Delicacy Part Fourteen
Title: Delicacy Part Fourteen
Author: celticbard76
Word Count: 2,316
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Lord Beckett, Elizabeth Swann, Governor Swann, Murtogg and several OCs.
Pairings: Beckabeth, Beckett/OC
Warning: I don’t think Beckabeth fans will approve of this chapter. Sorry, my friends. ^_^
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Pirates of the Caribbean. However, I do own Mrs. Prior and all OCs mentioned herein.
Chapter Summary: A miracle delivers Elizabeth from Beckett‘s clutches.
Author’s Note: Here I am, late in posting and I come bearing a slow, vague chapter. Sorry guys, but I do promise much more action will follow. Special thanks goes out to everyone who took the time to read the last chapter and comment. Thanks a million! I always cherish your feedback. I have no beta reader, (although this chapter has been thoroughly proofread) so any grammatical or spelling errors that appear are my fault and my fault alone. I hope you enjoy!
There was a single rose on the dressing table in Elizabeth’s bedchamber. A red rose. A crimson, sinful flower that sat in a elegant white vase. Elizabeth hated the look of it, the way it seemed to smile, saturated with conceit and understanding. She rolled onto her side and faced the wall. But still the rose stared.
It had to be sometime before dawn. Elizabeth had learned to calculate the hours by the changing of guards in the corridor. Apparently, Lord Beckett still thought her untrustworthy and had doubled the number of sentries guarding the stairs.
He was right to be cautious.
Now that her plan had fallen through, her perfect plot for revenge, Elizabeth felt herself chafing under her imprisonment. The walls of the bedchamber fenced her in, a suffocating den for a wily she-fox.
But she was not wily. She was not clever. She was not even particularly smart.
Elizabeth had failed, failed to notice the single matter of importance, the throbbing lust that hid beneath the porcelain veneer of Beckett’s stoicism.
She had been mistaken. She had been remiss. She had been wrong.
Seduction.
Ha! The notion was laughable now, a thing to be mocked and teased. She had played straight into his hands.
Had she the strength, Elizabeth would have hated herself, reviled every inch of her flesh that he had touch. But she was tired now and only a sigh made her breast rise. Often she had heard tales, childhood allegories of women who died for their virginity, martyrs and saints, flowers described as fair yet chaste.
And yet she was the red rose, the sinner, the whore.
How could she ever face Will again?
Death would be a reprieve and Elizabeth fancied she was dying. Grief would take her before the next merciless memory drove a blade into her heart. Blackness would blot her out.
She did not care for revenge anymore…or life.
Elizabeth turned onto her back, felt the bed dip down beneath her weight, felt the irrepressible sorrow fill her lungs like water. She would drown before the morning sun pushed past the insolent clouds.
One last time she glanced at the rose. Lord Beckett had sent it to her last evening. She wondered if he was frightened of her now. After Mrs. Prior had been exiled, so had Elizabeth. Beckett had cast her from his bedchamber and ignored her the following day.
Elizabeth had imagined his torment, finding succor only when she thought of him as tortured, repentant. And then he had sent her the red rose and Elizabeth knew that he did not care for thing. What a horrid notion that was, to belong to a careless man, to be trapped by one who had everything to gain in life and nothing to lose.
Elizabeth watched the rose now and laughed lowly, the sound rupturing the pain that kept her jaw set and locked. She laughed at the pretty petals, the sleek stem with it’s two, pointed thorns and luscious leaves.
Why should she be bothered a flower?
Elizabeth closed her eyes and settled her hands on her stomach. The creaks and groans of the otherwise silent house gnawed at her ears. She heard someone cough. She heard the crackle of a fire in some far off room. And in the distance, the dark, indefinable distance, she heard a gate swing open.
The guards were coming, the guards that would pace outside her chamber, Beckett’s puppets who would do naught but mimic his futile power over her. How great would their shock be then, when they found her dead the next morning. The maid would come in with some poor breakfast. The tray would clatter to the floor, the pot of tea shattering and spraying the succulent ambrosia over the dingy coverlets. They would see her lying there, perfect, preserved by the dew shed from the dying moon.
And then Lord Beckett would be sent for and he would know that she had willed herself to die to spite him, yes it was all to spite him now.
Elizabeth smiled as she lay, but frowned when she heard an indecisive step on the stair. A whisper, it was a whisper, not the trod of the guard or a servant.
A shudder shook her pale body. There was a click and the bolts that fastened her door slid open.
Elizabeth sprang up, forgetting her weakness, forgetting death, forgetting the silly rose on the nightstand.
“Come gently now, girl,” someone rasped, “or they’ll hear.”
All was silent again. Elizabeth did not hear any retreating footsteps. She stood. The door was open.
Warmth spiraled through her limbs and reminded her of life. Elizabeth crept to the door and tested it.
Open, it was open.
She peered out into the corridor.
Empty, it was empty.
The guards were gone.
Elizabeth glanced back into her chamber, glanced back at the foolish rose that sat in it’s slim vase on the nightstand.
And then she fled.
No hesitation slowed her step this time, no torturous wonderment or debate. Elizabeth fled the house, fled down the corridor, down the long stairs and into the kitchen. A low fire birthed tiny embers in the hearth, small, hot ashes that reminded her of a blacksmith’s forge. And Will stood over it, hammer in hand, a contagious smile twisting his kissable lips.
Elizabeth fled out into the courtyard and was greeted by the rising sun. Pink clouds parted for golden beams. For a moment she stood in the open air, stared at the hopeful patches of light blue that peppered the sky. And then she fled, stumbled down the hill that housed Beckett’s manor and into the still slumbering center of Port Royal. It was as she had remembered, with gulls swooping amongst the gables and chattering on the sandy beaches.
There were ships in the harbor. Handsome ships with graceful masts and smooth hulls. The sea was waiting, the endless, life-giving sea that welcomed her with crashing waves and warm, cerulean waters.
*****
Governor Swann had been resting, resting as well as any man could on a few stalks of moldy straw. The cell floor was hard beneath him and damp. A single, narrow window opened to reveal a murky morning sky. Steam rose off the sweating bodies of his fellow prisoners.
Fellow prisoners, humph. Swann had never seen the jail so full. Commodore Norrington had kept the streets of Port Royal quiet and clean with just law. And Swann liked to think that his own paternal presence had dissuaded much wrongdoing. Of course, one always had to contend with rogues. Pickpockets and pirates and the like. But the men, women and children crammed into the stinking cells were not thieves, at least not any he could recognize.
There was a portly baker across the corridor, a man by the name of Jenkins who had always been thought of as a goodly fellow. Two cells away sat Mrs. McKenna, an Irish widow with auburn hair and a talented cobbler at that. And then there was old Mr. Brown, the blacksmith, slouched against the wall and pale for want of drink. Swann tried to avoid looking at the man who reminded him only of a skinny, pirate of a boy who had sought the hand of his Elizabeth and now sailed the seas freely while they rotted.
Swann rolled over and crossed his aching arms over his dirty blue waistcoat. Oh, who knew if Elizabeth was still alive…
A hoot and a holler shattered his misery. All along the corridor prisoners were standing, shouting, holding out their pathetically thin arms in protest.
“It’s the rat, the damned rat,” Mrs. McKenna sobbed and covered her face with her shawl.
“Kill ‘em!” Jenkins bellowed.
Only Mr. Brown stayed silent, his head drowsily tipped against his chest.
Governor Swann looked up and noticed a rather disheveled Lord Beckett come stalking into the prison. The fiend was accompanied by at least a dozen guards, some of whom Swann had known by name…and loyalty. No more.
His lordship was nothing less than harried and bore the look of a man lately disturbed from sleep. Of course, he wore both breeches and coat but his hair had yet to be dressed and languid brown curls dripped across his shoulders, contained by a loose queue.
Beckett stopped abruptly outside Swann’s cell and the governor dragged himself up into a sitting position, struggling to remain stoic despite the horrid pain that weakened his limbs.
“Where is she?”
“Your pardon, sir?” Swann said dryly.
Beckett slammed his fists against the bars.
“Where is your daughter?”
It took Swann a moment to understand. Elizabeth, Beckett wanted to know where she was. That must mean…that could only mean….
He rose shakily to his feet.
“Elizabeth?”
Beckett raised his head, eyes suddenly hard and hawk-like. “Elizabeth.” It was an admission of weakness and the way Beckett spoke her name made Swann’s skin prickle with fear.
Something was wrong, wretchedly wrong….
“She’s alive?” he whispered, hope kindling a fresh fire of resistance in his chest. “Is she hurt?”
“I haven’t the slightest notion.” Beckett leaned upon the rotting bars, his shoulders wedged between them. “She’s gone, as of this morning. And I had thought…she didn’t come for you?”
Swann forced himself to face Beckett. Elizabeth was free and she had not come for him. At once, the blaze was snuffed out, his fire failing and leaving him cold. Elizabeth was free…and she had not come for him.
“No,” he said in a voice that was dead, decaying.
Beckett laughed. “I should have guessed it. Wily Miss Swann, a heartless bitch.”
There were scattered chuckles amongst the guards. The prisoners were silent. Swann took a step back.
Elizabeth was free, that was all that mattered. Perhaps she had boarded a ship to England, yes, England. Help might be found there in the king’s court. But how long had it been since Lord Beckett had bought His Majesty with thirty pieces of gleaming silver? And who did he deceive with his hope. Elizabeth had not gone to England. Why go to England when Will was waiting?
Beckett was still laughing, his face a mask of mirth meant to disguise unease. “I suppose I taught her well after all.”
Bile coated Swann’s throat. He choked. Dear God…dear God.
His knees gave way and despite all his struggle, his conjured strength, he fell.
Beckett ceased his laughing, turned to his guards and beckoned them with a dandified wave of his hand.
“Come, gentlemen, she’s not to be found here. No, not when-”
“My lord.” A weak wisp of a voice punctured Beckett’s cool tenor.
But his lordship stopped nonetheless and glared at the cowed guard, the frightened Private Murtogg who held his musket in his white, bony fingers.
“That Mrs. Prior,” he ventured, “the maid said she came to the kitchen last night, a bit funny she was, disturbed. And later on I heard the gate open and close, my lord.”
Silence.
Beckett seemed to deflate, his skin waxy, an effigy of dread.
“Mrs. Prior?” he asked.
“Mrs. Prior, my lord,” Murtogg affirmed. “I’m sure of it.”
For one moment, Beckett glanced at Swann and Swann stared at him. And for one moment, they both knew to fear for Elizabeth.
*****
There was blood on hands. Yes, blood. Black blood. Blood that seeped into her skin and poisoned her. But Camilla Prior didn’t think of herself as a murderer.
No.
No, she couldn’t be a murderer. Murderers went to Hell. Murderers were tormented after death. Murderers didn’t deserve pity.
Standing on the deck of a wretched, rocking, sea-tossed merchant ship, Mrs. Prior yearned for pity.
A smile. A thawed glance. A gentle hand pressed against her twisted, aching shoulder.
Somewhere along the way, somewhere along a winding London street, a cramped hovel, a piss-stained alley, she had lost herself. And Mrs. Prior missed kindness, missed being counted on for something other than her ability to kill.
Lord Beckett wasn’t kind her. Nor did he pity her. And now it seemed as though he had never cared for her in the first place.
Mrs. Prior let her knees fall upon the railing and she watched the sea.
Rise. Fall. Rise. Fall. Rise. Fall.
The rhythm was hypnotic and a wet wind licked her brow. She felt the fever subside, the pain in her hand ebb and she could think clearly once more.
Port Royal was behind her now, that seemingly exotic place where she existed only under the humid shadows. Mrs. Prior decided that exile was better than watching Beckett enchant his new pet.
But she would have the last laugh. Yes. She would laugh all the way Tortuga. She would shriek and dream of how she had deceived Lord Beckett.
Mrs. Prior undid the tight, ragged ribbon that held back her hair. Echoes of ebony spilled across her face, streamed out on the wind and reached fingertips towards the sky.
Tortuga awaited.