simply because it was him who was trying to tantalize her.
In fact, if he had persisted just a little longer or had thought to touch her in any amorous way, she wasn't certain she would have been able to help herself much longer. She didn't have the option anymore to apply the same trick of shocking him with a greater forwardness. And he would be watching for intentional attempts to play upon his sympathies after their genuine heart-to-heart. There had been an alarming moment where she had been certain she had made a critical error and shown her hand, after she had touched him. Somehow that contact had shocked her back to her senses enough to be her saving grace, somehow he'd overlooked its significance when she pretended at dispassion, somehow victory was still on the table.
And now he was standing tall with his ardent eyes focused on his thoughts, somehow entirely oblivious to the way she once again was devouring the sight of his beauty under the tree's balmy awning. She teased him before for the way his eyes fell upon her bosom lately, but in reality she was no less guilty of similar actions with his own chest or his hips or mouth... While he was still young and rather slender, there was a soft richness that refined his face's features, and a length to his limbs, a breadth to his shoulders and back that exhibited to her how he'd grown from the scrawny boy who charmed her childhood.
How exciting had it been when he had held her aloft and thrust her forward so forcefully, with such little apparent effort! And when his voice had dipped to caress her senses in the way his lips currently could not… Being with him like this was fueling an increasingly familiar … fervor she realized she could actually feel, flickering in the lowest parts of her body's center.
Yes, she liked this game.
Eventually Will began to blink, and his attention came back where they stood. She felt a smile creep across her lips when he found her again.
"Will," she called, rising from the swing, moving to its side and holding its rope out in an offering for him to take. "Give it a try. I can swing anytime. This is your first real visit—I want you to play with me."
She saw the corner of his lips twitch.
"I am playing with you," he insisted. To prove his point, he came back to stand beside her and take the rope near her hand again. With his free hand, he reached out to brush her hair from over her shoulder, then feather his fingers lightly along her back. "What if I twisted you round for a good, long spin?"
His gesture and accompanying smile didn't seem intended to be anything but sweetly affectionate—in fact, he was referencing a childhood game of theirs, where they used to take each other's hands when they were children, and spin each other about until they could not walk properly any longer, falling upon each other, lying on the grass or sand, looking up at the clouds, feeling the earth spinning on under their backs. Nevertheless, he was making her skin buzz wherever she felt his touch. She was tempted to step into him again, to run her own fingers across his body and see how quickly it made him feel the same way. But she felt she probably needed to keep up the appearance of being unswayed by his ministrations. Instead, she chose to step out of his reach towards the edge of the clearing, leaving the swing in his grasp alone.
"Hm, so I can become dizzy and fall into your arms?" she speculated, then turned to face him and signaled that he should take his place upon the swing. "No, I think quite the reverse is in order."
For a short while, he didn't move or say anything in response, his eyes instead narrowing as though he were taking her suggestion into careful consideration.
She tipped her head to one shoulder, as though it would give emphasis to her attempts at persuasion, "Come on. I can still stand where you might 'admire' me. You might find the view to be particularly pleasing, looking down from above."
To make her point more clear, she dropped her eyes once to call attention to those certain parts of her body she knew he found particularly appealing.
Surprisingly, Will rolled his eyes a little at that argument, though he smiled a little when he relented to her request, taking his seat at last. "You're going to hold that over my head from now on, aren't you?"
She really had meant for him to begin swinging, but his rhetorical question had brought to mind a perfect, wicked little way she might tease him again. So she closed the distance between them once more, coming to stand in front of him as she replied to him lowly, "Or right before your face."
As she hoped, he locked in place for a moment with his surprise, allowing her to emphasize her double entendre by stepping into the space between his legs, resting her forearms atop his shoulders, and making sure his eyes were quite level with her exposed cleavage. There wasn't a chance she wasn't going to turn this baser part of his attraction to her advantage as often as she could. To her amusement, he made a mighty effort to keep his gaze trained on her face, though in her peripheral vision she could discern him tightening his hold on the swing's ropes as though it would help keep his will steady. To goad him a little further, she plucked up the curly ends of his queued hair, and began to toy with it between her fingers. If he weren't on such an unstable form of seating—and if Estrella might not have considered it a foul play, especially considering how closely Elizabeth was flirting with breaking the rules again as it was—she might have gone so far as to sit herself upon his lap.
Instead, Elizabeth simply simpered down at Will.
It seemed to be effective enough. He wet his lips and took a breath. "You are far too transparent for your own good."
She let another slow grin creep across her face—he was practically handing her golden opportunities on a silver platter. Perhaps now she could turn things back around upon him in revenge for his earlier attempted attack. She let his hair fall from her fingers, and grazed her touch across his back in a path to settling her hands upon his shoulders.
"I could wear it more proudly, if you like," she suggested, tossing her head back a little to move her hair completely behind her shoulders to call even more attention to the view she was attempting to present to him. Still he stubbornly refused to turn his eyes directly towards her body. So she decided to continue to paint a picture in his mind, something he couldn't turn his eyes away from. "Although, I highly doubt you could resist my being laid more bare before you…"
She watched him slowly swallow, a slightly frantic look beginning to creep into his eyes. Then she went in for the kill, finally bending to suspend her lips before his, just as he'd done to her only moments before. Once more, not even a single finger could be placed in the shadow of the space that remained between them, his whiskers nearly brushing against her mouth, warning her of how close she'd drawn herself.
Elizabeth whispered for his ears alone in a languid tone, "I've always been rather naked in my intentions with you to begin with."
"Fuck…" Will gasped, promptly pushing at the ground to pivot away from her and put some distance between them.
She let him go, fully aware she was simpering in open satisfaction at finally securing a triumph with this round. Wandering to the side with her hands hooked behind her back, she turned her attention to Estrella, who was now shaking her head to herself.
"I think every retreat should count for a point—in the event we stalemate before father returns."
Will, who had finally begun to swing in earnest, made a sound of protestation with his teeth. "Unless it's a response to cheating!"
For her part, Estrella ignored Will's comment and shot Elizabeth a skeptical look. "Well, avoiding you is sort of the point for him, isn't it? So I'm not sure that rule would make sense."
"But it's not the same as resisting me outright," Elizabeth insisted. She accomplished something every time Will was forced to walk away from her, she felt a sense of victory, and she wanted it to count for something. "It'd be one thing if Will is able to stare me in the face unmoved, but if he retreats it's because I've nearly overwhelmed him."
Estrella shook her head, unyielding. As far as she was concerned, everything still hinged on Elizabeth luring Will into a kiss or not.
Elizabeth pouted, then tossed her head with her disagreement. She muttered to Will, "I'm definitely winning."
"You have an unfair advantage," he called a retort. "I have yet to discern from you which parts of me you find enticing, if any at all."
She couldn't help letting a laugh slip out at that. "Why would you admit that to me? Now I know my unrevealed lusts are an advantage—they will have to be a secret I take to our wedding bed."
His lips became pressed together in a thin line as he leaned more heavily into his swing, gaining elevation very quickly.
She felt an intense, sudden urge to coax a smile back out of him with a kiss. Strangely, forcing herself to resist the impulse made her smile even wider. It was a good thing he was in too much motion for her to interrupt him now.
This game was filled with tiny perils.
The swing provided a proper separation between the two of them for a time, allowing attention to be returned to the garden. Elizabeth decided to grant Will a chance to relax, and sat upon the bench near Estrella, making sure the view surrounding Will focused on the flowers instead of her distraction she'd joked about earlier. They small-talked about the different plants that surrounded them, and the expert care their gardener Mister Taylor clearly put into his work. And they reminisced about the trouble they'd caused him when they were young, trampling through the hedges on their imaginary expeditions.
With enough height upon the swing, Will realized he could catch glimpses of the property beyond the clearing, including the fountain he'd come across earlier that had almost caught her flying shoe. This started the two of them joking that they could make a game of intentionally tossing their footwear into water to entertain themselves instead. Estrella, who had once been responsible for Elizabeth's laundry when she'd joined the mansion's staff, did not find the suggestion funny, so they ended their entertainment of that idea.
At some point, Will seemed to become a little bored with swinging alone, and changed his stance to stand mid-swing, choosing to make a show of trying to pendulum high enough to grasp one of the tree's other branches. While his antics distressed Estrella, causing her fret loudly over the risk that he would fall and break his neck, Elizabeth found herself torn between lamenting there wasn't a second swing for her to join him and simply enjoying the wide, easy smile that lit his face.
In the end, she had meant for this day to be something carefree for both of them. It was gratifying, seeing him so.
However, after he'd just missed grasping his target branch for the third time and began trying to rebuild his momentum over again, Elizabeth decided she was ready to move on—no longer interested in simply watching him have all the fun, without her.
"I'm bored now, Will!" she called. "Come back down—I want to show you some more of the garden."
"Just once more—I think I can make it this time!"
She shot a skeptical look in his direction. Part of the problem was the way the tree's branches bounced from his weight. "You're too heavy! The branches will just keep swaying out of your reach."
"No," Will insisted, giving her a bit of a smirk. "I think I just need a little extra push."
Elizabeth cocked her eyebrow at him, not unconvinced he was making ready to return to their game by trying to snatch her up onto the swing or some other nonsense. "I don't think I want to touch you with that look in your eye."
"That's fine—a little motivation is all I really need."
Ah. She and Estrella exchanged a look, both able to see where this was going. Still, she decided to humor him by asking, "And what sort of motivation are you thinking would be most useful?"
"What if," he began, then paused during his forward swing as he began to regain his height, "if I make it," another forward swing, "you have to kiss me and end the wager?"
"Absolutely not!" she answered immediately.
She thought he'd argue with her over it a little bit, try to cajole her into agreeing to his terms.
"Suit yourself!" was all he said in reply. Then suddenly he was in the air, having thrown himself from the swing at the top of its arc.
Estrella screamed. Elizabeth jumped to her feet, gasping loudly in spite of herself, "Will!"
Initially, he caught the branch with both hands. But his contact made half the tree bend and shake, and he soon lost his grip with his left hand, relying on the strength of his right to barely avoid a nearly twenty foot fall. Once the tree adjusted to his weight, he was able to grab hold of the branch again, and with some sure-footed acrobatics, was soon able to haul and flip himself up onto the branch with his sturdy fingers and long legs.
"Oh my god," Estrella sighed, laying a hand over heart.
Elizabeth relaxed the breath that had caught in her chest, then marched to stand more directly beneath her potentially stupid suitor. "That was complete madness—you could have broken your neck! Come back down here at once!"
Her stern tone was completely undercut by the wide and toothy grin she could not keep off her face.
"I shall. But first I'm curious about this tree…" he called back. As he situated himself into a more comfortably seated position, he mirrored her expression by flashing her a bright smile of his own. "Would you like to climb it with me?"
Oh, how she would! One thing he'd proven to be quite good at from nearly the day they had met was his ability to scale the ratlines of the Dauntless. While her father had forbidden her from climbing the rigging of their ship, Will had promised to find a way to teach her to do it, somehow. Once on land, they had made good on that promise by learning to climb trees together instead. It had been years since she'd last given it a try. Unfortunately…
"That might be a little difficult in this dress, I'm afraid," she explained out loud.
He tipped his head to one side. "That never stopped you before."
"Ha!" she barked and put her hands on her hips. "Just trust me—it's not the same."
"Alright…" he said with a shrug, then slowly set about moving from his seated position to a squat, apparently intending to transition to a crawl or some other more mobile posture, finally making his descent.
Once his feet had returned safely to solid ground, Will's hand found its place in Elizabeth's again. Together with Estrella, they took to the footpath that led to the neighboring clearing with its pretty fountain.
"What happened to your uniform?" he asked her as they walked, referring to the breeches and red coat the commodore's crew had lent her towards the end of their real life pirate adventure.
"I had to return it, of course," she said, surprised he would ask such a thing. "Do you not remember? I ended up with the gowns those two fools had brought with them aboard the Dauntless."
"I think I was a little distracted at that point by other things. I'm afraid I hadn't noticed," he replied in a soft voice.
Elizabeth clenched Will's hand a little tighter. He answered by leaning toward her to touch the side of his head to her crown in a short, gentle bump—clearly an improvised action meant to replace the peck he wished to place upon her cheek or mouth. She laughed, and adjusted their pose to allow herself to once again rest her head upon his shoulder.
"Are you suggesting our courtship might involve more rigorous activity than dinner parties and garden walks?"
They reached the fountain. As he held some branches out of Elizabeth's way, the corners of Will's lips twitched upward. "I thought you said you want to play?"
"I did," she sighed, drawn to the sparkle of ideas that lay hidden in his eyes. "I do."
Over the course of the next hour, Elizabeth guided Will past the guest house and through the ornamental spaces of the estate grounds, explaining the origins and stories of different plants, sculptures and other features hidden like little secrets to uncover on a quest. They made quick progress—the governor's estate was very small compared to other people of their class, but it was to their liking that way. Estrella shadowed them from a distance, largely migrating between different benches from which she might keep half of one eye on them and the other eye and half on her book.
Her watch ended up not terribly needed. While the couple's sojourn continued to be colored with persistent flirtation and they hardly spared a single moment without at least one finger linked together, Elizabeth noticed Will began to grow more silent and serious the longer they walked. They had made their way halfway around the property's biggest pond, when it occurred to her that there was a chance he was growing tired and didn't wish to disappoint her by saying so. She had surprised him with her early wake up call, and by now it had to be well past ten o'clock. So when they approached yet another of the garden's many shaded benches, this time she proposed they take a seat and just enjoy the view of the property's little lake in each other's company.
For a few minutes they both sat tall and still, joined only by the weave of their fingertips resting between them, seeing and not seeing the world around them all at once. Inevitably, their eyes slipped back to find each other. Without needing to say a word Elizabeth leaned into Will at the exact same moment he settled onto the bench's back, reaching for her. She effortlessly sidled into his embrace, resting her head upon his chest, and his arms slipped about her shoulders to hold her closer, more comfortably. Technically, this cuddle should have been a fault by Estrella's rules, but she didn't say a word to them, and the warmth that Elizabeth felt around her overshadowed the creeping warmth of the sun.
Everything felt so right, so perfect. The sky was as brightly blue as it had ever been. Perfumes from the passion flowers climbing the pergola wafted around them sweetly. The tropical lilies on the lake were also in bloom, adorning the water like pops of pink diamonds laid upon green velvet. Birds flitted everywhere over their heads, trilling, clicking and even croaking as they went. A small group of ducks had found their pond this year, settled in for the winter, and had begun their day paddling about and diving for food.
"You know, we're meant to also discuss our marriage," Will's gentle tenor rolled against Elizabeth's ear.
"Mm," Elizabeth accorded quietly. Then feeling in the mood to tease the man in her arms once again, she laid her hand upon his chest and began to stroke him in a long and slow motion. "And what part of it is most on your mind right now?"
"The house," he answered bluntly.
Her hand stopped, and she raised her head to look at him with what she knew was a quizzical expression. She hadn't expected him to be so short and serious, especially when he'd been so breezy less than an hour ago.
He pulled the corner of his mouth to the side in a crooked smile, but there was a decreased luster in it, and his eyes were still cast outward towards the water. It was clear now that any quietness she'd noticed in him had little to do with sleepiness and more with a worry that had begun to weigh in his mind. With little else to distract them as the morning passed, it seemed Will had become more and more aware that her father would soon return and he would have to finish accounting for their future.
Elizabeth sat up at this realization, instead leaning her arm upon her lover's shoulder as she ran a soothing finger along his jaw, hoping to reassure him.
"I did mean what I'd said before, Will: I have no intention of you taking me upon your back our whole lives."
His lips twitched again, this time with a more genuine smile and a little bit of mischief returning to his face. He responded in a rougher whisper, "What if I took you upon your back or my lap instead?"
"Will Turner!" Elizabeth gasped, sitting back up to look at him in shock at his abrupt innuendo. Once the initial wave of astonishment began receding, she began to cackle. "Touché, sir!"
While he looked a little sheepish, Will seemed obviously pleased with himself over having managed to surprise her or make her laugh. The contrast of his subtle shyness with the boldness of his flirting left her charmed, and once again she found herself admiring how very handsome he was. She felt the fervent feeling that had tickled her insides before beginning to flicker back to life, and for an uncounted time this morning there was the impulse to meet him with a sweet and simple touch of her mouth.
Before she could finish fighting it, his eyes met hers reflecting a question. It was then she remembered she had been in the middle of telling him something important. Yet trying to remember what it was threatened to make her laugh more, as the timing of his joke kept repeating itself in her mind—and that was without considering the distracting nature of the images it had conjured for her.
"You made me forget what I'd meant to say entirely," she accused him with the bubbling remnants of her mirth in her voice, giving him a light shove to help emphasize her point.
He shook his head to himself, then pressed her body to his side in a one armed hug. "I believe you meant to say you have no intention of placing the burdens of our marriage's success upon my shoulders alone."
"Yes," she sighed, nestling back into his side happily. "Yes, exactly."
"I'm not sure your father will agree."
It was like Will had dropped a rock in the shallows of the pond, and the ripples it left behind unsettled the clear, carefree bliss that had laid at their feet their entire morning.
Elizabeth curled her fingers against Will's chest. "My father doesn't need to agree, let alone concern himself so intimately with our affairs."
She felt Will's hands stiffen around her shoulders, and she lifted her head once more to capture his eyes in her gaze. As she hoped, he looked back at her with steady eyes, listening. She uncurled her index finger and pressed it against him as she spoke.
"You're to be my husband. You are mine and I am yours, not his. And I will decide what sort of wife I want to be to you, regardless of what he believes is right or best for me."
A brightness returned to Will's eyes as she spoke. The little ripples in their figurative pond began to settle back down. Satisfied by the comfort she saw upon his face, she settled her head back down upon his chest and let her eyes drift across the lake towards the beautiful, empty guest house.
"What did you have in mind?" Will asked.
Elizabeth smiled toothily at his question. She hadn't said one word to him about it yet, however he'd correctly guessed that she had begun plotting something for the two of them on her own already.
"A few things, actually," she hinted, winding her arms around his ribcage. "But before anything else, I think for your own reassurance I should advise you that I don't think father will actually turn you away outright if we cannot secure a roof immediately before the wedding. He merely wants to motivate you."
Will let out a puff air that was something between a scoff and a laugh. "Believe me, I am motivated!"
Oh, she knew. She'd watched him these past few weeks, seeing it plainly in his bent over back with her open eyes. Her many gift baskets and exhortations hadn't come out of the blue. Surely he knew that by now. She held him a little tighter thinking about it.
She whispered, her voice becoming a little hoarse as she did, "And I'm glad for it. But I'm starting to worry you may believe you must work yourself to the bone for this marriage to work, when I don't believe that is entirely the case…"
Elizabeth felt Will move as though he were looking at her the way he sometimes did, with a question in his eyes or a point he wanted to make. Rather than look up at him, she nestled her cheek more firmly against his chest.
She continued, "I have a strong suspicion he intends to offer us this guest house to let for a season or two, should the need arise."
While he said nothing, Elizabeth could feel the stiffness that came to Will's limbs, could hear the breath that caught in his chest at that revelation. She ran her hand in a placating stroke along his side. While she wasn't completely sure what he would think or feel about the notion of her father's invitation, she was certain it could be a boon to their young family, if he was willing to see it.
Again she pressed on with careful reassurance, "The rent would be fair. You could still prove yourself to him, and we could have our privacy and comfort until all things are settled. The room I have now would do just as well for his guests, so we wouldn't be taking too much away from him…"
She waited to see if she could feel what Will thought. He was silent. She lifted her head to finally look back at him again, to better assess his reaction.
"Is that not reassuring?"
His lips were pressed tightly together, and he let out a deep sigh through his nose. After what felt like a full minute of him thinking and thinking, her stomach beginning to clench tighter and tighter with anticipation, eventually he answered, "In some ways, yes."
Another rock in the proverbial pond. Elizabeth felt her mouth growing a little dry. She swallowed a few times to moisten it and ask, "But in others…?"
Will fell silent again.
Although she had hoped it wouldn't be the case, Elizabeth had suspected he may have reservations, with the way he'd been reacting to her gift baskets. There was much about Will that appeared humble from a distance—and there were many places and ways in which he was genuinely meek, compromising, and thoughtful. Yet coming close and really knowing him, it was obvious there burned inside him an intense sense of pride that for much of his life had gone all but unnoticed to the world around him. For all his sweetness, he could be stubborn and, she was finding, fiercely independent. She knew he would probably bristle at the notion, but watching him these past few weeks, she sometimes worried that the man she loved was at risk of falling into the trap of tying his worth to his work and his wealth; or that he had begun to believe receiving help in these matters might signal a personal failing, weakness, or illegitimacy to the eyes others.
She worried he would one day needlessly break himself for her, based on these misguided notions.
Again, she ran her fingers along his side, looking for any way to convince him to open his mouth, and release the waves that crashed about inside his mind, to trust her to be strong enough to share the weight on his shoulders.
"I've told you my troubles," she whispered to him, "it's only fair to return the favor."
Will sighed and closed his eyes at that, tightening his embrace around her for one more instant. After a few seconds, his eyes opened, his lips parted, and the sigh he had let loose came back to him in a deep, steadying breath.
"You've mentioned several times today how small and humble you feel your home is."
The moment he said it, she realized her mistake, the depths of her misunderstanding of him before.
He continued with an even tone, "I understand what you mean by it—there are estates that surely outclass this one entirely. And there's a certain frugality and modesty with which your father conducts himself, compared to many of his peers."
Will hesitated for a moment, his fingers once again tightening around Elizabeth's arms for a moment. Yet again he shooks his head at the thoughts running through him.
"But I could never give you anything even close to any of this—not if I were the most well regarded smith on the entire island."
Elizabeth pushed herself from Will's arms at that, gasping, "Oh, Will. That doesn't matter."
"You say that now, but—"
"No," she interjected, "I mean it. It really doesn't."
While he closed his mouth, he seemed deeply unconvinced, staring almost ruefully at the ground near his feet. With a careful touch, Elizabeth placed her fingers below Will's chin, wordlessly requesting that he look her in the eyes instead.
He did.
"I'm not blind about what it is I'm walking from and to, Will Turner. I saw your home today. Did you already forget that?"
"Yes, you did," he muttered, and she was surprised by the sudden surge of shame that shaded his countenance. As he continued, his voice became stronger, though the feelings that drove him were filled with uncertainties. "You saw that dusty tick we haven't bothered to touch in months—in years—and all but two other rooms… That house seemed like a palace to me when I first was taken in, dwarfed only by your own. And it is completely dwarfed by your home, Elizabeth. Look at this place. Look at me. Your lowliest servants are better attired than I am."
He gestured at the exquisite garden, near the spot where Estrella had taken her own seat. Elizabeth's lips parted, but no words would come from them. What could she say? The words he spoke were so quick and earnest with no spoken technical untruth, she could hardly find a place to begin. While she floundered, Will's eyes fell back to the ground, apparently fixing upon the image of her gold embroidered slippers brushed up against the sides of his tired, iron-buckled leather shoes. She tucked her feet beneath her, to guard them under the covering of her petticoats.
He frowned. "And yet here I am trying to look your father in the face and insist I will be able to offer you a good roof, let alone some shack to hole up in."
A fragment of fear lodged itself into Elizabeth's heart, and she clutched Will's sleeve practically by reflex. "You're not having second thoughts are you?"
"No," he answered immediately, to her great relief. As if equally desperate to reassure her, he took her hand in his. "No. I only…"
His brow furrowed while his eyes darted about, as if looking to pluck the words he needed from the world around him. Still Elizabeth clasped his palm tightly, hoping she could be enough to anchor him in this storm that had risen up in his heart.
"I feel like… if I can't live up to what he's asked, he will always look at me as unworthy of being yours."
The fear in her heart fell away. The place where it had been pricked bled. Elizabeth sighed softly, and slipped her hands from Will's fingers to reach up and cup his face, running her thumb across his cheek.
"I don't think so. Not really, not always. He's already warming up to you as it is, haven't you noticed?"
Will appeared skeptical. Elizabeth raised her eyebrow in an unspoken dispute, asking him to remember how this day had gone so far, how their prospects and opportunities were unfolding.
"You saved my life, Will—he's acknowledged it himself, many times. And he will always esteem you for that, if anything. As for the rest, well…" she smiled, shrugged, and sought her old position of looping her arm through his and resting her head upon his shoulder, "… if we make each other happy, he will learn to be happy as well. I know it."
Though she heard Will sigh quietly, he tipped his head sideways to lean against her.
In a steady motion, she brushed her fingers up the inside of his wrist, touching the tips of hers to his and guiding his hand to splay open for her.
"Don't you think you make me happy, Will?" she asked as gingerly traced the soft, pink scar that ran across his palm.
"I certainly try my damnedest," he asserted with a crooked smile. As he did so, he reached for her left hand and went to draw its similarly scarred skin to his lips. Remembering himself at the last minute, he diverted her palm's path, pressing to his jaw and rubbing it against facial hair, to intentionally tickle her instead.
"Certainly," she said with a little giggle, wrenching her wrist from his grip. Then she perched her chin on his shoulder, and ran a finger down the bridge of his nose. "But I can help you… if you'll help me make you happy as well."
"You already make me happy just by being near me." He shrugged his shoulder out from under her chin, followed by slipping his arm out from her clutches and wrapping it around her shoulders instead.
"And I feel the same," Elizabeth responded, snaking her own arm around his back.
And she was happy. At that very moment, she was so very happy. Together they watched the water again, tracing short, lazy paths with their fingers on each other's bodies, letting the birds serenade their souls and the flowers sweeten the air between them. Tranquility. Luxury.
But for Elizabeth the real joy was to have her love wrapped in her embrace, to be wrapped up in his in turn.
"I know you wish you could give me the world, Will. I see it in your face. But I don't need or want the world—I only need you to give me your heart, as I've offered you mine. If there's anything else I need, I'm fully capable of going after it myself, right alongside you. We will find our home together."
At last Will's face softened, and Elizabeth was relieved and pleased to see the shades of a smile creeping back across his lips. Then he wrapped his other arm about her and pressed her firmly to his chest. She made a little noise of surprise, then hooked her hands together to playfully try to crush him back. They began to laugh.
Eventually, they both seemed to concurrently decide that they'd had enough and were ready to move on—from this conversation and from this lake. Even with the shade of the vines over their head, afternoon was drawing closer, and the heat was coming with it. They disentangled themselves from each other, and in a show of gentlemanly chivalry, Will stood then offered Elizabeth a hand up. Arm-in-arm, they walked back towards Estrella, sitting near the whistling way that crossed the front of the guest house and would lead them back to the main mansion.
"I owe you far too much, Elizabeth," Will admitted, his eyes cast upon their footsteps, with their shoes so very different, walking in perfect step.
Elizabeth threw him an arch look and shook her head at him. "Don't get me started on that nonsense too—you already know what I think about it."
"Alright, alright," he sighed, and placed a gentle tap atop her hand to signal his concession. But he was looking at her again, eyes upon her face in a tender way she could feel even without looking. When she did finally look, his gaze was steady and clear, and she felt as though he was holding her reverently in many more ways than one.
Will parted his lips and asked, "Have I told you today?"
She shook her head to dismiss him. "You tell me everyday."
He stopped their walk. Turning to face Elizabeth, Will cupped each of her hands in his. She thought he would say it then, but he simply gazed at her with his dark eyes taking in every part of her face many times over. Then once she had a teasing remark formed on the tip of her tongue, he stepped into her with one hand cupping her face, and her tiny gasp of pleased surprise was covered by the sweet taste of his surrender. She wasted no time at all falling into, deepening the kiss she had been craving, slipping her hands around his back and her tongue into his mouth to feel him closer than ever before. He danced with her slowly, his mouth wet and hot and soft and thrilling, and she wanted to taste and memorize every breath they shared.
When they parted at last, he pressed one last kiss to the corner of her mouth, and looked at her with an ardor she was eager to see and feel everyday for the rest of their lives.
"I love you."
With Elizabeth heartily receiving Will's resignation from his lips, there had been very little sting in losing the game in the end. He had been a little worried she would consider him a spoilsport for capitulating as quickly as he had. It had been fun for the first while. But when faced with the way she so carefully cradled his heart in her hands, any pride or importance he had placed in proving anything one way or the other had melted away entirely.
She had been right, after all. About how she had called to him all this time, about how he had wanted to give her the world. Of course he would give her this one, trivial thing.
After all, she had always had his heart. And he wanted her to know it for certain.
With the heat of the afternoon looming around them, eventually she withdrew from his arms, leading him and Miss Trattles back into the mansion foyer. Miss Trattles sat upon a divan in the back of the foyer, keeping herself kindly inconspicuous. Elizabeth called for tea to be laid upon the table in the entryway's center. And when the front and back doors were propped wide open, summoning the blessing of the sea's cross breeze, he began to understand at least one reason why, like in her private chambers, there were so many chairs scattered about the edges of a room which had long seemed to him large for no particular reason at all.
They sat side-by-side in front of the table, holding each other's hands, looking out the open doors at the crystal blue waters and emerald mountain in the harbor below. When their mouths were not directly engaging each other's, they were eating and telling stories. There were things she said she wished to say in real privacy, but Elizabeth told him much about the friends that had kept her company over the past few days: how she'd met them, what they were like, and some of the mischief they had gotten into. In return, he explained to her about his deal with Mister Brown, and his hopes on making an impression with some work on the Dodson house.
Inevitably, he came to the day he received her drunken letter, remembering that it was tucked away in her pocket and how they hadn't finished speaking about it. However, their voices reverberated off the hall's floors and walls, and servants were constantly milling about, so he said nothing of it for the time being.
They fell into a comfortable silence, exchanging soft caresses and softer glances, when a familiar peal began to rise up from the town.
"That's the church bell. He'll be on his way back soon," Will mused, and raised Elizabeth's hand to his lips for what must have been the hundredth time.
Elizabeth shook her head, still gazing at the sea.
"No, he likes to talk. He'll be there another hour at least. Possibly more, considering the new arrivals…" her voice tapered off.
The smile that bloomed between them when their eyes met was instant and instinctual, and he had more than a feeling that they were both contemplating with no small sense of awe how lucky they were to have this blissful, peaceful time together.
"Come upstairs with me," Elizabeth requested quite suddenly.
Will couldn't resist raising his eyebrows at her. If following her upstairs was all of what she wanted, she wouldn't have asked him to do it. Clearly she meant for them to try something different.
He chose to tease her by feigning ignorance regarding her intentions. "I thought you said it's hotter up there."
"It is in the drawing room," she conceded, standing slowly and pulling on his hands to draw him up with her. "But the windows in my chamber make it better in the breeze, and I wish to lie down."
Her tone was airy and matter-of-fact as she led him to the staircase and began their ascent to the upper level—it was clear all she wanted was some rest, and with the deeply lazy way he was beginning to feel, Will had no motivation to do anything but follow her. Miss Trattles snapped her book shut and scrambled to join them at their heels.
"Alright," he agreed. "I'll just read a book on one of your one hundred chairs."
She shook her head at him, laughing and casting a pointed look at him from over her shoulder, "No. I woke you today long before you intended—you'll nap as well."
Will waited until they had arrived on the upper landing, and he could draw close to her ear from behind her, speaking to her in a low voice that he knew belied some of the uncertainty now running through him.
"Are you inviting me into your bed? And with your father on his way home?"
He could feel Miss Trattles' eyes on them at this question. As innocent as Elizabeth seemed to mean for it to be, he still had promised himself to leave the governor with an improved impression of him today. He doubted appearing to so flagrantly toss propriety out the window the minute the man walked out the door would leave him in his good graces—if it would even be permitted by their minder.
Elizabeth, of course, didn't seem to see it the same way, turning to face him and laying her hands upon his chest. "Oh, to sleep only. And since today is the day of rest by tradition and decree, I think it's perfectly acceptable."
She placed a quick kiss upon his lips, followed by another after a second thought, and then took his hand again to lead him to the door of her chamber.
"I'm not sure that'll make much of a difference to him," Will replied, still hesitant about the whole thing.
"I agree, miss," Miss Trattles chimed in. "You've been granted a lot of leeway today, I don't think it would be wise for the two of you to tread so close to an obvious line in the sand."
"Then we'll throw the doors open, all of them! And if that's not still satisfactory, you'll take my father's bed," Elizabeth huffed, having grown visibly impatient.
Miss Trattles sighed, and Will frowned. That seemed even worse.
But again Elizabeth was of a different mind, puffing a little breath of frustration from her nose and then coming to stand quite close before him. "It is a normal thing for guests to take up rest in our rooms, Will. It's just bundling–not even that. If my father disagrees, I will take the blame—neither of you need to fret over it. Besides, I will not sleep unless you are granted the opportunity as well. So you may choose: his or mine."
She laid her hand open before him...
Will's eyelids were fluttering, hardly having laid his head upon the pillow Elizabeth had lent him before sleep came in hot pursuit of him and he began to give in. And she could hardly blame him. While it took a bit more arguing and compromising with Estrella, eventually Elizabeth had gotten her way. She always did. So she lounged near her lover atop the covers of her bed, fully dressed except for their shoes and facing one another with one ankle crossed. All the doors and windows had been thrown open. Undulating waves of gossamer rose and fell beneath the drawn curtains, riding upon the sweet air that passed through the corners of her chamber, whispering a lullaby and soothing the heat of the Caribbean sun.
Elizabeth retraced the shape of the lips she'd come to adore beneath featherlight touches of her fingertips. Will's mouth curved in the slightest of smiles.
"I feel like I'm in a dream," he whispered.
She returned his warm, sleepy expression as she changed the direction of her fingers to simply stroke a single line down the center of his mouth, following the path of whiskers leading to his chin. "A good dream?"
He sighed a single laugh, asking without asking: wasn't it obvious?
A tendril of Elizabeth's hair caught itself in breezy currents—she could see and feel it dancing about her shoulders in the golden light glowing around them. When it settled across her neck, Will reached out to tuck it behind her shoulder, letting his fingers linger over her heated skin. His eyes drifted shut beneath dark eyelashes and a quiet breath. She swallowed, suddenly overcome with emotion at the sight of his sun kissed face, relaxed and peaceful. It was a dream for her too, having his warmth beside her, laying in the place which she'd more than once wished she could one day offer him, utterly content.
She lifted her fingers to sweep across his cheek. Then she simply took his hand, and sidled a little closer to him, until her face was a breath away from his.
"I wish you could stay with me like this. Now, not later," she confessed.
"'Good things come…' " he spoke so quietly she could hardly hear him, even as near as she was.
"I've paid my time waiting for you." She took her time pressing her lips to rough skin on his hand. "I never want to have to do it again."
Will's eyes slipped back open, offering her a shaded view warm as mahogany and deep as the sea. If there was anything he wished to say, it never came. Instead, he simply tipped his head forward and touched his forehead to hers, before wandering back to the edge of slumber, inviting her along the way. Elizabeth let her eyes slip shut as well, at last.
"It smells like you," she heard him say.
As dreams began to rise within her mind, she pictured herself once again lying on Will's little cot at an hour that felt like an age before. She smiled. "And what do I smell like?"
"Home."