Little Lordie Part Ten
Title: Little Lordie Part Ten
Author: celticbard76
Word Count: 1,923
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Lord Beckett and several OCs
Pairing: Beckett/OC
Chapter Summary: Harry discusses Maggie’s mysterious past and strikes a bargain with Beckett.
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Pirates of the Caribbean. However, Maggie, Harry and all OCs mentioned herein are mine.
Author’s Note: This is the essential “tell-all” chapter in which most of Maggie’s secrets are revealed, therefore, it is a very talky, slow chapter. The next chapter, however, will pick up the pace again. I would like to thank everyone who read and commented on the last chapter. Thanks so much! I truly appreciate your wonderful feedback. I have no beta for this fic, (although it has been thoroughly proofread) so any grammatical or spelling errors that appear are my fault and my fault alone. I hope you enjoy!
For two days, Beckett stayed in Maggie’s cabin, less of a prisoner and more of a coward. He worried over Sparrow’s promised return, fretted over it in the late hours of the night, when even the sea seemed to sleep and Maggie lay quiet upon his breast. She had no set plan, that much was clear and Beckett felt his awe at her self-command wane. A woman she was, mortal as any other. He was surprisingly disappointed.
On the third night, when the curtain of black began to slip from the sky and reveal dawn, Beckett left her cabin. Up onto the deck he went, were a steady wind kept the ship on a less than steady course. The sun hinted at its presence and pushed past the horizon to light the farthest reaches of the ocean.
Beckett stood by the railing, running his hands along the long bar of polished wood and wishing his mind was more astute than it seemed to be. He could do nothing to save himself and the thought of the inevitable made him feel so desperately helpless. Sparrow would come, put a few fine holes in Maggie’s ship and end the matter with an act of thievery, just as it had begun.
Beckett rested his arms on the railing, his hands folded before him. Something must be done…anything.
“It’s a sad sight, you know, staring out at the sea for too long.”
Harry was standing at the helm, one lazy long hand perched on his hip. Beckett offered him a fleeting glance and then turned back to his vigil. The sun was bleeding into the water, sharp light falling from its rosy fingertips.
“Why don’t you come and stand with me,” Harry said. “The view is better, to say the very least, and it’s not quite so lonesome.”
“Perhaps I wish to be alone.” Beckett turned around and put his back to the sea.
“Nah.” Harry shook his head and smiled crookedly. “It’s much better to have someone to talk things over with and I am sure Maggie isn’t quite so obliging.”
“Indeed.” Beckett paused by the foot of the stairs leading up to the quarter deck. “I trust you won’t throw me overboard?”
“Maggie would gut me if I did.”
Beckett laughed, a self-pitying sort of laugh that did little to relieve his worry. Up to the quarter deck he did go, slowly, hesitantly and found a place on the other side of the helm.
Harry bowed deeply. “My lord.”
“What’s the use of such teasing if none of your cheeky lads are about to see it?” Beckett gestured at the empty deck.
Harry stared at him. “I wasn’t teasing, friend. My mother brought me up proper and it’s the least I could do to honor her poor soul.”
“I remember your mother,” Beckett said slowly. “She always wore a particular yellow silk dress.”
“Aye, that she did, until my father died and then it was naught but black.”
“Hmm.” Beckett knotted his hands behind his back, watching the way Harry lovingly guided the ship through the dawn-kissed waters. The man still had that irrepressible jolly nature about him, one that Beckett remembered from their fox hunts years ago. Henry King had always been the jester, the sharp-witted man who seemed destined to make some sort of mark on the world. But Beckett had never expected such an end for the youth and it seemed a shame to waste such good English blood on a rogue’s lifestyle.
“What happened, Harry?” he asked sympathetically.
Harry’s eyes cut up to him. “I needed money.”
“But why not join the army? Certainly, there is profit to be found in that.”
“Aye, but I didn’t want to be dictated to and have all my comings and goings subject to some order.” He rolled his shoulders. “Didn’t suit me, really.”
“But Maggie does a fine job of that, doesn’t she?” Beckett began to pace, unable to stay still. His limbs felt fidgety and his legs wanted the length of a labyrinth to walk and mediate.
Harry pushed back his brown hair with his fingers. “Not really. She’s more like a mother, less like some popinjay officer. Of course, she dresses like a gallant, but to most of us lads, she’s our dearie.”
“Dearie?” Beckett asked, his voice suddenly high. Good God, how many lovers did the woman have?
“Not like that, my lord,” Harry chuckled. “You’re the only one she’s ever taken a fancy to.” There was something bitter in Harry’s voice, something that made all the hairs on the back of Beckett’s neck stand on end.
He stopped pacing and clutched at the railing, resolved not to be pitched overboard by the likes of some ne’er do good nobleman’s son.
But Harry’s expression softened and the light from the rising sun chased away the shadows that haunted his face.
“No, Maggie is a darling,” he said, “and I’m most fortunate to have come across her. Ah, how I wish for those simple days! When we had naught but horses and the moors and ourselves to look after.”
“How did you meet?” Beckett loosened his grip somewhat on the railing and dared to step closer to the helm.
Harry laughed once, a short bark of laughter that sounded like a particularly gusty wind. “Now that is a funny tale, if there ever was one. We met some ten years ago, when she was only a little lass of twenty-two and fresh from the hearthside at her father’s manor. She had run away, see, when her sister died and Hindley Swinton took over the family estate, her father having already been laid in the cold clay earth. Well I, yes I was a highwayman of some repute by then and I was coming along the road in Yorkshire when she trotted up as calm as you please and ordered me to ‘stand and deliver’.”
Harry paused and his smile was wide, his eyes shining with wistful nostalgia. “She was dressed in a man’s array and fancied herself a highway robber, though she knew naught of me. And I said to her, “what’s this now, dog eat dog?”. Well, we became partners and would have continued on that way if it hadn’t been for a near miss at Whitechapel. After that, we turned to the sea, as it was the safest.”
Harry slumped against the helm and sighed. “Aye, those were the jolly good days.”
Beckett raised a brow, both impressed and morbidly curious. He had heard of men falling in love with the sea, but certainly not the highway. Resuming his pacing, he cleared his throat and snapped Harry from his reverie.
“And how did you come upon the ship and the crew?” he asked. His boot heels clicked along the deck, striking the serene silence and dying with an echo. “And how did Maggie get to be captain?”
“Well, we never were quite poor in the first place, thanks to our earnings,” Harry said and he slapped the helm like a horse’s rump, “and finding a dandy ship was little trouble. The crew, well, they came along in time. There are plenty of turned out second sons who are willing to do a bit of knife work for a good coin.”
“Sounds much like piracy to me.” And Beckett wrinkled his nose.
Harry shook his head, indignant. “Oh lah laddie, no! Many are padders and highway robbers we knew back in the good days. Gentlemen highwaymen, if you will. And the rest Maggie took in, the poor dears. I ask you now, Lord Beckett, what’s the point of good-breeding when families cast out their second sons like chattel? What’s a goodly man to do?”
Beckett didn’t answer, though the question stung his heart in a strange way. There was a measure of injustice in the world, even in the sheltered realms of high-society and it left a decidedly sour taste in his mouth.
“She took each and every one of them in and held them to her breast like wretched abandoned children. And they were, I suppose.” Harry sighed, his chest heaving. “Say what you will about her, but she’s never done this ship a bad turn and has always acted in the best interest of the crew. We’re not pirates, Lord Beckett and don’t insult us so.”
“I was rash,” Beckett replied, inclining his head and shoulders, “but Jack Sparrow will care little for your passionate lectures. He is a pirate, by God and he shan’t fret and fuss over the sinking of this ship.”
“I know.” Harry stepped around the helm and his long shadow fell over Beckett. The sun was nearly over the horizon, it’s light staining his face a harsh red and darkening his eyes. Like two great pieces of flint they were and Beckett was shocked by the fierce determination dwelling within. He gripped the railing once more.
“We’re not pirates,” Harry repeated, “but we know quite enough about them. A common goal we share, your Company and our ship. Why should we be so opposed?”
“Ask your captain,” Beckett snarled, suddenly angered by the rogue’s high-handed nature.
Harry lifted his chin. “Maggie might give you the pirate lords, one by one. She knows them and she knows where they make port, for as it, pirates don’t keep careful watch over those they associate with. Let us sink the Brethren Court and be done with this mockery of a Pirate King. Make Maggie queen and she shall repay you with a bounty greater than any your fine armada could amass.”
“And what would that be?” Beckett was curious, but more intrigued by Harry’s desperation than any bounty. Frightened men were dreadfully easy to take advantage of.
“We’ll give you the trade routes back and the seas.” Harry stretched forward an elegant hand and gripped Beckett’s shoulder hard. “Piracy will be stamped out, crushed beneath the very heel of Maggie’s boot. Sparrow called us traitorous go in-betweens, but we can’t betray those that we never were are part of in the first place. The crew are your comrades, Lord Beckett, men once equal to you in breeding and standing. Would you not think to trust us over some heartless ruffian who is only so faithful as far as the next coin goes?”
Beckett brushed Harry’s hand off his shoulder and a disdainful glint sharpened his eyes. “Perhaps.”
Harry shifted his weight and braced his hands on the railing on either side of Beckett. “You can either stand by us, my lord, or go to Sparrow. That’s how I see it anyway.”
Beckett smirked. So much for worrying over a plan, one had danced straight into his hands. And oh, to think he had their trust already. Trust made further manipulation a joy.
“Very well. It seems I have little choice,” he replied at length and feigned hesitancy.
Harry smiled and clapped him on the shoulder once more. “Good. Now convince Maggie of the same and we’ll be on our merry way.” He turned back to the helm, whistling some bawdy old broadside.
“But…” Becket choked, his hand latching onto Harry’s wrist, “was it not Maggie’s idea in the first place?”
“Oh aye.” Harry nodded. “It was her idea for a long time until she saw how very bonny you were and her head got turned around. And as I see it, you’re the best man to turn it straight again.”
Harry’s description of his first meeting with Maggie is taken directly from the infamous meeting of Dick Turpin and Tom King. Turpin and King met one night while on the highway and Turpin (being the sort of highwayman he was) tried to rob King on the spot. King, however, shot back with “What is this? Dog eat dog?” The two became partners afterwards. Also, Harry’s reference to the incident at Whitechapel is taken from King and Turpin’s history as well, in which the partners were ambushed at the Red Lion pub in Whitechapel and Turpin accidentally shot King, terminating their partnership and King’s life.