A Most Unusual Interest

A Most Unusual Interest---Chapter Six (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

A/N Goddess Foxfeather gets huge piles of muse cookies for
being Queen of the Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse and Uberbeta… Readers/Reviewers: Thank you! I’ll try and
pick things up a bit plot wise starting now…

 

 

 

“This is
the sixth day she been up there,” Gibbs muttered over a quick bite of
hardtack. “She ain’t seen that ship
since the firs’ day.”

Jack
shrugged and took a long draught of his grog, missing his rum sorely but
knowing it would be another two days before they were close enough to a port to
even consider depleting his already diminished supply. “Keeps her off the deck, eh? Keeps her out of my hair…”

Gibbs
snorted. “She been readin’ penny
dreadfuls ‘bout pirates.” He took
another bite of the dry, hard bread and added, “Dawson caught her, hidin’
behind the barrels belowdeck, readin’ with one of the lanterns… Said she couldn’t
sleep in her cabin…Said you snored too loud.”

Jack choked
on his bread. “I do not snore!”

“Not me
place to be sayin’ sir,” Gibbs murmured blandly.

Jack wiped
his mouth with the back of his hand and said darkly, “Mayhap it’s time I’m getting’
to know our guest better… Get a feel
for the way she thinks.”

“Aye…she
seems most unnatural for a girl. What
female be wantin’ to be a pirate?”

“Anna Maria,”
Jack grinned. “Lovely Anna Maria is a
fine pirate.”

“But she
weren’t raised a lady,” Gibbs pointed out.
“I seen her trunk, Jack. That Myrtle come from money.”

Jack rubbed
his chin thoughtfully. “She did offer me gold for this little jaunt, even
before the governor did.” The early
morning light filtering through the grubby porthole threw his face into shadow
as he muttered to himself, mostly unintelligible but with snippets of “She do
seem smart…an’ she ain’t afraid o’ heights…”

Gibbs
snorted. “Mayhap you be makin’ her a mate aboardship?”

The captain
snorted. “I can’t have her livin’ in
the crow’s nest, Gibbs. Soon as we find
this mystery ship, she’s back at Port Royn’ wn’ we get paid an’ pardoned.”

The older
man shrugged and took a drink of his grog.
“She ain’t bad ta look at…some o’ the men be thinkin’ that you might be
movin’ her into your cabin soon.”

Jack made a
dismissive motion and said tersely “We haven’t said a hundred words.”

“That didn’
stop you an’ Scarlet. Or,” he added
innocently, “Anna Maria.”

“That’s
enough, Mister Gibbs. Take your post
and see to it that Miss MacLeod does not go to the nest this morning.” “Aye, Cap’n…”

“Send her
to me,” Jack called after Gibbs. “And
any man talking of her as a strumpet may have extra duties this evening. She is a guest on this ship.”

Gibbs’
eyebrows crept upwards. “Aye, Cap’n…”

Jack
polished off his meager breakfast and looked longingly at his bed for a moment
before sighing. “Right…a lady who wants
to be a pirate. Right.” The ship was
coming to life around him, the sound of sailors coming onto their morning
duties and those on night duty going to bed mingled with the slap of water on
the hull and the sound of the rigging being worked. He closed his eyes and smiled.
This, he thought to himself, was life.
This was the only way to be, free and easy, one adventure after another…in
between the long stretches of boredom, of course. He had no desire to live the life of a land lubber like Will and
Elizabeth, no desire for a home that did not move, that did not take him to the
horizon and back at his whim and leisure.
He could not remember a time when the sea was not freedom to him… Jack
jumped slightly as a light knock fell on the door, a woman’s knock. “Enter!”

Myrtle
opened the door a crack, enough to stick her head through, and smiled politely
before entering the rest of the way. “Mister
Gibbs said you wanted to see me?”

“Aye,
in
in, dove…sit down!” He gestured grandly
to one of the rickety wooden chairs gracing his cabin.

She sidled
closer, glancing up at him from under lowered lashes. Truth be told, she was in awe of the captain. Her mind sang “Pirate” even as her sister’s
ghost voices cried “Caution!” Myrtle
smoothed her hands over her borrowed trousers and straightened the hem of her
shirt before sitting down and looking up at Jack expectantly. “Is there news of the ship?”

“No, sorry
dove. No news…” He turned the second chair around and
straddled it, sitting across from her with an intent look on his face.

“Oh…I was
hoping… Maybe someone on night watch had seen the ship I saw. I guess I was imagining things.”

She looked
so forlorn that Jack felt moved to ask, “Tell me why a lass such as yourself be
wantin’ to commit murder then.”

Myrtle’s
head snapped up and her eyes blazed fury.
“It’s not murder. It’s
justice! They killed the ones I love so
they must die too!”

“Justice,
lass, would be killin’ their loved ones so they know just how you’re feelin’.” He shrugged and leaned back with an assessing
grin on his face. “Gibbs thinks you
were raised to be a lady.”

She
stiffened. “An…attempt was made, yes.” She sighed as he made “go on…” motions. “My sisters were the ladies. I was the son my father never had.”

“You aren’t
the finest thing in stockings I’ve ever been seein’ but you’re no lad…”

She snorted
softly. “Hazel was the learned one,
knowledgeable in fine things and things
ladies should know, and botany on top of that.
Willow was the delicate one, but strong… She was always reading and
sewing, but no one ever called her a bluestocking. When our parents died, several men made offers for Hazel but she
was waiting for her own scientist,e Wie Willow had. Willow married Richard, the King’s Own Botanist, and they raised
us…took care of us…” Myrtle closed her
eyes against the sting of tears. “Father
so wanted a boy. When I was born, I was
very sick so he doted on me. I took to
riding and sailing like any boy would.
I even,” she laughed blackly, “I even cut all my hair off when I was six
so I could be a boy, jus’ like my cousins…”


Jack raised
a brow. “You don’t…fancy the lasses do
ye?”

Myrtle
looked shocked. “I’m a woman, Captain
Sparrow!”

He let out
a puff of air. Obviously, she was not
as worldly as she liked to think. “Gibbs
tells me you be readin’ them penny dreadfuls ‘bout pirates…”

Her eyes
took on a far-away expression. “I’ve
always wanted to be a pirate…so free…never answering to anyone…”

Jack felt
his expression become incredulous. “Dove,
I don’t think you know what you’re wantin’…”

Myrtle
frowned. “I think I do.” She pushed away from the table and added
firmly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,
Captain Sparrow, I’m due in the crow’s nest.
Traded kitchen duty with Jimmy for it.”

“Myrtle, I…”

“Cap’n!” One of the crew men, a scarred young man,
burst through the door and skidded to a halt.
“Man overboard!”

Myrtle was
knocked to the floor as Jack vaulted the table and followed the crewman out at
a dead run. She followed at a more
sedate but still urgent pace, finding Jack and most of the men leaning over the
railing on the port side, watching as Gibbs brought Dawson back aboard
ship. “What happened?” she asked
breathlessly of the man standing next to her.

“Dawson an’
Jimmy were to fightin’,” he explained, bored.
“Jimmy got het up an’ pushed Dawson overboard.”

“Why?” Myrtle eyed the drop to the water’s surface
warily. At their height, it had to be
like hitting the hard ground.

Jack turned
and fixed her with a hard glare. “Because
of you. Get to your cabin and don’t let
me see your face till I call for you.”