Should have had rum

It had been nearly two months since he had been humiliated while surrounded by his marines as Elizabeth… no, he reminded himself, Miss Swan, had declared her love for William Turner. Then the pirate Sparrow had escaped. He had felt confident that day that all would be made right again, and that a head start of one day would not impede the fastest ship in the Caribbean from apprehending Sparrow again. After all, what was one more day? The gallows needed to be restrung with rope anyway.

Frustrating as all of those thoughts were, he found it harder still to be at a christening ceremony for Port Royale's newest ship. It was smaller than the Interceptor, but more heavily gunned. With little room for crew and sundry supplies it was meant for short range fast expeditions to maintain the safety and security of the waters immediately surrounding his Majesty’s islands. James would have been delighted if it were not for the fact that in christening this ship he was both so close and so far away from Miss Swan.

He had welcomed her and Wetherby Swan aboard along with the rest of Port Royale’s upper class to the dulcid tones of a quintet. The town’s ladies marveled over the size of the cannons and flirted subtly with the officers. James looked over at Gillette and sighed as his friend recounted stories of military grandeur with expansive hand gestures and expressions. The group of four ladies cooed with concern for his safety, laughed with his stories of success, and tittered in laughter for his bravado- all synchronized in perfect time. The rest of the deck was crowded with businessmen merchants mostly who were keen to see what the Royal Navy was doing to protect their business.

James mused that they looked like a herd of wooly sheep with their wigs long and curly in an array of grays whites and pale browns. They clustered around a socially charming Weatherby Swan and made small talk about the roads and the weather and anything acceptable-- certainly not, James concluded with barely perceptible thin lipped grimace, certainly not that his daughter had publicly declared her love for a working class scamp who had then disappeared two weeks later.

Looking at the crowd James sighed and let his shoulders slump ever so slightly; among the throngs of people he was so acutely alone. His eyes scanned the deck and saw someone else similarly alone. He walked to the ship’s port rail facing the open ocean beyond the safety and calm of the deep water bay.

“Miss Swan,” he began, and realized he had no business talking to her at all; he had nothing to say, or more aptly nothing that he could say. She looked at him quizzically tilting her head slightly and raising one eyebrow. He had watched her many times before and seen this, he had her attention and she was waiting to see what of value he could say. Her liquid brown eyes held his for a breathless moment.

“Miss Swan, we are fortunate to have such good weather for the christening.” James did not quite sputter but there was a staccato to his voice which was usually smoother. He wished silently that he had stayed by the quintet and just pretended to appreciate their work.
Elizabeth’s head tilted back, her gaze dropped to her fan. James felt both relieved and deeply disappointed. “Yes, the weather is most pleasant and the road made for a smooth carriage ride.” Her voice had no life in it, no passion, just the metered measured drone of what a lady in her position should be able to say to him. He cringed inside. He wanted to shake her to evoke some of the passion that he had seen before she had been engaged to him and again when she had rejected him, with one small difference. He wanted that passion to be his. Even if it could not be his, he decided, there was little reason to be stone to her.

He sighed heavily, looked about at the group of socialites aboard his war ship and knew how on many levels this was ridiculous. James lowered his voice “Miss Swan, it would seem that Mr. Turner has been missing for nearly six weeks.”

Elizabeth turned to confront him, her face a blur of emotions pale and guarded, saddened and angry. She hissed at him “If you are making the suggestion that my decision should be changed...” His look stopped her in mid sentence.

James would have eagerly become Elizabeth’s fiancé again. People would call him a great fool, but for her he was willing to be a great fool. Damn the embarrassment, he had admired her beauty and her suitability when he had first proposed to her. He had known that in time the care that he felt for her would turn to love and that they were, as everyone said, ‘a smart match’. He now realized that he had not known her at all, and the woman she showed herself to be was not the girl he had proposed to. He loved her for her independent spirit, her loyalty (although apparently not to him), her passion; her positively bad behavior was refreshing and even amusing- and none of it was his.

“Miss Swan, I am merely concerned for your comfort, you have not been yourself and without telling me anything that would endanger your ‘friends,’” he could not keep the acrid taste in his mouth out of his tone, “do you have a reasonable certainty that he has not been accosted?” James found himself surprised and thinking that he would still do almost anything for her.

Elizabeth seemed to crumple, to get smaller, thinner, to become less fierce and more of a girl again. Her eyes met his again, filled with pain. “Will said that he had found a way to set it all right, to get Jack pardoned and the rest of the crew too… and ...I haven’t heard from him since.” She scanned the horizon, and squinted. James followed her gaze and then looked to the crows nest. The tiny speck he could see was approaching but slowly. He searched the deck and found Weatherby Swan smiling at him and Elizabeth, all the while being talked at by a merchant captain. James turned to Elizabeth who was still watching the speck and excused himself.

He found a midshipman wowing a schoolgirl with a story about undead pirates. He rolled his eyes as this sailor had only arrived in Barbados on a boat from England a month ago. “Midshipman, up the crows nest and report on the port bay opening.” His tone made the man salute and scurry up the rigging like one of the many tropical monkeys in the region, without as much as a good bye to the girl he was regaling. She looked at the commodore with flirtatious eyes. James almost scurried away- he had become a prime target for the ladies of Port Royale and he was in no mood to politely disengage himself.

The midshipman called down from the crows nest. “Sir it’s a fishing vessel, small, but it has a French flag” Some of the party goers laughed and made comments about the French trying to capture the island with a fishing dingy. James felt an unaccountable sense of dread. He turned to Gillette who by now was holding the hands of two young ladies while surrounded by four more all with rapt attention. James looked quizzically at him.

“I learned how to read palms, love lines in particular,” he said, smiling daringly at the ladies before dropping their hands and excusing himself, promising to each one that certainly she was the prettiest and that, yes, of course he would come calling for tea sometime soon. He never did, and while he portrayed himself as a world class ladies man, James knew that Gillette bore the frustration and the liability of the love that dared not speak its name. He had never cared though; Gillette was his best advisor and an excellent officer and sailor to boot. More than that though Gillette was his oldest and dearest friend. He would have to marry some time within the next few years though or else after he became a captain wagging tongues would be too much for ignoring. They strode towards his cabin with its small office-like set up and overstuffed couch.

“Sir, I don’t like the looks of that boat approaching, while it is too small to contain anything but a paltry offensive force…” He stopped as he watched James search with a spyglass out the pane glass windows. Gillette had wanted so badly to hold James the night that Elizabeth had gone back on her word, to take away the pain that he felt but James had never asked so Gillette had never moved to realize his love and desire for him.

“Close the celebration; smash the damn bottle on the damn hull…”

Gillette tittered in laughter surprisingly close to the giggles that had come from the ladies who had surrounded him earlier.

“What?” James snapped the spyglass shut in irritation.

Stifling his laughter Gillette bemoaned that “a beautiful lady desired of the men should do that,” to which James tartly replied, “you are close enough”.