Joshamee Gibbs was a substantially happier man than he had been just a few hours ago. He never did like it when the Black Pearl dropped anchor at Belle sans Merci. The superstitious sailor was firmly convinced that it was dreadful bad luck to spend time in a place named after a murdering ghost. Of course, that never stopped him from taking advantage of shore leave. It’d take more than bad luck to keep him away from the rum and pleasurable company to be found in the dockside taverns. The old sailor grinned to himself. His itches were scratched for the time being and now they were back at sea, where they belong, and no bad luck seemed to have followed them aboard.
He lifted
the lantern higher as he examined the contents of the hold. The supplies they had taken on in port looked
to be properly settled, but he was going to make
doubly sure. O’Hara had been in charge
of stowing the stores and Gibbs simply did not trust the gunnery mate’s
competence, especially after discovering him asleep on watch last night. Gibbs’ smile turned into a scowl. He wished he’d
objected when Jack had hired on the Irishman.
Toby was brilliant in battle, but… Gibbs’ ship of thought hit a hidden
reef and sunk like a rock when the lantern’s light suddenly reflected off a
pair of glowing eyes atop a pile of cargo.
“Mother o’ God!” he gasped, reaching for the knife on his belt. He slumped in relief when those eyes leapt
down to deck to reveal themselves to be attached to
large yellow cat. “’ere,
now. Where did ye come
from?” The cat just sat down at his feet
and blinked up at him. Gibbs stooped to
run a work-roughened hand over the cat’s head, grinning when deep rumbling purr
issued from the animal. “Do ye be lookin’ for a berth on the
“Erik?” It was a thin, uncertain voice, piping high like a child’s and muddled with sleep. “Erik, why is the bed moving?” There was a pause in which Mr. Gibbs straightened up to peer on top of the pile of bolts of cloth. His jaw dropped at the sight of a fine boned hand reaching up over the back of the pile. “This isn’t my bed, is it?” the voice continued rather plaintively.
“Bleedin’ ‘ell!”
*****
Johnny, the tiny, wiry thirteen year old cabin boy, was hurrying down a passageway to the hold when he ran smack into the first mate. Normally, Mr. Gibbs would have laughed off such an occurrence, but he seemed to be in a very foul mood today. The boy flinched and scurried backwards on his backside at the sight of the man’s ferocious scowl. “Boy!” Gibbs barked, “ask the Cap’n to come to t’ quarterdeck. Move yer bloomin’ arse!” Johnny ran as if the hounds of hell were at his heels back toward the captain’s quarters, sparing only a brief flash of pity for whatever crewman Mr. Gibbs was dragging along behind him.
“Cap’n!” Johnny called as he pounded on the door leading into the big stern quarters. “Cap’EN!” The cabin boy’s voice scaled up into an embarrassing squeak when the door was suddenly opened, causing him to almost fall in at the captain’s feet.
“And what,” a disgruntled and even more dishelmed than usual Jack Sparrow asked, “is so bleedin’ important that ye come pounding on my door and interruptin’ me well earned hangover? Best be very important, nay life-threatening, or someone will be seein’ Davy Jones’ Locker first hand, savvy?”
“Mr. Gibbs wants ya’ on the quarterdeck, Cap’n Sparrow, sir,” Johnny answered softly.
“Aye, aye,” Jack sighed, waving one bejeweled hand in a random shooing motion and rubbing the other over his bleary eyes. He turned back into the cabin to grab up his effects. “This better damn well be worth it, Gibbs,” he muttered to himself as he plopped his precious hat on his aching head.
As he reluctantly climbed the stairs up to the quarterdeck, Jack heard a cold, aristocratic and decidedly female voice laying down the law. “You will remove your hands from my person this instant, sirrah, or I will see you answer to a higher authority.” Jack clattered the rest of the way up the stairs, slowing down to assume his normal jovial, slightly drunken mannerisms when he stepped up on the deck. Ever the captain, he glanced quickly at the helm to make sure that the crewman there was attending his duties before nonchalantly ambling toward the unusual tableau near the aft railing. Mr. Gibbs and a few other crewman were standing in a loose circle around a young woman he had never had the pleasure of meeting. She was tall for a woman and slender. A tangled mass of auburn hair tumbled raggedly down her back, liberally decorated with what seemed at least half of tree’s worth of leaves and twigs. Wary hazel eyes watched his approach carefully out of a haggard, sun burnt face. She wore the remains of what looked like a very expensive gray linen riding habit with a distracting bit shrubbery lodged in her sun-reddened cleavage.
Jack sauntered over to her, ignoring the rolled bundle and the large yellow cat at her feet. Grinning crookedly, he reached over plucked that sprig of greenery from its resting place. The woman flinched as his rough fingers brushed lightly across swell of her breasts, but she didn’t pull away and her eyes remained steadily on his the whole time. He leaned close, bending down slightly so that he could peer up at her. “What do we ‘ave here, Mr. Gibbs?”
“A stowaway, Cap’n,” the first mate answered promptly, “Found ‘er in the hold.” His voice dropped to a stage whisper. “Dreadful bad luck to ‘ave a woman on board, ‘specially a stowaway one.”
Jack rolled his eyes at the predictable comment. “Yes, Mr. Gibbs,” he sighed over his shoulder. “What were you doin’ in the hold, luv?” He focused his dark, kohl-rimmed eyes on the girl’s face.
“Sleeping,” she answered shortly, “Until your,” she paused, searching for a sufficiently derogatory term, but settled on letting her disdainful tone speak for itself. “Your crewman decided it was proper conduct to be dragging me out of my slumber and onto your deck.” She tilted her head to side to fling a pointed glance around him at Mr. Gibbs. “Railing at me all the while as if I were a common criminal.” Despite her ragged appearance, she looked very much the part of the wronged upper crust lady, as cold and distant as Norrington at his worst.
“Hate t’ break this to you, luv, but ye are a common criminal.” Her attention snapped back to him. “Sneakin’ aboard a ship, slippin’ down to the hold up to who knows what mischief,” he trailed a hand down her arm as he circled her like a shark. “Stowing away,” he whispered into the back of her neck. She lifted her skirt to reveal seam-split once-dainty boots as she stepped over the rolled bundle to get away from him. Jack grinned at her obvious distain. “That’s a flogging offence, m’dear.” His grin fell into momentary confusion as the cat stepped between them and began growling, every hair on its body standing out straight in pure feline menace. “Quite the, um, watch-cat you’ve got there, luv.”
“My name, sir, is Katherine, not ‘dear’ or ‘luv’ or any other endearment you care to bandy about,” she said sharply, regaining the handsome, if filthy man’s entirely too enthralling dark gaze. “And you are?”
“I am
Captain Jack Sparrow!” he exclaimed proudly, doffing his worn tri-corner hat
and bowing extravagantly to the luke-warm applause of
the watching crewmembers. “Captain of
the Black Pearl, the fastest ship in the
“That explains much,” Katherine muttered to herself as she watched the pirate captain fluff his ego. She closed her eyes and sagged to the deck in relief, her lips moving in silent prayer. Feeling a shadow on her face, she opened her eyes and looked up to see the dread pirate Sparrow standing above her.
“I see you’ve heard of me,” he grinned showing far too many gold teeth to healthy, His smile took on a softer edge as he noticed that all the aristocratic hauteur had fled from her face and the set of her shoulders, leaving only loss and grief in her eyes. Despite the womanly curves of her body, she suddenly seemed to be little more than a lost child huddled on his deck. “But there’s no need for such a bonny lass to be swoonin’ at me feet.”
Katherine’s
gaze dropped to her ruined clothing and the bloody scratches adding variety to
her otherwise sun-ravaged skin. She was
a pathetic sight and she knew it. She
hated showing weakness before this scoundrel and his crew of ruffians, but she
was too tired to do anything about it.
The few hours of rest she had received were like a cup of water to a man
dying from thirst: enough to keep going, but not enough for comfort. She fought the urge to curl up where she was
and go back to sleep, to let the numbness strip her of the rest of her purpose
and identity. It would be so much easier
to just let the pirates do as they wished with
her. But she
couldn’t take that chance. She had to
get word of the attack to the Royal Navy.
The dead deserved their vengeance, vengeance she could not give them
alone. She had to live to reach Port Royale and
