A Most Unusual Interest
31
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
A Most Unusual Interest Chapter Thirty One (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… Finally, lol!
Readers/Reviewers: *BLUSH *
Sorry!!!!!
It was well
past sunset when Jack had Dawson haul the gruesome remains to the bow.
of the evening, letting her hardtack and suspect rum go untouched as she
shivered and murmured in his bed. The
sky was a deep amethyst as he heaved the burlap sack containing the head
overboard and into the sea. The body of
the mystery crewman went next, with the help of Dawson at the feet.
with the barest splash, tumbling past the portholes like dark shadows and Jack
hoped Myrtle was still asleep rather than looking out at the still-as-glass
sea. They were a day out from Port
Royal and had lost the wind entirely, The Pearl bobbing like a cork in the
water. He could just catch the faintest
whiff of the port, of life and land throbbing beneath the breeze. Beneath his
feet Myrtle slept, her presence at once irritating and pleasing.
without looking any of his men in the eye.
He had been giving it serious thought and could not come up with one
logical reason to care whether Myrtle stayed or went. In fact, if he were an honest man, which, he allowed, he was not,
there were more reasons against her presence than there were for it.
announced just that, startling her out of a sound sleep.
“Jack,” she
muttered thickly, “have you found Anna Maria then?” She rubbed sleep from her eyes, struggling to sit up while wrapped
in the rough sheets. She had been
lulled to sleep from sheer physical and mental exhaustion, comforted by the
nearly childish notion that Anna Maria was, even then, being pulled from the sea
by Jack or his men. It took her a
second to realize that it was now apparently nighttime and that Jack had said
something when he entered. “Pardon me?”
He sighed
and rolled his eyes, pushing a lock behind his ear as he grabbed the nearby
chair, turning it around so he could straddle it as he regarded her. “I can
think of three reasons for you stayin’ on this ship and a dozen times that many
for kickin’ you off.”
“You’re
thinking of not leaving me in Port Royal then?” she asked with a hint of
eagerness in her voice, pushing her tangled hair from her face.
“No,” he
said quickly, not defining which question he was responding to.
himself closer to where she was now perched on the edge of the bed.
the problem. I’m just a pirate, lass,
not a Bow Street Runner or even a,” he paused and smirked, “concerned
citizen. I’ve got no allegiance,
dove. No one to prove anythin’ to.”
“But…I have
gold…” She grasped at the first thing
she could think of that she knew, from all her reading, pirates would care
about. Even a pirate such as Jack.
“And I’ll
take that in full, thank you, when we reach Port Royal.”
spreading his fingers over his heart. “But
I know, see, an’ cause of that, I’m not keepin’ you ‘board The Pearl.”
around and shoving it back under the table noisily. “Now get you dressed an’ get to the deck.
work like one.”
“Jack!”
He paused
again, his back to her, eyes squeezed tightly shut. He knew what was coming. “Yes,
dove?”
“What do
you know?” The sheet wrapped around her
hissed and dragged as she rose and padded to him. “Tell me.”
“I know,”
he sighed, “that you’re more trouble than I’m willin’ to keep ‘board this ship.”
indifference to her semi-clad state, put his hands on her shoulders and winked
at her. “Get some clothes on, lass, or
the mates will have a hell of a time keepin’ the riggin’ straight.”
Myrtle
thought, for one burning moment, that he was going to kiss her, but instead, he
patted her arm and pushed her gently back towards the bed.
closed behind, le, leaving her alone. “Bugger,”
she snapped to the empty room. “Bugger all!”
Saying it made her feel better and she sighed. “Now I can see why Dawson says it so much…”
Even at
night, the ship was swarming with activity. Sailors cleaned and checked and
rechecked the facilities, such as they were, men huddled in a corner, passing a
purloined bottle of rum that they believed Jack did not know was missing, and
no one paid Myrtle any mind as she picked her way through the seemingly doubled
crew, with the addition of Anna Maria’s men, as she headed towards the
bridge. She recognized one
leather-faced older man from The Devil Ray and stopped.
slow to come on her lips. “I haven’t
seen her since…since. I wanted to thank
her…”
“She’s gone
to Fiddler’s Green,” he snapped, glaring at her through his one good eye.
be none of that,” Jack’s strangely strident tone cut across Myrtle’s gasp.
are to be.”
“Her only
duty,” the old sailor rasped, “is to that thing between your legs, innit?”
his leg was hastily, bulkily bandaged. “She’s
a ship’s whore… You always were lax, Cap’n Sparrow…”
Jack moved
so quickly that Myrtle did not even see the motion until the knife hit home,
vibrating in the wood next to the old sailor’s hand. “One more out of you, Lawrence, and it’s the brig.”
for Myrtle. “Come with me please.”
Her hand
was shaking as she laid it atop his elbow. The windless night bore the silence
well. All eyes on deck were staring at
them now, assessing her in a new way.
_They all think it’s my fault Anna Maria died… That’s true, isn’t
it? style="mso-spacerun: yes"> _
She did not even hear what Jack was saying as he led her to the
galley. A new plan was forming in her
mind, one that would put an end to this insanity altogether.