La Principessa

Chapter 5: Conquis


A/N: Apologies for the long wait for a new chapter. I have started school again and am moving this month. This chapter has been written over the past few weeks with every moment I could steal in the library. So trust me, I did not forsake you.


Elizabeth is so shocked by the proposal, as well as the startlingly stark insult that she is struck speechless. So, in lieu of speech, she bursts into uncontrollable paroxysms of laughter. Laughter that rattles her frame and cramps her stomach.

Beckett doesn’t move, his face an impassive mask.

“I fail to see a cause for mirth, Miss Swann.”

“I ca—I ca—“ she sputters, between guffaws.

She collects herself, and looks into those permafrost eyes noticing a nerve below his eye wincing spasmodically. Oh, it’s too much, and loses her composure again.

Eventually, she finds that the uproarious laughter has it quite hard to breathe, and that Beckett has not stormed out the door as she had hoped. Realizing that there is little humor in this, the flood of laughter ebbs.

“I can’t marry you.”

“Oh,” he pauses thoughtfully, “And why is that.”

The answer seems so blindingly obvious that Elizabeth finds herself quite unprepared to defend it. It’s like having to argue that the grass is green to someone skeptical of its greenness with a more compelling rationale than “because it’s bloody green.” Why can’t I marry you? Because I can’t! It’s axiomatic. It’s self-evident. It goes without saying—and yet you’re asking me to say. Somehow she thinks that this would not be satisfactory. Then again, when she was quite young and inquisitive she asked the priest, “How do you know that there is a God.” He answered by turning bright red and shouting, “Because he is! And if you don’t believe in him he shall cast you into the flaming bowels of hell with the rest of the damned.” She thought that if heaven were a place where you couldn’t ask questions then it must be a dull place indeed, and one in which she would rather not like to dally anyway. Yes, he has a right to ask for a reason.

“Because you—you’re…an evil bastard!”

“Miss Swann, evil is subjective and I can assure you that my parents were married at my conception. Additionally, your logic is faulty as being evil and being a bastard does not prevent one from marrying. By your sensibilities, Henry VIII was an “evil bastard”, yet he married six times. Granted, this is an indication that he was quite adept at creating failed marriages, but they were marriages nonetheless. I warn you, such half-cocked rhetoric will get you nowhere in a rational argument. Now, use more concrete evidence and tell me why we cannot marry.”

“But I hate you.”

“Your sex truly is incapable of reason. That argument is incredibly naïve, even for you. Surely you aren’t so insipid that you still believe that emotion is paramount in a marriage—it’s hardly even relevant. Now, I shall grant you one final opportunity to plead your case in a factual, rational manner.”

Now when did this change from a philosophical argument to an inquisition? How fitting. If unable to plead her case convincingly Elizabeth will be sentenced to life—as Beckett’s wife. Could you execute me instead? Draw and quarter? Burn alive?

If you want facts, then facts you shall have.

“You demolished a Cheapside orphanage and sold it as real estate, straining 100 orphans to the streets.”

“Slander!” he says with vehemence, yet in a quiet, controlled voice, “It was 172 orphans that I strained to the streets. And there was nothing illegal in my activities—“

“But immoral!”

“—Miss Swann, I will thank you not to interrupt me again. The last man who interrupted me…never mind, you have gotten me terribly off track. Now, morality is relative unless legislated. In a marriage, the only immorality that would make the union legally void would be if one or the other of us were to copulate out of wedlock. Granted, as a man of status I am expected to have divers sexual conquests before and during my marriage. So, in a de facto sense, that proviso only really pertains to you. Now, your argument is irrelevant as disenfranchised orphans have nothing to do with our marriage. Besides, it is not my concern that they did not work hard enough at the mill to pay the rents. Go on.”

Elizabeth totters mentally, feeling a bit knocked off balance. Perhaps she had expected him to deny the allegations Or at least not to so thoroughly defend his actions as to render any further accusations of greed, avarice and blatant cruelty immaterial.

“You embezzled thousands from East India Company when you were working in Calcutta, and when your business partner threatened to alert the Court of Directors you had him executed for the crime that you yourself committed.”

“Indeed, the path to lordship is not an easy one.”

He seems wistful. But Elizabeth knows enough of Beckett to know that any display of softness is a harbinger for malice.

“Your claim is nothing more than hearsay.”

“Well unfortunately that’s because the only person who would know is dead.”

“Yes, unfortunately. And unfortunately for you, you have been so appallingly inept with your arguments that you have failed to produce a compelling reason for why we cannot marry. Thus, we shall marry with all due haste. Now, the future Mrs. Beckett, could you fetch me a brandy. Your cack-handed attempts at reason have strained my nerves.”

“Wait just a moment sir, I would like to know what you feel gives you the right to come into my house, insult me, display the nastiest kind of impertinence and then betroth me to you without my consent.”

“Oh, I assure you, I already have your consent. First of all, I should point out that this is not, in fact, your house. This is your father’s house and when he chalks out within the week it will revert to the crown. Then you shall be a penniless mendicant in a very unsympathetic world. I should know. I loathe mendicants. Now, the only way to save yourself would be to make a suitable marriage before that happens. But you’re a stigmatized woman. A recent widow with a reputation for pigheadedness. No respectable man in this town would marry you.”

“News travels fast,” she says, devoid of emotion.

“Only so fast as Captain Norrington can hobble.

“Oh yes, and you forgot that …”

“Yes?”

He didn’t mention her pregnancy. Surely, that is no paltry detail. Did James neglect to tell him? Why would he do that? Obviously not out of concern for her. But he had been drunk when she’d spoken to him. Then again, these days he always seems to be drunk. That’s how he was able to function well enough to give her a coherent telling-off earlier that day. After a while, drunks find their coherence in drunkenness. But is it possible that he forgot? That he won’t remember in future? There can’t be any other explanation. But she’s already gone and started telling him. Rash girl!

“Erm…that I—that I’m disobedient. I haven’t fetched you your brandy.”

“Indeed.” She looks around, trying desperately not to look at him, but he catches her eyes, in a moment detecting the lies behind them. The pregnancy. The child. Will’s child.

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologize,” She braces herself, stomach clenching and the pressure of sobs in her throat, “Just get the brandy.”

“I, er—yes.” Elizabeth, energized with relief, dashes to the drawing room. She throws open the mahogany doors of the entertainment cabinet and glances between the gleaming rows of varicolored bottles.

Even at nineteen, she is still not permitted to peruse this cabinet on her own—which of course didn’t prevent her from making clandestine midnight visitations to it as a curious adolescent. Her father kept a close eye on the volume of the bottles, but his sight was beginning to dim. She was a clever girl and found that if she took only a few drops from each she could fill an empty bottle to the brim in a ghastly concoction of all of the liquors. It was appalling—premium London Dry gin to cheap sawdust liquor commingling in reeking, caustic pandemonium—and her father could not perceive as the liquor drained by degrees. Eventually, she realized that she would be unable to replenish the supply, and began to add water to the depleted bottles to conceal her petty pilfering. Eventually, she became too brazen, and one day as her father sipped from a pale glass of scotch.

“Elizabeth, I must say that this is a rather remarkable brand of Scotch. One can drink as much as one likes and yet never become intoxicated.”

—But her consequential lack of knowledge of fine liqueurs makes her quite uncertain as to what would be appropriate to give him. Especially given that…

“Miss Swann, the brandy, if you please.”

She gropes about the highest shelf where she knows the brandy is kept. Her fingers brush a thick blanket of dust coating one of the bottles. Must be expensive. The kind of alcohol that men keep in their cabinets in case the king should come calling. It’s a shame to use it on this…

Beckett coughs. Not from illness, to be sure.

“Right. Er—right.” She retrieves a glass, uncorks the bottle and pours. She offers it to him.

He makes no move to take it.

She further extends her arm, practically shoving the glass at his chest, mentally demanding how have I bollucksed it up this time?

Elizabeth meets his frosty blue eyes directly, for the first time. (A sharp shoulder tic). They turn toward the glass…which is smeared with dust, a film of the powder floating in the brandy.

“I’m sorry. I’m—I’ll…wash this off.”

He nods, looking bored. “Indeed.” She thinks that the number of his words he chooses to use has an inverse proportion to how dangerous he seems. Normally, she is far more confident, but the man is truly unnerving her. Especially now that she make an effort to please him.

She steals a glance at Beckett. At Beckett’s promisingly dark eyebrows. The child shouldn’t display any traits which could not be ascribed to him or herself. Physically, at least. God forbid it should grow to be kind and compassionate—or worse, to display the naive moral idealism of its father. But she had at least a decade before she needs to worry about that. And by then, Beckett could be dead.

Elizabeth’s last menstruation had been two months previous. That means that the child will perceived to be at least a month premature. If she is to do this, she must act immediately. But that shouldn’t be a problem. He’ll probably run her into bed at soon as they utter their “I do”s. And then who knows what kind of perversions he’ll inflict on her…whippings, urinating on her, sodomizing her and even worse acts that even her fantastic imagination cannot conceive of. She can bear it. And if she can play the perfect, pious wife for the next eight months, she may just allay any suspicion regarding her faithfulness and the child’s paternity. She knocks back the dust-muffed brandy for fortitude—and chokes, spewing the saliva threaded fluid onto the floor. But that rancid, blistering flavor is burned to her mouth. She leans over, propping herself against the wall, spitting into the puddle again and again and again trying to flush it out of her mouth.

Elizabeth hears the scrape of boots striding across the floorboards towards her. Then the creak of the cabinet, a tinkling of bottles and liquor being poured into a glass.

She wipes her face with her sleeve and turns around. He takes a—you wouldn’t call it a sip—more like a sampling of the brandy.

“Calvados.”

“What?”

He shakes his head, as if dealing with the impertinent questions of an ignorant six-year-old.

“An apple brandy from the region of Lower Normandy. Generally, it is a very fine type of brandy.”

She would feel relieved, if not for the however dangling ominously in the air.

“However, this particular Calvados is not only heavily cut with water, but from the flavors it tastes as if it were distilled in a Frenchman’s chamberpot. Very middle class. Impressed by French names, yet with no eye for quality. I can just see it. Dismayed that he couldn’t come up with the money for genuine Calvados, your father buys some from a cock-eyed peasant promising the same quality for half the francs. Well, he got what he paid for.”

He pauses for her response, but she finds herself quite unable to formulate one. She wants to say that it was she who watered it down, but bites her tongue that impulse. And now that she must play the devoted wife, it seems little use to defend herself from his acrimony.

He rolls his eyes and motions to an armchair. “If you’re too ill-bred for intelligent conversation, then you may as well listen as I explain terms.”

“Terms? You talk as if I’m a freshly conquered territory.”

“Are you not?”

Elizabeth hangs her head. Beckett takes a seat opposite her.

“Look up. Melancholy is so unbecoming in a lady. Now, you should be quite ingratiated to me, as I am offering you more than any lady of your station could rightly dream of. I offer you a title, and all of the privileges that it entails. My house and servants will be at your disposal; you will share the acquaintance of aristocratic ladies; and most importantly, you will have security for both your person and your reputation.”

She shakes her head, “And what have I done to merit such charity. Surely a man of your political stature could attain a more auspicious match. One that will gain you more power, more money, better connections…I have nothing in that way to offer you.”

She hears his breath catch, but he recovers himself quickly.

“It’s simple really. Unlike most men of my class, I am not seeking a bride who will simply ensure the security of my pocketbook. Such brides come with the peril of powerful families. But these families are a double-edged sword: they can either be strong allies or formidable enemies depending on the capricious ebb and flow of their favor. To maintain this favor, I must treat their spoiled little daughter like a princess, (as women of her ilk believe that they’re entitled to something just because five hundred years ago, some king aggrandized one of her ancestors for beating someone over the head with a rock). If I fail to indulge every one of her idle desires, I might find myself on the wrong side of their favor and then—well, you know how difficult it is to obtain a divorce. It would be much simpler to kill me. No, I have obtained sufficient power for myself so as not to be dependent on a woman to further my career. Instead I desire a wife who is beholden to me—a wife who will submit to my will. I want a wife who will adorn my household without complaint because she knows that I am the source of all her privileges. Such things I cannot expect from those insipid society girls, but I can from an aggrandized middle class girl of some breeding. That is where you enter, Miss Swann. You have been educated in the manner of aristocratic ladies, despite your fathers indulgences, so you know how to behave in high company. Additionally, because of your situation, I find that you would be suitably indebted to me.”

It is then that Elizabeth notices the semicircle of crescents her nails have delved in her palms.

“You will have to ask my father’s permission.”

“If I am to believe his doctor’s judgment, the Governor is incapable even of controlling his bowels, leastways rendering a decision as to his daughter’s marriage. No, I am afraid that the decision lies solely with you, and its consequences shall be your singular responsibility.”

Elizabeth nods, eyes glass.

He rises. “Excellent. We shall marry Sunday.”

“Sunday? But it’s Tuesday.” He begins to walk toward the entrance, not looking back for a moment. “Think of the scandal--the law! The betrothal must be announced at mass for at least three weeks before we can marry. And that can only be over-ridden by the governor and the ecclesiastical courts.”

By now he’s at the door. He turns to address her.

“Need I remind you that as your father finds himself indisposed, I am the acting governor? As for the church, I have bought God’s favorable judgment for three hundred pounds and a .05% share in the molasses trade, so we shall encounter no obstacles there. Additionally, allow me to remind you that in order to secure your inheritance, you need to marry before you father dies, which will undoubtedly occur within the week. Thus, is behooves you to marry as soon as possible.”

“What of the arrangements? You can’t plan a wedding in five days. I will not have the time.”

“That is very convenient, as I do not plan to burden you with planning the ceremony. I will have a dressmaker come to take your measurements on the morrow and that shall be the extent of your participation.”

“Oh.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No. No…I just…I never thought that my wedding would be like this. I thought—“

“What did you expect, Miss Swann? A heartfelt proposal on bended knee? A dulcet choir of song birds chirping “Love’s a Gentle Gen’rous Passion”? This is no love-match, Miss Swann, this is a marriage of convenience. I advise you now, that if you are to marry me you should cast aside these childish fantasies and begin acting as an adult.”

Despite herself, her thoughts dissolve in heavy tears and choking sobs.

Beckett is unmoved. “You are not the first girl to marry into the aristocracy whilst crying and you certainly won’t be the last. The dressmaker will be here tomorrow. Please do not let her find you absent. And Miss Swann,”

“Yes?”

“Please clean up that mess you made in the drawing room before she arrives.”

He shows himself out.

//+//

Cutler closes the door to his study and exhales sharply. She doesn’t know about the stocks. Well, this renders his deception about the child unnecessary—then again, any knowledge which he possesses that she does not is an advantage and can be used to his purposes later. He had planned to feign ignorance about the child, banking on her devising some kind of subterfuge wherein she would marry him in order that she might claim him for the father. But this—this is perfect. The stocks were her leverage in the negotiations, but she believes herself to be without a bargaining chip. Cutler is in a most propitious position.

Granted, this means that he will be bound to the girl, as a divorce is nearly impossible to obtain. He hadn’t been lying about that. Divorce is only attainable by Act of Parliament—and he has enough enemies in the House of Lords to prevent him from acquiring one. But he can tolerate her—if he can break her.

Cutler reflects on the unbroken Arabian stallion he acquired as a socially-advanving twenty year old. So entranced was he by the sheer power rippling in its robust frame that he approached the animal, hand outstretched, like a child in awe. This was the symbol of his dreams, his ambitions, the power he was so desperately amassing for himself. Encased in that equine frame was the essence of Cutler Beckett. Apparently, the horse was unaware of this mystical connection—it kicked him in the chest.

After two weeks in bed, moaning into the night and sobbing with frustration at the pain it caused him merely to breathe, he rose, possessed with the single-minded desire to break that animal to pieces.

He strolled out to the pasture, on the opposite side of the fence from where the horse was feeding from its trough. He then crushed an ash walking stick across its skull. Naturally, the horse went mad with a frenzy of bucking and whinnying. Cutler then ordered the terrified groom to tie the horse to a tree until its fit stopped. He then sat on the fence and with a blank face, mechanically pelted the horse with palm-sized rocks. Not hard throws, to be sure, as scars would have devalued the animal, but just enough to hurt. At first, the horse started violently at every blow, but after several hours, (and a large pile of rocks that had accumulated immediately around the horse) the stallion collapses to the ground, folding its legs beneath it, and took the rocks with little more than an anticipatory muscle twitch.

He then hopped off the fence, and as he stood triumphant over the animal he whispered, “You are mine.”

Needless to say, after months of spurrings, whippings and the use of rather harsh, nasty-looking bits, that Arabian stallion was as gentle as a lamb.

He named it, “Conquis.” French for conquered.

Cutler sits at his desk, ready to begin delegating the responsibilities for planning the ceremony. After all, company business cannot be superceded by something as trifling as a marriage. Despite himself, he grins, pleased at having secured an irrefutable claim to the Swann family fortune. It is then that a folded rectangle of weather-beaten paper in the center of his desk catches his. It is a letter. A letter addressed to Elizabeth Swann from a Mister Radcliffe in Nottingham.

He blanches, breaking the seal with trembling fingers.