Archive of Our Own

"So do we have an accord?" Elizabeth asked, regarding Teague with some considerable measure of suspicion. While she was growing sneakingly fond of the old pirate, she felt that it was never a good sign when he seemed too satisfied with a bargain.

He leaned back, stretching out his long legs and meeting her gaze with the faint smile of a practiced gambler. "I fund your business venture to London, and you'll repay me when you've your new ship. It's a better investment than most."

"Well, then," Elizabeth said, still a bit unsettled. She'd expected Teague to begin by suggesting she leave young William behind as security for the loan, or at least that she leave the Empress in his hands instead. He'd pronounced himself too old to be burdened with the managing of either, and hadn't even mentioned the chest now buried deep in the sands of a barren island with no other features to attract anyone's eye.

"Will Tai Huang be running Empress for himself, or for you?"

"He's promised me a cut of the profits," Elizabeth said. "I'm not sure how much I trust him about that." She trusted him more than she'd ever expected to, given that he'd made no move to get the ship away from her when she was laid up after William's birth, but it was a bit much to expect any pirate to honor a deal with her an ocean away. She'd dragged her feet for nearly two years already, though, hoping that they'd take a prize she liked well enough to split her crew between the ships and let Tai Huang take the Empress home.

The problem was that the sort of ship that would make a good pirate vessel would also put up a hell of a fight. The few times they'd taken on a well-armed ship, she'd been unable to bring herself to string it along carefully waiting for an opportunity to board, aware as she was of William in her cabin below, not much more than a year old and laughing at the sound of the guns. Instead she'd called for them to fire again and again, watching the ships go down in a flaming crash of masts and sails.

There wasn't any profit in that, although there was a certain satisfaction in having something that she could fight. They'd made tolerable profits instead running down slow merchant ships that could do little but surrender, but that meant selling off the cargoes in ports where the Empress stuck out like a sore thumb. A few close calls with the Navy had convinced her she needed a less conspicuous ship, and after long evenings talking over the problem with Tai Huang, she had thought of only one way to get one without gambling the Empress in a close engagement.

This was another sort of gamble, but at least the stakes weren't their lives. She turned up her hands. "I may or may not lose her to Tai Huang this way, but I know full well I can't keep her crew in the Caribbean forever, and I don't want to spend my life in Singapore."

"It might be an easier life," Teague pointed out. "There's more women sailors in those parts, enough so that you wouldn't have to fight every man all of the time."

"Be that as it may," Elizabeth said, her fingers playing across the hilt of her pistol.

Teague shook his head at her. "Young men and young women are both alike," he said. "Thinking everything they want's worth fighting for." His expression softened. "Still, your home might well be."

"Then we have a deal?" If he was willing to advance her the monies she would need to make this voyage with the appearance of respectability on her word alone, she couldn't very well afford to turn him down. "It's not only a ship for me, you know. With all that money, I could back some ventures against the East India Company's shipping, maybe do enough damage to hurt them--"

"All that's as it may be," Teague said. "I'll gamble on you finding a way to turn a profit, not necessarily on any grand plans of yours." He held out his hand to her, and she clasped it cautiously. His grip was strong despite his years.

"All right," Elizabeth said. "Now all I need is to find someone who can actually pull off the other half of this charade."

"I've got that taken care of as well," Teague said. "You're taking ship at Curaçao, you say?"

"I think that's the best place," Elizabeth said. "Best not to have any record of the Empress having been in a British port."

"I'll send the young man to meet you there," Teague said. "There's a tavern by the waterfront, with a crescent moon sign, run by a widow woman named Anna, or else it was when I was last at sea. It's a fine enough meeting place, and clean enough if you're particular."

"I prefer not to feel as if I ought to boil the sheets," Elizabeth said. "How will I know him?"

"I'll send some sign of mine along with him," Teague said. "And I expect I can describe you well enough."

"I can't be that distinctive looking."

Teague shook his head. "You've no idea," he said. "You look like a fine lady -- or you would if you were better washed -- and you move like a bandit chief. Any man with sense will be able to see you a mile away."

"I'll have to try to remedy that, won't I?" Elizabeth said ruefully.

"You will, but I don't expect you'll manage that in your first few days of trying," he said. "I expect getting you back into a corset would be a start."

*****

It was a rather embarrassing start, in fact, but Elizabeth could hardly go ashore wearing Chinese men's clothing and nothing under it but her skin. She sent Kate ashore to a stay-maker's, and put up with the jokes from the men until she tired of it enough to threaten dire punishment to the next man who speculated about her appearance in European underwear.

"I'm still the captain until I go ashore," she said, raising her voice to carry across the deck. "I wouldn't mind ordering one last flogging."

Tai Huang shook his head at her. "I don't think proper English ladies have people flogged."

"You'd be surprised," Elizabeth said. "But I can't swear at all."

"Not even in Cantonese?" He was teasing her, and she realized she'd miss him. It was hard to walk away from another friend without knowing whether she'd ever see him again.

"Not among men who may have been posted in the Orient," she said. "I can only glare at people, and possibly stamp my foot."

"You are not tempted to stay in England, then?"

She shook her head. "I probably should. But I don't think I can."

"I wouldn't either," Tai Huang said. "Come find us in Singapore. We will have chests of treasure put by for you. If we are not dead."

"I'm hoping for the treasure," Elizabeth said, and clasped his arm hard for a moment before letting go. "I'm going to look damnably silly."

"You will," Tai Huang said. "Like an English lady."

"I am an English lady," Elizabeth said, but at the moment it didn't sound very plausible even to her.

*****

She felt even stranger when Kate had laced her into the corset and helped her into the one plain dress she had put by on the theory that she might someday need to pose as a woman in civilized parts. It fit poorly, the seams straining despite her stays where her figure had changed with William's birth. "I see that I shall need a dressmaker first off," she said ruefully, trying not to breathe.

William tangled himself in her skirts, laughing, and she scooped him up and handed him to Kate, who he promptly kicked. Kate had looked after him before a bit when they were in Shipwreck, and Elizabeth hadn't hesitated when Teague suggested hiring her for this voyage, but William wasn't as attached to her as he was to Song Li who generally looked after him aboard the Empress, and he showed it.

"Sodding little beast," Kate said reasonably affectionately, holding him so that he couldn't kick her as he twisted in her grasp.

"Language," Elizabeth reminded her. "You could put him down. He can't really kick people while standing up without falling over."

"Mama," William demanded, holding out his arms to her, and she collected him with one arm while trying to smooth her skirts with the other hand.

"My mum was a maid come out from England, and she swore," Kate said. "Of course she'd been in prison, which might account for it."

"At least try not to do it where I can hear," Elizabeth said. She passed William back to Kate, who managed to get a more successful grip on him this time as he grabbed at handfuls of her curling black hair. Kate wasn't much more than a little girl herself, and owing to her mother having made friends before she died was managing to support herself running errands and looking after babies rather than on her back.

She had no idea who her father might have been and seemed to think that the common condition of pirate children, although Elizabeth couldn't help wondering sometimes if she was Teague's. He didn't claim her, though, and there were a number of girls on Shipwreck who he said plainly enough were his daughters. Which led to another avenue of speculation, but Elizabeth tried not to think about Jack Sparrow these days.

"There's no use putting it off longer," she said, and shouldered the bag she'd packed with the few things she dared take. "Let's go ashore."

*****

After obtaining a room at the tavern, she left William there with Kate, as it did seem both clean and run respectably enough. She spent the afternoon at the dressmaker's, followed upon further thought by the milliner's, glovemaker's, and shoemaker's. She had only a few words of Dutch, but it seemed to suffice when accompanied by sufficient coin. The shoemaker spoke English well, and had stern words for the state of her Chinese slippers.

She took one of the hats away with her on the spot, and armed with that and a shawl to soften the lines of her ill-fitting dress, she felt more prepared to face the world. She had powdered her face already, powder and indeed even more obvious amendments to nature being accepted without comment as part of a woman's armory aboard the Empress.

It made her feel distinctly odd as she settled at a table in the tavern, though, conscious in a way she had not been dressed in coat and boots of curious eyes on her. The barmaid who came to the table spoke only Dutch and a language Elizabeth couldn't even name, but nodded cheerfully enough when Elizabeth pantomimed both drinking and eating. She produced ale and some kind of spiced fish stew, which Elizabeth addressed herself to hungrily.

She stopped when a movement at the edge of her vision caught her eye. Someone had dropped down behind the table nearest the wall -- the table behind hers -- and was creeping behind it. Without looking up from her bowl, she slid her hand through her skirt pocket and retrieved her pistol from its hidden holster.

At the first sound of the bench behind her scraping, she was on her feet, her pistol pressed to what she abruptly realized was a very familiar breast.

"Planning to kill me again, Lizzie?"

"Jack Sparrow," Elizabeth said without lowering the pistol.

"In the flesh," Jack said. "Although possibly not much longer unless you put that thing away."

"I wouldn't shoot you by accident," Elizabeth said, but she did put the pistol down.

"No, I expect you'd mean to do it." Jack looked little different than when she'd last seen him; she supposed she'd somehow expected him to look older, although it hadn't really been long enough to expect any visible change. "What are you doing here dressed like a vicious churchmouse?"

"Meeting someone," she said. "What are you doing outside of a den of ill repute?"

"Meeting a lady," Jack said, and then, almost at once, "I'm going to kill Teague."

"You'll have to stand in line," Elizabeth said. "I should have known something was wrong with the deal."

Jack seemed to consider her for a long moment, and then shrugged, looking suddenly tired. "I'm in."

"You're in on what? Did Teague even tell you what he was recruiting you for?"

"It doesn't matter," Jack said. "I'm still in." He spread his hands. "I'm a bit short on options at the moment, Lizzie."

"You mean you're skint broke."

"I liked you better when you were more fond of euphemisms," Jack said. "Are you going to ask me to sit down, or are we just going to stand here threateningly? People are staring."

"At you," Elizabeth said, but she sat, and waved Jack to the empty chair across the table.

"I'm not the one waving my enormous weapon around," Jack said. "Sorry to disappoint you on that account."

"What, isn't it working either?"

"Cruel, always cruel," Jack said. "Maybe it just doesn't like you that much."

Elizabeth felt that the conversation had somehow already slipped out of her control, as they had only just sat down and were somehow talking about Jack's privates. "Teague being ..."

"An interfering old bastard," Jack said. "Don't refrain from insulting Teague on my account. You start and I'll join in."

"... Teague being Teague aside," Elizabeth began again, "I don't think you can pull this one off, Jack."

"If there's mortal danger involved, I'm not sure I'm that hard up," Jack said.

"I need someone to pretend to be my husband."

The corners of Jack's mouth turned up very slowly. "Do you, now."

"Stop smirking. It's a straightforward business proposal. My father left me a considerable sum in his will."

"On the condition that you marry a pirate?"

"I have married a pirate," Elizabeth said. "But I can't very well produce him. And if I claim to be unmarried, it makes the matter of young William very awkward."

"There are other names in the world, you know."

"Will you pay attention?"

"I'm usually helped in doing that by rum," Jack said.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and waved over the barmaid, who looked disapproving and pretended at first to have no idea what her pantomime of more drinking meant. Jack rattled off something incomprehensible, although she felt it might well end in whatever the local equivalent of "savvy?" was, and the barmaid went off looking slightly mollified.

She raised an eyebrow. "You speak Dutch?"

"Papiamento," he said. "And now who's getting distracted?"

Elizabeth gathered her thoughts. "So I thought of leaving him in Shipwreck, but even with Teague watching over him ..."

"All it would take is the old man getting too drunk to watch him like a hawk, and with that it's less a matter of if than when. You don't have to explain that bit. So you're stuck with the bonny lad, and I suppose if you've some idea of slipping back into respectable society you don't want to do it with a bastard on your hip. Why not be a merry widow, then?"

"I would, if it wouldn't set up a legal tangle," Elizabeth said. "I can't prove the date of my father's death or Will's -- such as it was -- or my marriage, either. If Will had died before my father, then I'd have been my father's heir. As it really happened, though, as soon as I married, the money was Will's, not mine. I can't prove he's dead --"

"Tricky when a man's still walking around," Jack put in.

"-- and if it's argued he's alive, I haven't any legal standing without him."

"And so you want to cut the Gordian knot by producing a live husband."

"Help me collect the money, and get a cut of it for yourself," Elizabeth said. "Assuming you can look like anything but a vagabond."

"Of course, if I were married to you, it would be my money," Jack pointed out.

"But you're not. So it's not. Unless you play along without being horrid."

"I'm not sure I can manage not being horrid," Jack said.

"I'm not sure you can, either."

The barmaid returned with his drink and a plate of the same stew for him. Jack attacked it as if it were the first meal he'd had in days. She wondered if that was a result of a lack of funds or of having spent too much of said funds on rum.

"You'd have to look respectable," Elizabeth said.

"I can look very respectable."

"I don't believe you."

Jack gave her an assessing look. "What are you trying to look like, then?"

"I'm having some things made."

"Speaking of which ..." Jack said, plucking at his sleeve. "I could look respectable better in more respectable clothes, which would require respectable sums to acquire."

"I'll go with you," Elizabeth said.

"Distrustful wench."

"And you can't call me 'wench.'"

"Mistress Sparrow, is it?"

"I think 'Sparrow' is pushing our luck," Elizabeth said. "How about 'Smith'?"

"It's a bit cliché as an alias," Jack said. "It may as well be Teague. I think they've mostly forgotten him in England."

"Jack Teague?"

"John," Jack said, with an odd little smile. "Mistress John Teague."

"Get yourself a room," Elizabeth said. "And we'll go round the shops tomorrow."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Separate rooms will look a bit odd, won't they, love?"

Elizabeth put a hand to her forehead. "Unfortunately, you're right," she said. "Don't get any ideas."

"I like my hands, and other assorted body parts," Jack said. "That's a high incentive to keep them to myself when dealing with the likes of you."

"That's your wife you're talking about."

Jack smiled at her crookedly. "There's one terrible fate I've escaped so far. I've never been so much as tempted by the delights of matrimony."

"They're brief," Elizabeth said, and pushed her drink away briskly. "Are you coming upstairs or not, then?"

"After you," Jack said more quietly.

*****

In the end Jack made relatively little attempt to sully her virtue, which Elizabeth found almost disappointing. Not that she had any intention of giving in, of course, but the familiar duel of words would have been obscurely comforting. Instead he fell almost at once into snoring slumber, leaving her to toss and turn and get up more than once to see that young William was still sleeping in his makeshift bed in the armchair. Kate had the room next door, but Elizabeth found it hard to sleep with William farther away than she could hear.

The second time, she returned to bed to see Jack propped up on one elbow watching her. "I suppose he's not a eunuch," he said.

Elizabeth tried not to smile. "Not hardly," she said.

"Might have been better to name the tiniest Turner something else," Jack said. "The first two Williams haven't had much luck."

Elizabeth leaned back against the pillows tiredly. "Maybe he won't be a sailor."

"That's what Teague said about me, once," Jack said. "You see how I turned out."

"Is your name really John Teague?" Elizabeth asked sleepily.

"As much as yours is Miss Swann, love," Jack said. She thought she could feel the weight of his hand on her hair, but she wasn't sure.

*****

She woke to find him contemplating himself in the mirror, a basin before him and his face clean-shaven and scrubbed free of both dirt and the kohl about his eyes. It made him look older, and oddly naked in the cool dawn light. William was just stirring fitfully in the armchair.

"I've still got the hair to do," Jack said rather bleakly. "Go and find something to feed William the third, or are you still his breakfast?"

Elizabeth considered throwing something at him, but he didn't look like he was in the mood. "He's been used to congee for his breakfast, but I expect he'll eat porridge."

"Might be best to take a nanny goat along when we make the crossing, then," Jack said. "A lad his age ought not live on ship's biscuit, though I understand it's prime for when they're teething."

"And what precisely do you know about small children?" Elizabeth said, rising and scooping William up in her arms.

"I was one, wasn't I? And I had sisters, though not till I was grown." He made a terrible leering face at small William, waggling his eyebrows, and the boy laughed in delighted alarm and buried his face in her shoulder. He turned one of his braids round a finger and looked at the mirror rather than her. "Clear out for a while, will you?"

"We'll be downstairs," Elizabeth said.

William had finished milk and porridge and was trying his best to scale one of the trestle tables, with Kate attempting to keep him from dashing his brains out in the process, when Jack came down. His hair was free of its usual adornments and braided neatly in a queue at the back of his neck, although a few ragged ends suggested there was rather less of it than formerly.

"Come along, love, let us give our custom to some fine tailoring establishments, or at least as fine as we can afford." There was an odd edge to his voice, though he was smiling, perhaps over-brightly. Elizabeth hoped that wasn't a bad sign.

The tailor was dubious, but the color of Elizabeth's money improved his demeanor, and he and Jack were soon deep in conversation in Spanish about current fashions in men's cuffs and cravats. Elizabeth settled into a window seat to watch as Jack was measured, rather expecting a stream of double entendres about length and girth. He was instead alarmingly subdued.

"You're not ill, are you?" she asked as they left.

"Never better," Jack said. "Though your concern is touching." He regarded his boots with a raised eyebrow. "Shoes next. Then wig."

"Why do all that to your hair if you're going to put a wig over it?"

"Verisimilitude, love," Jack said, holding out his arm for her to take. She rested her hand on his sleeve, not sure whether she found it familiar or strange. "Why are you wearing stays again?"

She flushed. "What makes you think I am?"

"Wicked girl," Jack said with a flash of his usual demeanor. "You ought to ask me what makes me think you usually don't. But it's the little details that matter in an affair like this. Be what you mean to seem, and it'll make your play-acting all the better."

"I'm not play-acting, am I?" Elizabeth said. "I mean, except in regards to you."

"That's the spirit," Jack said, taking her elbow and turning her into the cobbler's shop.

*****

They set sail for England the better part of a week later, having both collected what seemed to Elizabeth -- more used to traveling light -- to be an enormous assemblage of parcels. A trunk apiece had been required, now stowed in their closet-sized cabin aboard the Merry Fish, bound for London with a handful of passengers, a packet of mail, and considerable quantities of salt.

"You might have picked a ship with a more interesting cargo," Jack said, his feet up on the bed.

"I'd rather not be thrown overboard before we get to London," Elizabeth said. "Even you can't be very interested in stealing salt."

"Well, not without a ship to put it on."

"I take it the Black Pearl --"

"Therein lies a long and really most unpleasant tale involving Hector, alligators, the bloody useless Fountain of bloody Youth -- incredibly overrated -- and Hector again, in his usual role as ruination of all my good fortunes." Jack smiled sharply. "It's no wonder you two get on so well."

"He's not dead, is he?"

"No such luck. Why, does he owe you money?"

"Not that I can recall," Elizabeth said, and then, "And don't assume horrible things. We're friends, I think."

"I've thought that," Jack said. "Generally I was wrong."

"You have a more trusting nature."

"I must, to share my bed with my charming murderess."

Elizabeth raised her eyes to his. "I take it you still don't forgive me."

"It's not the kind of thing a man forgives," Jack said. "Come and get some sleep, Lizzie, it's going to storm later."

"I don't get seasick," Elizabeth said, but she kicked off her shoes willingly and then more hesitantly sat down on the edge of the bed. "Will you help me with the buttons?"

"I thought you didn't have a trusting nature," Jack said, but he undid them with a minimum of lingering over each one, and Elizabeth shrugged the dress off her shoulders. Her corset and shift covered as much skin as a shirt and breeches would have done -- more, since in the dim light filtering down from above he couldn't possibly see the shape of her legs -- and yet she was acutely aware of their closeness as she would not have been if she were dressed.

"Will you ..."

"Shame on you, Lizzie," Jack said. "Sleeping without a corset. It'll ruin your figure, mark my words." He unlaced her all the same, as if he were used to the process, and she took a breath gratefully, his fingers still brushing the small of her back.

She slid under the covers, and after a moment her hand rested on his shoulder.

"Surely there can't be any other matter in which you need assistance," Jack said.

"Of course not," Elizabeth said. She could feel the muslin of her shift brushing against her breasts and between her thighs as she shifted. Her heart was pounding.

"Well, then," Jack said, closing his eyes.

Elizabeth glared at him. "Well."

There was a pause. Finally Jack let out a long breath as if surrendering to something inevitable. "Come here," he said, and pulled her to him, his hand going between her legs.

"Jack," she breathed, aware that she should stop him and rubbing against his fingers instead.

"Been a long time, has it?"

"You know how long," she said.

He stopped with his fingers somewhere impossibly provocative. "Not a single lover since your William went off to play with the fishies?"

"I can't," Elizabeth said. "It's not fair --"

"Do you think your William cares whether you lie awake writhing with frustration all night or not? It's only a bit of sport, love." He bent to breathe against her ear. "Just a pleasant exercise that might leave us both able to sleep."

"That's easy enough to say when you aren't the one to reap the consequences," Elizabeth said, with a pointed look toward the even smaller cabin Kate and William were sharing.

"No consequences from this," he said, and moved his fingers maddeningly. It was impossible not to want more, impossible not to want him inside her as Will had been on that one day -- three times, by sunset, and the third time they'd found some angle that had eluded them before and she'd bit down on his shoulder hard enough to bruise as she came and came.

"If we were careful --"

"You haven't a careful bone in your body," Jack said. He half-rolled on top of her, and she could feel him hard against her thigh, his breeches and her shift in between them. "Or a faithful one, either."

"I ..." Shame and frustration felt like a single knot tangling between her legs. "You know I'm no good."

"Never mind, Lizzie," he said, almost gently, his fingers rubbing relentlessly. "You can be repentant later." He crooked his fingers, and she could feel them sliding inside, feel him trying to thrust against her thigh. She reached for him, getting her hands on his back and pulling him against her harder.

"I need to," she said breathlessly. "I need to." She couldn't think of right and wrong, couldn't think of anything but arching up against him. "I need --"

She felt it break over her, and shook with the force of it, holding onto him desperately tight. He rocked against her and swore.

"If I don't --"

"You can't stop," she said.

"Oh, fuck," he said, and went rigid for a moment, and then groaned. He sagged against her for a moment, breathing hard, and then rolled over onto his back. His forehead was damp with sweat, and she suspected her own was as well.

She rested her forehead on his shoulder, and he stroked her hair.

"Jack ..." she began, but he laid his fingers on her lips.

"Wait until morning to say you regret it," he said. "Just this once."

She nodded without speaking and rested her head on his shoulder again. It was warm and comfortable, and even though she could feel from the rocking of the ship that the wind was picking up, she had no trouble drifting off to sleep.

*****

The morning was rather more awkward. Elizabeth was attempting to assemble her thoughts when Jack went out and then returned bearing young William, apparently as a distracting technique. It was hard to have a serious conversation about her feelings about adultery while Jack was turning William upside down and dangling him by his feet.

"I might begin to think you like children at this rate," Elizabeth said.

"I've nothing against them personally," Jack said. "They've never done anything to me. Unlike Hector's monkey."

The evening was considerably more awkward. Elizabeth wasn't sure which of them was avoiding the other, only that somehow they never passed a word in private until they were once more closeted in their cabin. Elizabeth had considered bringing William in with her, but felt it would be a show of cowardice.

"Jack ..." she began once he had wordlessly helped her off with her dress. She left her stays on, feeling that they were some manner of armor.

"Now with the regrets," he said ruefully as she turned over to face him. "Very well, love, tell me what a wicked girl you are, although I can't promise me hearing your confession will do much for the state of your soul."

"I'm not concerned about my soul," Elizabeth said. "I expect it's beyond repair."

"Not certain a few Hail Marys will wash all that blood off your hands?"

"To start with, I'm not a Catholic."

"I'm not a good one myself, but as I understand the theory, you do have to say you're sorry. And while you seem admirably sorry for enjoying yourself last night, I've never noticed you to be particularly sorry for killing people."

He kept his voice casual, almost lazy. Elizabeth thought she would have found it easier to bear if he'd accused her. At least then she could have insisted that she was sorry and felt he might believe her.

"Just every now and then," she said instead.

She couldn't see Jack's face in the shadows, but she thought he might be smiling. She wasn't sure it was a particularly friendly smile. "So if it's not your pretty soul, what's troubling you? Afraid you won't get as warm a welcome from the prodigal Turner?"

"He said he didn't expect me to be faithful," Elizabeth said. "And I said that of course I would. And he said he wouldn't ask me in ten years whether I'd -- what I'd done. And I said of course I shouldn't do anything I'd be ashamed of." It had been easy to promise anything, then, with her hands still clasped in his, hot with the unfairness of it all, wanting to make up to him everything they were being denied.

"It sounds as though you're the one making up the rules," Jack said.

"It wouldn't be fair," Elizabeth said. "Not when he's ..."

"Dead? Deadish? Fishy?"

"Alone."

It was quiet for a while. Elizabeth closed her eyes, wishing she had simpler problems. Jack toyed with a strand of her hair. It didn't seem worth it to tell him to stop.

"There is a particular goddess I expect he's spending considerable time with," Jack said more seriously after a while. "And I can say from personal experience she's very ... persuasive."

"He wouldn't," Elizabeth said, more stung than she tried to let on. Not that she wanted Will to lack for sympathetic company, but she hadn't imagined him finding company that sympathetic.

"You mean you don't want him to," Jack said.

"He's better than that." It wasn't an idea worth taking seriously, coming from Jack who certainly had his own reasons for wanting her to consider it. And yet she was beginning to understand how long the years were, and how little time a day was, for either of them.

"It won't do any harm," Jack said. "Not unless you let it." His face was still impossible to read in the dark.

"I love Will," Elizabeth said. "And he loves me."

"Is that what you're afraid of changing?"

"Good night, Jack," Elizabeth said. She waited for his next reply, but there was only long silence.

*****

By the time they reached England, she'd grown used to sleeping beside Jack fairly innocently, at least inasmuch as sharing a bed with Jack Sparrow could ever be innocent. Her dreams were anything but innocent, but she kept them to herself. When sometimes she woke sure she was drowning, seaweed entangling her and creeping across her skin, he stroked her back without comment, telling her rambling stories of adventures she only half-believed. A few times he was the one who woke with a start, his eyes dark and only half-seeing the cabin; she tried to draw him back down, but he usually shook her off and went to pace the deck for a while, coming back cold and damp with salt spray.

There had been something alien in Jack's manner ever since their shopping expedition in Curaçao, but it sharpened perceptibly as they disembarked, waiting on the quay for their trunks to be unloaded, William squirming in Kate's arms to look in every direction at once. Jack had tied his queue up with a crisp ribbon, and he flicked at the fall of his cravat, adjusting it to match the style sported by passers-by.

Elizabeth flipped her own fan open, brandishing it as a shield against the crowds. "We'll have to find lodgings first of all," she said. "And then a solicitor. I can send round and see if the one my father used is still here."

"Not to worry," Jack said. "It's all under control."

"Mmm."

A surprisingly short time later, Elizabeth was watching Kate unpack their things in a well if somewhat shabbily furnished boarding house room, and watching Jack out of the corner of her eye in an attempt to try to determine what possessed him. He had explained to the mistress of the house, in remarkably subdued tones and with no elaboration or meandering round the point, that he and his wife were in London to settle her father's affairs, and would be happy to pay for their first week's lodgings in advance.

Jack was now sitting at the writing table composing a letter to her father's solicitor. Even the writing seemed to lack his usual flourishes. It was a neat and colorless copperplate, and only the "J" in his signature seemed at all familiar.

"Do you do this often?"

He looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. "I haven't been in England in years."

"I mean impersonate a respectable citizen."

He held up the letter critically to the light, and then looked at her over it. "I'm a respectable merchant captain," he said. "Too sensible to take my own ship off her usual trade routes to run us over to England, especially when we may be tied up in legal matters for some time. It's as well that I've such sober and responsible men to look after her for me."

"This is a little alarming," Elizabeth said.

"Look at yourself, love," Jack said, a flicker of humor creeping back into his voice. Elizabeth did, studying her reflection in the spotty mirror in the corner. Her face had too much color even under its coating of powder, and her hair was streaked lighter by the sun than it had once been. Even with the aid of corsetry, her figure was not what it had been before William's birth, though she felt her breasts were somewhat improved.

All the same, it was eerily like looking at the portrait of herself that had been painted in what she thought of now as her last year of being Elizabeth Swann, either three years or a lifetime ago. This was the woman she had been in the process of becoming when that life was interrupted. She ran a hand down the curve of her hip and touched her other hand to her hair.

"Clearly marriage has been kind to you," Jack said. "You haven't done badly for yourself, even if you did elope with a sea captain who isn't quite in your class."

"Aren't you?" Elizabeth said, looking at him over one shoulder. "I mean, isn't John Teague?"

"John Teague is a self-made man," Jack said. "They're never quite as satisfactory as the other sort. Although he does aim to give satisfaction." He rose, and bowed to her quite properly. "Your leave, madam, I must find a boy to carry a letter," he said. "There must be some young urchin about."

Kate and Elizabeth looked at each other with wide eyes when Jack had departed.

"Have you ever heard him talk like that?" Elizabeth said.

"Old Teague talks all manner of odd sometimes," Kate says. "Generally when he's been at the opium. And Captain Sparrow's peculiar, but ... different peculiar, like. But I suppose you did tell him to talk respectable."

"So I did," Elizabeth replied. She supposed she hadn't entirely expected him to succeed.

*****

Her father's solicitor had retired from practice, she gathered, but a young man at the same firm ushered them into his office politely two days later.

"I am so sorry to hear of your father's death," he said, after introducing himself as Jeremy Babbitt and hearing out Jack's explanation of his identity. "We heard he had taken ship for England but never reached these shores, but there still seemed to be some hope that he had merely been long detained."

Elizabeth swallowed hard, fighting to keep her voice level, and then remembered that it was probably better if it wasn't. "It was a great tragedy," she said. "I do apologize for coming so late, but I was too overcome at first to even think of business matters --"

"Of course, of course," Babbitt said. "It's not a responsibility that ought to fall upon a lady, in any case."

"I'm afraid I know nothing of business matters," Elizabeth said, which hadn't even been true of Miss Swann. "My husband will handle everything, I'm sure."

"I shouldn't want my wife to be further burdened by these affairs," Jack said. "I'm sure there will be some odds and ends to sign." He waved a dismissive hand, trailing lace.

"I'm afraid it's a bit more complex," the young man said. "We'll have to request that Swann be declared dead. It's always a bit questionable when there's nothing but the word of the heir to go by, but that's not the real obstacle." He toyed with the end of his quill as if in embarrassment. "Swann did write to us before his death concerning certain warrants."

"You're surely not implying my wife is a criminal," Jack said. If Elizabeth didn't know better, she would have believed he was shocked by the idea.

"I'm sure it's a misunderstanding," Babbitt said. "But the warrants still exist. The charges in question are serious ones. I'm afraid if your wife were to testify in court, or even make her presence too widely known, she might find herself under arrest."

I'm still in the room, Elizabeth considered saying. Instead she wrung her hands. "It was a terrible thing," she said. "Lord Beckett -- he knew that I was already engaged --"

"To someone else, I gather," Babbitt said, his gaze flickering toward Jack. Elizabeth's estimation of his intelligence was rising, which she felt was unfortunate.

"To William Turner," Elizabeth said, her voice wavering again quite naturally. "But Lord Beckett still insisted in pressing his suit quite ... insistently. When I refused to break the engagement in his favor, he had us both arrested and taken away in chains on my wedding day. He threatened Will with the gallows if he stayed. I don't blame him for -- for leaving."

"And then she quite properly took the first opportunity to put miles between her and Cutler Beckett, and the rest is quite uninteresting," Jack said. "We were married in St. Augustine, the first chance we got to be married by a priest. I'm afraid I'm a Catholic, but she very kindly overlooks that flaw in my character."

The young solicitor pushed the papers on his desk away, looking rather overwhelmed. "This is a complicated series of claims," he said. "And not particularly helped by nearly all the principals being dead. I don't suppose there's anyone live, other than yourselves, who can support any of these claims?"

"Commodore Norrington knew I wasn't guilty of consorting with pirates," Elizabeth said. Jack coughed, and then flourished his handkerchief, pressing it to his lips. "But he's dead, too."

"It would be helpful if you could produce a witness," the solicitor said dryly. "At least one witness. I'll do what I can in the mean time. It would probably be unwise to advertise your presence in London widely."

"I think he thinks we're up to no good," Elizabeth said while walking back to their lodgings. She'd drawn the line at hiring a carriage, not sure that Teague's money would stretch to the kind of state Jack apparently thought fitting for John Teague to keep.

"I can't imagine what makes men so suspicious," Jack said. His gaze flickered to his reflection in the shop window. He straightened his queue, and she had the urge to smack him with her fan.

A figure in a Naval uniform emerged from the shop, and Elizabeth stiffened instinctively, turning toward the window and fumbling in her skirt pocket for her fan. It tangled with her pistol, and she was forced to let it be in fear that both would go tumbling to the ground beneath her skirts.

"Good God," a strangely familiar voice said. "Miss Swann?"

There was no hope for it. She looked up, and realized that the young officer before her, his arms laden with packages, was Theodore Groves.

He must surely see Jack. She released the fan and wrapped her hand around her pistol instead. "Lieutenant Groves!" she exclaimed.

"My God," he said again. "No, I'm sorry, please forgive me, it's only that I thought you were dead. Let me start again. I'm glad to see you well."

"Lieutenant, this is my husband, John Teague," Elizabeth said, seeing nothing for it but to brazen it out. Jack did look surpassingly different in respectable clothes and with his black hair covered by a powdered wig. "This is Lieutenant Groves, who served under Commodore Norrington."

"Who I've heard so much about," Jack said.

Groves smiled sadly. "He was a good man," he said. "He would be glad to know you're safe, Miss -- no, Mistress Teague, I should say."

"He's not dead?" Elizabeth asked, knowing she had to, although her chest clenched at the memory of James with his eyes locked on hers for one last moment before he cut the rope and cold water enveloped her. She swayed a bit on her feet, and Jack steadied her, which she found genuinely comforting.

"I'm afraid so," Groves said. "Truth be told, not many of the men from Beckett's Endeavour came back. It was a bad business, and I'm sorry now to have been a part of it."

Elizabeth's eyes went to his face. He looked sorry, genuinely sorry, and she couldn't help thinking that gave her an opening. "The charges against me -- you can't think it was right of Lord Beckett. I was overcome by the heat, and the horror of a hanging --"

"I don't expect it was right of him, no," Groves said. "He ordered a great many things that weren't right, and most of them we did without much question." He looked away for a moment, and then back to her. "If there's anything I can do ..."

"What a coincidence you should say so," Jack said.

Elizabeth watched as Jack explained her predicament, feeling a bit faint in reality. There was no light of recognition in Groves' eyes; as far as she could tell, he took "John Teague" entirely at face value. All the same, when Groves finally said farewell, promising to go round and see her solicitor in the strictest confidence the next day, she sagged against Jack's arm.

"Do you think he recognized you?"

"Surely not," Jack said. "He'd have remembered me."

*****

"Jack," Elizabeth said later, when they were at last lying in bed, the door to the small sitting room where Kate and William slept shut but not locked.

"John," Jack reminded her without opening his eyes.

"Jack," Elizabeth said. "What's the matter with you?"

Jack rolled over and looked up at her with dark eyes that were impossible for her to read. "Nothing at all," he said. "John Teague has done everything right, hasn't he? A prosperous business, a fine ship and good men to run her, and the hand of a beautiful -- and at least prospectively wealthy -- woman. What else is there to want?" He toyed with a strand of her hair. "Of course, it's not likely that she loves him, but that's really immaterial."

"Jack," Elizabeth said. She caught at his hand, trying to turn it over to show the sparrow tattoo. He held hers in his instead, inextricably, and smiled without warmth. "I'm not sure I like you like this."

"What qualities am I lacking? Would you prefer I were wicked and dissolute, a petty thief given to all manner of vice, seldom sober and rarely washed?"

"I might," Elizabeth said.

"You might," Jack said, his voice sounding just a touch less brittle. "You always were fascinated by what you ought not have."

"I'm a pirate captain," Elizabeth said. "I think I ought to have a pirate."

"Are you, love? A pirate captain dreaming of being a young lady? Or a young lady dreaming of being a pirate captain?" He twined his fingers in her hair again, looking almost as if he were dreaming himself. "I could still be this. But then things happened. I try not to think about them very much."

"Jack," Elizabeth said, catching his hand. She stroked the curve of his fingers with her own. "Don't think of anything awful. It will all be all right."

"It is," he said. "Everything is going perfectly according to plan."

*****

Over the next days, Elizabeth found that being confined -- to all intents and purposes -- in close quarters with John Teague was considerably less entertaining than being confined in close quarters with Jack Sparrow. He spent a great deal of time pacing, read the morning's newspaper with serious concentration, and refrained from attempting to bait her into either slapping him or removing her clothes. It made the days tedious, even with the pastime of trying to determine how much he meant it as an elaborate joke.

"You're attempting to drive me mad from sheer boredom," she said finally in frustration. William was restless as well, clambering over the furniture and attempting to eat various household objects despite Kate's best efforts to prevent him.

"Is that all it takes, love?" Jack asked with a hint of his familiar mocking smile.

"We could at least be seeing the city while we're here."

"Best not," Jack said more soberly. "Not while you're still persona non grata."

Elizabeth shook her head in annoyance. "Since when are you such a great advocate of caution?"

He looked at her, still unsmiling. "Don't you think being closely acquainted with death might make a man a bit more cautious?"

"Do you really think we'll be arrested and hanged if we take a turn round the park?"

"It only takes one missed step," he said.

Before Elizabeth could reply, there was a knock on the door. Her hand went to her pistol at once. Jack gave her a quelling look and went to answer it. Elizabeth felt a more useful form of caution might be not doing so without his own pistol drawn.

It proved to be their landlady, however, with a message "left by a Naval gentleman."

It is with the greatest of pleasure that I am able to tell you that the outstanding charges against you have been dismissed, Groves wrote. I told them what I myself saw -- that while Turner was indeed responsible for freeing the pirate Jack Sparrow, you did nothing more criminal than to faint in greatly trying circumstances for a lady.

I feel that there is more information I might profitably give about Lord Beckett's dealings with your father, especially toward the end. Might I call on you at your convenience?

"There," Elizabeth said, tossing the letter down on the table. She laughed shortly. "I did find it trying to be under danger of arrest for something that wasn't actually criminal."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't it?"

"There's no law against fainting."

"There might be one against pretending to faint to distract your current fiancé from his duty stopping your future fiancé from swashbuckling about and cutting a man down from the gallows."

"Well, there might be, but there isn't," Elizabeth said. "Not if they don't know you've done it on purpose, and they don't."

"Is that how your morality works?" Jack asked. "Very flexible, love."

"I'm talking about law, not morality." Elizabeth picked up the letter again and turned it round. "I don't know whether it's worth talking to Groves again or not. If I'm not going to be arrested, I ought to see if any of my family is in town."

"Only proper to take me to meet the family."

"I don't expect there's anyone closer than a cousin, and I barely know them now, but ..." She'd been left without any memento of her childhood, without anything of her father's at all, and she had the sudden painful desire to see someone who at least had known him too. It was too easy to feel as if he'd never existed at all. "No, wait, my aunt lived in London when I was a girl. We rarely came to town, but I remember visiting once. She might still be here, or at least someone at the house is sure to know where she or my cousins might be found."

"Don't you mean Elizabeth Swann's cousins?" Jack asked.

"She's me," Elizabeth said. "I'm not the one having trouble remembering who I am."

"Planning on taking your pistol along if you go see your dear auntie?"

"Well, of course I ..."

Jack shook his head. "It's one life or the other, love."

"It needn't be," Elizabeth said, determined it was true.

*****

Elizabeth's aunt Caroline replied promptly, in a flurry of delight that Elizabeth was in town and concern for her well-being. She had been Shocked and Heartbroken -- Elizabeth was aware that both sentiments were appropriate, but couldn't help making an effort to pronounce them with their capital letters -- to hear of her brother's death, and Alarmed at the Idea of her Niece being Alone in the World.

"I don't suppose it would much content her to hear that you're keeping plenty of low company instead," Jack said.

"I want to see her," Elizabeth said. "You needn't come --"

"Afraid of what they'll think of me?"

"No," Elizabeth said, and didn't add her half-felt unfortunately. "But it won't be much entertainment for you being interrogated on your antecedents and past career."

"The demands of matrimony," Jack said, addressing himself to straightening his cravat in the mirror.

Elizabeth felt she would be considerably easier in her mind if she were sure precisely who was accompanying her to her aunt's house. She and Jack had worked out the details of their supposed marriage, but she didn't trust Jack not to create an elaborate and alarming story about his own past; on the other hand, she felt she would at least have been able to predict the general lines of such a story, while she had no idea what Jack would say if he was still entirely caught up in his masquerade as John Teague.

The townhouse looked not at all familiar -- she supposed there was too much difference in seeing it from her present angle and from the vantage point of a much smaller girl -- and the footman who showed them in had a skeptical expression, but she recognized her aunt at once as the woman appeared and threw her arms about Elizabeth.

"My poor dear," she said. "You must tell me everything."

Plump and with the brown ringlets swept up at the back of her neck just starting to grey, Caroline looked more like Elizabeth's father than Elizabeth had remembered or expected. She suddenly remembered being led into the foyer from the snow outside, her father's hand on her shoulder and her aunt offering her a cup of steaming milk against the outdoor chill.

"It's very complicated," she said, her voice wavering on the edge of tears.

The parlor was full of women, some of whom she gathered were her cousins Louisa and Meg, and others sympathetic or curious neighbors. Jack made a leg very properly and perched on the edge of a settee as if afraid to dirty it. Elizabeth settled next to him and allowed herself to be poured sherry. It tasted cloyingly sweet; she'd gotten used to white liquor and rum.

"Your poor father," Caroline said. "What happened? I knew his ship had been lost at sea, and of course there didn't seem to be much hope ..." She smiled bravely. "But we were trying not to give up hope entirely."

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth said faintly, grasping for some answer that was both honest to any degree and wouldn't lead to unanswerable questions. "He and Lord Beckett ..."

"Lord Beckett had dishonorable intentions," Jack said. "Governor Swann couldn't stand to see it without trying to defend his only daughter. But I'm afraid Beckett was the younger man by far, and ..." He shook his head, his eyes dark. "I am sorry," he said softly, his eyes on Elizabeth rather than Caroline.

"Oh, my darling," Caroline said, and gathered Elizabeth into a rather smothering embrace as the rest of the room broke out in a distressed clamor.

The rest was easier, although Elizabeth had to keep some part of her mind on remembering to sit like a lady and sip her sherry rather than downing it in a single gulp. It was easier than she'd thought it would be, as though some part of her still remembered and needed only a dress and a drawing room to come forward and take over.

"But what are your plans?" Caroline asked. "You must think of staying in town." Jack had allowed himself to be drawn into conversation by Elizabeth's cousins; as far as she could tell, he was doing so without looking down their dresses.

"Well, we haven't the means at present ..."

"But of course once Weatherby's estate is settled, you won't have to worry about things like that. He always made it clear you'd be entirely provided for. And with a husband who's going to be often away, you ought to be near family."

Elizabeth looked around the parlor. There was a merry fire blazing in the hearth, and every surface was clean and shining. The thick rug was soft under her feet, and the sherry was producing a pleasant glow. It would be so easy, she thought. To wake up between clean sheets and have someone bring her breakfast on a tray. To have a proper nursery for William where he would play with wooly lambs and eat bread and milk.

And there might still be Jack, she thought treacherously. He would never stay in such a house, but he might be happy enough to visit, and have a good meal and a hot bath and ... and a warm bed, she finished, carefully not specifying in her fantasy whose that might be. She could make him a bright pretty box for a nest.

"I'll have to ask John, of course," she said.

Caroline patted her on the arm. "He seems like a clever enough man to let you do the choosing of where you're to live," she said. "My Henry grumbled for twenty years about wanting to live in the country rather than in London, but he did his grumbling in London."

In Caroline's carriage on the way back to their lodgings -- she had insisted that Elizabeth must come and stay with them, and Elizabeth had not been able to escape without promising to do so if they were in London more than a few days longer -- Jack was quiet, leaning back with his gaze on the front wall of the carriage rather than on her.

"You're tempted," he said.

Elizabeth opened her fan, feeling the need for a barrier between them. "Mistress Teague is tempted," she said. "She ... she would be less lonely near her family."

"A little townhouse?" Jack asked. "Or a pretty cottage out in the country? Would you put roses round the door, and watch young William playing on the lawn?"

"You're making sport of me," Elizabeth said. She felt suddenly worn out and near tears.

"Nothing of the sort," Jack said. "I've no objection to keeping you in a cottage."

"You wouldn't have married me at all," Elizabeth said, her temper fraying. "If you were John Teague. I'm not nearly respectable enough or -- or boring enough."

"But you are rich," Jack said. "That makes up for all manner of sins."

"I don't even think I like you."

"I never thought you did," Jack murmured. She wished she were more sure which of them were speaking, or that she dared put her hand on his arm and try to draw him back to her. She was afraid if she did she would find this stranger Jack had become embracing her, and she wasn't sure she relished the idea at all.

*****

The next day when Groves sent a note saying he intended to call at teatime, Jack removed himself before Groves' arrival, saying he was going to walk round the park. He looked edgy and restless, and Elizabeth wondered whether he might be lying, and why.

She had little time to consider the matter before Groves arrived.

"My dear Lieutenant Groves," she said once he was seated and had a cup of tea in hand. "I cannot thank you enough for your assistance in this matter."

"It was the least I could do," he said. "Indeed, I think it is hardly enough. I ... am afraid that some of what I have to say will cause you pain, and other parts I ... wonder, now, if I remember as they happened."

"I already know Beckett killed my father," Elizabeth said.

Groves looked up at her with a quick flicker of interest. "I wondered if you had heard something."

"I ..." she began, and then stopped, unsure what she could safely say. She felt that Groves suspected more than he knew, but she wasn't sure he wanted her to confirm his suspicions. "I heard rumors, yes," she said. "Commodore Norrington spoke of it to someone he trusted, before he died."

"I'm not surprised I wasn't that man," Groves said. "I was sure that the East India Company was the way to profit and promotion. It was -- well, I allowed myself to be easily led. I think Commodore Norrington was never as easy in his mind about the worst of it, but after his resignation --"

"He was a good man," Elizabeth said.

"He was," Groves said, and took a gulp of his tea as if he expected it to be brandy or something stronger. "Too good for that rotten business. It's true, Beckett had your father murdered. There were any number of us knew about it, but we were too afraid for our own careers to speak out about it." He shook his head, gazing bleakly into his cup. "And things had become so passing strange."

"I know a little of that as well," Elizabeth said carefully.

Groves looked up at her. "The business after you were kidnapped --"

"The undead pirates. Yes."

"Oh, God," Groves said, and looked on the verge of dropping his teacup. "I'm sorry, it's only that I've begun to wonder --"

"If you were going mad?" Elizabeth smiled ruefully. "Only if we both are."

"After that, we seemed to be in another world," Groves said. "There was a ship -- The Flying Dutchman --"

"The fish people," Elizabeth said. "I ... heard of them."

"You've no idea," Groves said. "Jones was like some horrible nightmare brought to life. His face ..." He shivered. "And Beckett was obsessed by the power that ship could bring him. He was ready to sacrifice anything to defeat the pirates and rule the ocean himself."

"It's all over now," Elizabeth said.

Groves let out a breath. "I know. And I'll testify that Beckett had Swann killed. But I can't seem to look at things the same way now, knowing ..." He shrugged. "It's not as easy as all that to be normal again."

"It seems easy enough sometimes," Elizabeth said.

"Of course you must find it a relief to be back in England," Groves said. "For however long?"

Elizabeth shrugged one shoulder in response to the unspoken question. "You're very kind," she said.

"I'm not," Groves said. "I just find that I have a great many regrets." He stood, and Elizabeth walked with him to the door. He stopped in the doorway, looking back at her. "You haven't asked me why it happened."

"We'll never know now why Beckett did what he did," Elizabeth said.

Groves touched his hat to her. "Good afternoon, then, Mistress Teague."

*****

She expected Jack home by dinnertime, but smiled at the dinner table and told the other boarders her husband was visiting friends. "You know how gentlemen are," she said. "I expect they'll sit up half the night smoking and telling fish stories."

She was more honest with Kate, once the girl had returned from her own supper in the kitchen. "I can't imagine where he's gone," she said.

"Up to all manner of no good, I expect," Kate said. "You don't suppose he's running out on you now?"

"Surely not when large sums of money are in sight," Elizabeth said. She wished she were in trousers and boots and could pace properly. It was hard to stomp about in skirts without feeling it made her look like a fishwife.

"Maybe he just had his fill of hanging about here," Kate offered, shrugging one shoulder. "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for that it's good money."

"It doesn't suit you?"

Kate shook her head fiercely. "And how could it, being sent to the kitchen to eat what you and the rest send back, and all of them there saying I'd best watch my every step so I don't lose my place when you're a rich woman? They think they're better than me, and it's for nothing they did. And the cook thinks I should be panting after some pimply boy who's never done more than deliver the milk--" She turned up her hands. "You couldn't care for one of these lubbers, could you? They're all hopeless."

Elizabeth had to hide a smile at the depths of adolescent scorn in Kate's voice, but she had to agree with the sentiment. She'd never felt a particle of attraction for a man who wasn't both brave and clever-handed, and who couldn't prove both with his sword. "With luck we could be back in the islands in a few weeks," she said. "I hope it won't be months."

"Is that so?" Kate asked, sounding a bit uneasy. "Because I've been wondering a bit --"

"You, too?" Elizabeth asked. "Why is everyone so determined that I mean to stay?"

Kate shrugged. "It's an easy life if you're rich, ain't it?"

"I suppose it is," Elizabeth said. "Will you settle William with you in the parlor? There's less chance that way of Jack waking him when he comes in, I think."

William was long asleep by the time Jack did come in, which from the clattering he made coming in both doors Elizabeth was grateful for.

"Shh," she said, sitting up in bed. "Try not to wake the house."

"You're not asleep," he said. She realized that his usual manner of speaking was back; she hadn't realized how much his accent had grown cautiously neutral until she heard him speak as he always had. "You're waiting up to see if I'm coming back." He threw his coat down over a chair, nearly knocking it over in the process and swaying alarmingly. "I always do, don't I?"

"You're drunk," Elizabeth said.

"You noticed," Jack said brightly. "It's the only way to bear it, isn't it? Must be worse on women, as you haven't that luxury. Although I expect there's more than one who takes nips from the sherry bottle to get her through the day."

Elizabeth sat up on the edge of the bed. "I should have expected you'd find some low dive sooner or later."

"Correct conclusion, but I question your premises and reasoning," Jack said. "There are plenty of establishments in this town that sell liquor to the educated and the washed. And plenty of whorehouses --"

"Visit whichever you like, but kindly don't tell me all about it," Elizabeth said, stung more than she wanted to admit.

"There's the proper attitude for a respectable wife," Jack said. "We could go on for years like that. I expect you could even find some pretty boy in the Navy with a great big sword to keep you busy while I was away making our fortunes. Isn't that the happy ending?"

"No," Elizabeth said. "It's not."

"Do you want to know the other ending? The one where you try -- it's amazing how hard you can try, Lizzie -- to be everything they want you to be, and keep all your little vices safely under cover. You're an honest man and you're bound to make your fortune, and there's just one little catch --"

"Jack --"

"Just one thing they don't tell you, Lizzie. And that's what happens when you try to be a good man as well. When you look at the wretched sods you're supposed to sell for the company's profits -- chained the lot of them, women and children too, and things done to them I won't say but I expect you can guess -- and you think you never claimed to be good, but there's things a man can't do and keep his soul--"

"I know," Elizabeth said softly.

"Maybe you do," Jack said. "Yours isn't much to speak of, I expect. Neither is mine, now, but in those days I still had some idea that I could be a good man and a respectable one both." He shook his head. "At least now I know it would be selling my soul. But there are attractions to the bargain."

"Not so many," Elizabeth said.

Jack looked down at her. "Isn't this what you wanted, pet? For everything to be simple? It would be, for you. A woman hasn't got to get her hands dirty to live this life. You could have your little cottage and your boy and me as well, I expect. Well, John Teague, but he's got his advantages too. He's sober and clean-living, at least most of the time, and he ought to suit you in the bedroom. He's learned a thing or two in that department since I was last him."

"And what about Will?"

Jack shrugged. "What if he does still have your heart, as surely as if he had it in a box of his own? You can't expect love from marriage, can you?" His eyes were cool. "It's just good business."

"No," Elizabeth insisted, standing and grasping his shirtfront with both hands. "Damn you, Jack, I won't let it be like that--"

"What is it like, then, Lizzie?" he asked, his eyes not leaving hers.

"I know who I am," she said fiercely. "I'm Captain Elizabeth Turner. And I am going to buy the fastest ship I can find and go back to the islands, and back to the sea where my husband sails, and back to my life, and if you want me --"

"If I want you?" Jack asked, the first light of humor showing in his eyes.

"If you want me," Elizabeth said, "you can come with me. And if you don't, you're welcome to stay here and find some susceptible heiress who'll make your fortune, but you're sorely mistaken if you think that's going to be me."

Jack closed his eyes for a long moment. "Do you promise?" he said faintly at last.

"Come here, Jack," Elizabeth said, and drew him down.

They were both more desperate than she had expected, his hands going under her shift and pushing it up, baring her to the waist, her own hands reaching for the laces of his breeches. "This isn't fair," Elizabeth said. "You're wearing more clothes to start with."

"There's no fair in piracy, love," Jack said, but he tugged at his shirt and wrestled it over his head as she found the knot that undid the lacing. She slid his breeches down over his hips, wanting to explore their hard angles with her fingers, but he rolled away and kicked his way out of them, leaving him in nothing but his scarred and weathered skin.

"Then I shall show no mercy," she said, leaning over to kiss his collarbone and then work her way lower, trailing kisses down his chest.

"You never do, love," Jack said against her ear. "Take this bloody thing off, Lizzie, I want to see you naked."

Elizabeth did, flushing a bit as she did. "Well?" she said, feeling that he was inspecting the skin thus revealed, and knowing it wasn't as unmarred as it would have been when she was nineteen.

"You're not as pretty as me," Jack said with a sideways smile. "But that can't be helped."

"Go to hell," she said helpfully.

"Not today, I hope," Jack said, rolling over onto her and getting his knee between her thighs. "I should hate to miss the chance to make you scream."

"I won't," Elizabeth said. "And you'd best be glad, because I don't think you want to wake the house."

"You don't know that you won't."

"I never do."

"You mean when you make yourself come?"

"Jack, you have a filthy mind," she said, turning her face away to hide her smile. He was getting hard, and she couldn't help watching in fascination. She wanted to touch, and didn't quite have the nerve to yet.

"All that time at sea, for a woman of your appetites?" Jack said, deliberately stroking down the length of his prick for her to see. She couldn't look away.

"You don't ... know anything about my appetites," Elizabeth said, rather breathlessly.

"I know you want it now."

"Is that particularly surprising, under the circumstances?"

"Well, I do have that effect on women," Jack said. He walked his fingers up her thigh, and stroked hard between her legs. She gasped and jerked her hips helplessly against his fingers.

"I seem to have an effect on you as well."

"I didn't think you were in much doubt there."

Elizabeth shrugged one shoulder, and then caught her breath as the movement sent a pleasurable shiver through her. "John Teague didn't seem very interested."

"He's an ass," Jack said. "He doesn't deserve you, anyway."

"I expect I'm worse than he deserves," Elizabeth said. "Oh. You could .. keep doing that."

"What, just here?" Jack moved his fingers, and she shuddered with pleasure. "I have a better idea," he said, and lowered himself down. She wasn't sure what he meant to do until she felt the warmth of his tongue on her sensitive folds, and then she gasped, arching up against him as he explored her with his mouth, finding the hard pearl and sucking it in a steady rhythm.

"Oh, God," she said. She wanted to push him down and do the same to him, she wanted him inside her, she wanted him never to stop. There was a hot sweet pressure that built and built, and then all at once rushed over her in shuddering waves, his tongue on her sensitive parts almost unbearable. She closed her eyes, shaking as it went on and on.

"Oh, God, Jack," she breathed finally, pushing him gently but firmly away when the lingering spasms he coaxed from her became more uncomfortable than pleasant. "I don't think I've ever ..."

"Come so hard?" Jack said, kneeling up to look at her with a smirk. "You have to learn to talk dirty to be a pirate, love. It's an essential part of not being respectable."

"I want you to fuck me," she said. "Is that piratical enough?"

"It certainly is," he said. "But we'd best be just a little careful, unless you want to be piratically pregnant." He spread her knees with his hands, shifting his weight forward. "It wouldn't hurt to do it just a bit, though," he said, sounding a bit breathless himself.

"Just a bit," Elizabeth said, her breath catching as he pressed into her. "Oh, yes, do that."

"Just a bit," Jack said. "I can't last very long, Lizzie, no man ... who wasn't a saint ... could with you looking like that." He was barely managing to get the words out between his desperate thrusts.

"Just a bit," Elizabeth said, a hint of a warning now.

"Right," Jack said, closing his eyes, sweat beading on his forehead. He held himself still for a moment, earning a noise of protest from her, but then his hips jerked helplessly, and he groaned and thrust into her again. "Just ... a bit ..."

She couldn't resist the urge to tease. "You're not about to come right now, are you?" she breathed in his ear.

"You had to say it," Jack said, his face screwed up in what looked almost like pain. He pushed himself away from her in one shuddering movement and thrust hard against her thigh, spending himself almost at once in a hot rush against her skin. "Wicked girl," he said breathlessly. "It would serve you right if I let that be a lesson to you."

"I haven't exactly got room for complaint," Elizabeth said, though there was a gathering tension between her thighs again.

"You're not done," Jack said, and slid two rough fingers where his prick had just been, his thumb rubbing her where she was most sensitive. She couldn't help crying out when the pleasure broke over her again, and receded to leave her feeling entirely wrung out, her thighs shaking.

Jack settled down beside her, and she rested her head on his shoulder. "There," she said finally, when they had been pleasantly curled around each other for some time, Jack's hand stroking the curve of her hip. The guttering candle flame gave one last flutter and then quietly doused itself, leaving the room in shadow.

"You did scream," Jack said.

She shook her head, knowing he could feel it even if it was too dark for him to see. "I didn't scream."

"I'll just have to try harder next time."

"You do that," she said. He stroked her hair, strands catching against his rough fingertips. She expected John Teague would have softer hands, and held tighter to Jack at the thought.

"It's a temptation, sometimes," Jack said softly after a long while. "Not to be Jack Sparrow anymore. It's not always particularly fun."

"It's better than the alternative," Elizabeth said, and Jack didn't argue.

*****

Spending the next several days with Jack Sparrow pretending to be John Teague was, Elizabeth found, considerably more bearable. He talked incessantly, perhaps to make up for several weeks of disuse of his facility for rambling, and told her endless stories, most of whom starred himself in the role of either hero or innocent victim of comic circumstance. In return she told him about her cruise aboard the Empress, both their small triumphs and the more appalling parts; he stroked her back without comment while she talked levelly about her lessons in what steel and cannon fire could do to the bodies of friends.

Kate seemed somewhat relieved as well, as Jack Sparrow didn't seem inclined to scold her for swearing or tell her to keep William quiet, a task impossible even for Elizabeth.

"Is she yours?" Elizabeth asked one afternoon after Kate had taken William out to toddle yelling around the tiny back garden rather than the even tinier parlor.

"My what?" Jack asked, and then, "Oh. Not as far as I know, love. Though Teague might think so. I was acquainted with her mother, but it went the way it generally does with me and women, and if I count right, we weren't speaking at the time the deed must have been done." He smiled sideways. "I wouldn't disabuse Teague of the notion, though. It's done the wench no harm to have him keeping an eye on her."

"You're not as bad as you seem," Elizabeth said.

"Perish the thought," Jack said.

There was a tapping at the door, and Jack disentangled himself from Elizabeth to answer. She was pleased to see his hand was in his coat pocket where his pistol must have rested. The door opened to reveal Groves, looking apologetic.

"Lieutenant Groves," Jack said, his voice cracking rather unfortunately in surprise. "Do come in," he went on more smoothly in his best unconcerned tones. You must have a cup of tea. I'll just go and ..." He slipped out the door and headed for the back stairs, where Elizabeth suspected he would take some time about fetching boiling water.

"I'm afraid I can only stop for a moment," Groves said. "I thought I might bring you the news in person that the estate has finally been settled in your favor, as there is no further question that your father is sadly deceased. There should be no obstacle now to your husband drawing on his funds as you see fit." He smiled sadly. "I can't say it's happy news, exactly, but under the circumstances I think you'll find it welcome."

"I do indeed," Elizabeth said. "I can't thank you enough for all you've done for us." She threw her arms around him impulsively, and he returned her embrace a bit awkwardly but without apparent displeasure.

He was smiling a bit crookedly when she pulled away. "Do give my regards to your husband," he said, his hand on the doorknob. "You can tell him he's still the best pirate I've ever seen." He shut the door between them, and by the time Elizabeth had the presence of mind to open it again he was gone.

"That sly bugger," Jack said. "And me thinking I'd been so clever."

"He always did have a soft spot for you," Elizabeth said.

Jack looked around the parlor. "All the same, I think we'd better not take our time packing."

"You're absolutely right," Elizabeth said.

*****

They sailed less than a week later, on a sloop that had lately been the Green Rabbit but that Elizabeth had at least privately christened the Black Swan. She felt that the name and the other improvements she meant to make to the ship could wait until they gained the Caribbean and had a proper pirate crew again.

"Some of these aren't so bad," Jack said, leaning against the rail as she rested her hand on the wheel. "They might be persuaded to a life of crime."

"They don't much like having a woman at the helm," Elizabeth said. She'd kept her skirts for the moment on the theory that there were only so many shocks she could expect the men to take, although she was looking forward to shedding them like an unwanted skin once they reached Tortuga. One of the men was giving her a look she felt wasn't the kind of respect she liked to see, and she glared at him until he turned back to his work.

Jack shrugged. "No one ever said it was an easy life, love. Especially not for a woman."

"It's the only life," Elizabeth said, and raised her face blissfully to the salt breeze.

"So it is, love," Jack said, and tugged his hair free of its tail, letting it tangle in the breeze. He offered her the scrap of ribbon that had held it, and when she shook her head, he raised it and let it flutter free, carried away by the wind.

She took the wheel in both hands, feeling the rise and fall of the sea through her feet. She liked to think that wherever he was on these same waves, Will wouldn't wish her safely on shore and farther away.

"Let's go home," she said, and the prow of the ship cut the waves, streaming toward the sun.