His Pirate Bride

His Pirate Bride
Introduction

It had been six years,…… six long years since she had lost saw him. The memory of him had slowly began to fade.. The look of his face, the sound of his voice, the smell of his skin, the way his hands felt when he touched her. A fuzzy dream it seemed. Time makes the heart grow fonder or so it is said. And she believed it, or at least she thought she did. She believed it that day on the beach. The day he gave her his heart, the day he took her the way a man takes a woman. It was her first time ,and it would be the last, the last until she would see him again. Ten years twas the legend. I’ll wait for you, she said. “I know you will,” was his response. You’re heart is safe with me. And with that he was gone. She had had a dream the day after, a sweet, wonderful, charming dream. Ten years had past and she awaited for him, just like she had promised him, on that same beach, in that same spot. Only this time she wasn’t alone she was with her son, their son. The son they had conceived that wonderful day, but it was only a dream, and so as all dreams do, it came to an end. And so, she was left with only the sweet memory of the man she loved, and the heart she held in her hand.

His Pirate Bride
Chp 1


Something was happening to Elizabeth Turner. Something that was beyond her control. For the first time in her life she was afraid. Afraid of facing something, something that was eating at her from the inside. At first she thought it nothing but a passing phase, something that time would heal, but time had proven it to be much more than that. So much so that she had left her crew and ship in the hands of the first mate and bid them farewell. It was a painful decision, one that she herself would question from time to time, but for now it was the only one that made sense. Decision making had become harder and harder for Elizabeth of late, and so she began to think of herself more of a liability on a ship instead of an asset. Her love of the sea and the way it made her feel had never faltered, but for now home was the town of Tortuga. A strange choice indeed she felt, and she herself wasn’t sure why or how she ended up there. Locked deep within her was a hope she harbored of seeing a familiar face, a face from the past maybe. Although who it might be was a mystery even to her. Not likely though, it had been six months since she arrived yet their were only strange faces in her midst. Her only acquaintances were the owners of a local tavern to whom she paid room and board too. The older couple had took a liking to her and where more than happy for her to fill the little room they had for rent above the bar. She was a quiet border who kept to herself, a pretty girl thought the little women named Grace, even behind the boyish clothing. Odd that a girl like that would be found alone and unmarried in a place like this ,and always with sad eyes she remarked to her husband. I wonder….. “no business of ours”, interrupted the old man, “ as long as she pays the rent the rest is her cross to bear, no need to be getting personal”. Yes, you’re right dear she said. Even so that didn’t stop the little lady from sneaking warm meals into her room some evenings. Elizabeth was always kind and gracious , and even though she looked rough around the edges there was always a graceful and proper way about her, Grace thought. There was just something different about the girl, definitely not a local.


Elizabeth spent most of her evenings locked up in her room rarely making appearances. Her days and nights were filled with memories from her youth ,voices from the past, and images of the vast ocean and those who where lost to it. A sadness had overtook her and diminished the spirit she was once so full of. She now felt only a shell of her former self, an empty vessel that desperately needed filling, but with what, with whom? Six years it had been but to her it had seemed a lifetime. Six years since she had last seen her lover, her husband. The boy, the blacksmith that had been her childhood friend but grew to become her first love, her only love. They had grew up together in so many ways that it seemed her life had started yet suddenly ended with him all the same. Of course he wasn’t the only man she had loved and lost. Again, it had been six years since she had last saw her beloved father, and she had never gotten over this loss. Unlike Will he would be lost forever and she would never be able to tell him how much he had meant to her, how much he still means to her. She longed to speak to him, to look into his kind eyes and see his warm smile once again. She had been his only child and they had an unspoken, yet unbreakable bond. He understood her the way no one else could. If anyone could understand her feelings or make since of her lonliness and despair it would be him . After all he had lost someone precious to him too once, her mother. She wondered how he had dealt with this loss, although she realized the expectations between a man and a woman where vastly unfair and unkind. The proper English girl who had always seen the glass half full instead of half empty, now only saw an empty glass of rum in her hand. So she found herself in the Tortugan tavern drinking and starring blindly into the dimness. Life was happening all around her, but not to her anymore. Her senses were dulled, except for anxious feelings of uncertainty and guilt that stuck to her now. Elizabeth tried to push those feelings deep inside her though, hidden from view. Weakness was not something she could except of herself, let alone show to others. She had lived as a woman amongst men in an unkind world, and not just any men. Certainly not the ones she had grew up around as a child. Not the noble ones with manners and class with high places in society. These were pirates, the so called “outcasts of society “. She had sailed along side them, fought with them, laughed with them, drank with them, and became one herself. She had earned their respect. That’s how she had survived so many of the years past , alone as a woman amongst men with her head held high, with only the thoughts of the two men she loved and lost to keep her going. She had promised herself to keep Will’s memory alive, to never forget the promise she made. He was out there somewhere, alive with the sea, but slowly fading in her. Ten years was a long time to be denied, she knew this all to well now. The promise she had made and the virtue she had kept for him, was now like a weight drowning her in his ocean. Her relief had came from her only companion, the drink. It numbed the pain, silenced the unpleasant truth, and made her forget the love she longed for. Longing is what she felt, a deep void that burned from within. A longing to be seen, to be heard, to be touched, not as a pirate but as a woman, after all that is what she was now, a woman. She had denied herself this basic need for much too long. To be looked at the way a man looks at a woman again ,to share an embrace , to share her deepest thoughts and desires with someone. Such a release it could bring. She had for so long existed in this mans world that she had neglected her true identify, her true self, Elizabeth the woman.