Chapter Two

**"What female heart can gold despise?"**

With the bedroom doors locked and the shutters drawn, Elizabeth Turner took out a small chest and set it respectfully on the bureau. She opened the top drawer of the bureau and slid her small hand into the space behind the drawer where a hook in a recess held a key. She withdrew the key and unlocked the chest.

Inside the chest, the gold gleamed, even in the dim light. She fingered the exquisite pieces of jewelry, thinking of the man who had given them to her - shoved them at her, really - Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate. "Hide these in your dress, Missy," he had ordered as the rowboat carrying the three of them, Elizabeth, Sparrow, and Will Turner, left the treasure cave of the Isle del Muerte. "It may be I'll require them back of you one day." Then, with a casual aplomb Elizabeth still found shocking, he had pitched the priceless gold crown he had been wearing over the side of the rowboat, to be lost forever in the dark of the sea.

While Elizabeth still gaped at the loss of the crown, Will had spoken urgently. "Jack, we can go back," he said. "We can leave you here at Isle del Muerte. Norrington is bound to arrest you."

Faced with the desertion of his crew and loss of his precious ship, Jack had shaken his head sadly. "No, mate; no food or water here. And no one would ever find me." The gold of his teeth had glinted in the gloom. "Sort of by definition, savvy?"

So Jack had joined the newly-mortal, former crew of the Black Pearl, under sentence of death for piracy.

The days that followed had been the bleakest of Elizabeth's life. Her wedding to Commodore Norrington was to be Port Royal's social event of the year. She tried to smile and laugh and plan what any other of the town's young ladies would have seen as a glorious triumph, all while she felt her real world crumbling beneath her feet. For, while the other ladies also smiled and laughed, behind their elegant fans they talked about how the Commodore was wedding a tainted woman.

From the moment Elizabeth had been taken offshore by pirates, she could no longer be considered a respectable maid, by the socialites of her class. She not only had spent a number of days and nights in their company, unchaperoned, but the story had got around that she had spent a night with Jack Sparrow alone on a deserted island! This might be the stuff of high romance for many a silly young girl, but for their mothers, the women who mattered, it was the stuff of high scandal. Elizabeth pretended not to notice as the cauldron of gossip bubbled, and she told herself she did not care what people thought, but the truth was, Port Royal was a small community, and Elizabeth had lost all her friends.

Nor was that the worst. Her husband-to-be and her father both knew she had bought Will Turner's safety with her promise of marriage. Her father had granted Will a pardon before she could even ask him for it, bless him. But to seek out Will then, even to inquire about him, could only be a gross betrayal of her fiancé and a further scandal, bordering on the adulterous. Even before her kidnapping, her chambermaid had known of her interest in Turner, and, if the servants knew it, everyone did. Will himself might have arranged a brief, secret meeting, but he, too, stayed away. Elizabeth had felt sick at the realization that Will had no reason to believe her acceptance of Norrington had been compelled by anything other than her affections. And, so long as his own damnable sense of propriety kept him away, she simply had no way of talking to him.

Elizabeth had not cried since she had lost her mother as a child, but she wept every night during that time.

And every dawn brought the sound of drums followed by the horrible whump as the gallows door dropped and another pirate's neck was snapped. She cared nothing for the others, but each dawn brought closer the day when Captain Jack Sparrow's neck would be the one.

Sparrow.

The pirate had threatened her life - but with a pistol he would not have fired. He could have threatened her virtue - but he had chosen drink, instead. He had tried to barter with the life of the man she loved - but then had saved it. And, at their first meeting he had saved her own life, at no profit to himself.

Whatever his crimes, he was no blackguard. Elizabeth had been convinced of it.

So how could he have done this?

II

Sighing, she selected a gold peacock-shaped brooch, inlaid with emeralds and sapphires in the tail, locked the chest, and returned it and the key to their hiding places. Since Will had left with the Deadly Earnest, she had sold much of Sparrow's gold to help the refugees from the Black Pearl's depredations. Fortunately, no one had questioned where she had acquired the wealth to be so much assistance. She might be a humble blacksmith's wife, but the townsfolk took it for granted that the rich would always have resources.

She opened the shutters, picked up a basket of food, and left the cottage for the refugee camp. Ten minutes later, she was talking to a sad-eyed woman who had lost her own children in the attack, but had adopted a tow-headed orphan boy whose parents had been her neighbors. They stood in the bright sunlight outside the woman's tiny wooden hut. Nearby, the boy sketched on paper Elizabeth had brought.

"I thank you, Mrs. Turner, for your gifts. The paper is a godsend for Matthew; he only draws, now."

"What do you mean?" asked Elizabeth.

"He hasn't spoken since he saw his parents spitted on the pirates' scimitars. Poor child, he hid himself at the docks, where so many people were killed. He must have seen terrible carnage. Some of his pictures are ... horrible."

Morbidly curious, Elizabeth drifted near to the boy, studying his drawing. This drawing had no carnage in it - Elizabeth caught her breath when she recognized what the child drew. A three-masted square-rigger, flying a black flag with a skull and crossed scimitars. The boy's work was good. The masthead was recognizable - an angel with hands outstretched, gripping a dove. Elizabeth seated herself on a tree stump next to the crate the boy used as a table.

"That's very good, Matthew," she said.

The boy did not respond. He added a shore and burning fires on it.

Elizabeth tipped her head, noticing the ship again. "What color are those sails, Matthew?" she asked.

The boy's response was to take his charcoal back to the sails, and color them more darkly.

"Black?" Elizabeth glanced at the woman.

"I didn't see the ship," the woman said. "But they said it had the black sails of the Black Pearl."

Elizabeth nodded, thoughtfully, and looked back at the drawing. "That's the Black Pearl, all right. But she had white sails the last time I saw her." Black was probably more frightening, she mused, and more what people expected from the Black Pearl. *What people expected ...*

While she had been musing, the boy had drawn detail in on the afterdeck. A cabin at the stern, and on top of it three leaping dolphins.

Elizabeth leaned forward, "Matthew, those are good dolphins. You draw very well. You must have had a good look at this ship."

The boy glanced shyly at her and returned to his work.

"Matthew, are you very sure about the dolphins?" Elizabeth tried to keep her tone casual.

In response, Matthew returned to the dolphins, pressing the lines hard, making their shape more emphatic.

Elizabeth left more paper and the basket of food. She aborted her plan to visit the other refugees, and hurried back to her home, missing Will more than ever. Whom could she share her news with?

She had spent days on the Black Pearl. The real Black Pearl had mermaids on the afterdeck.

III

To her surprise, as she approached her cottage, Elizabeth heard voices and the sounds of a struggle inside. She circled to the back window, which was next to the shelf where Will kept a loaded pistol. A huge crash brought her to the window in time to see three men, all in sea-faring, buccaneer garb, one of whom had just overturned her kitchen table. All three men held swords, and one man held in his other hand, a fistful of her gold.

Deftly, Elizabeth knocked open her window, reached in for the pistol, cocked it, and pointed.

"The next man who moves, I shoot!" she yelled into the fray.

Three shocked faces, two light and one dark, turned to face her. The man holding the gold was none other than Captain Jack Sparrow!

"Elizabeth!" cried Sparrow, with an ingenuous grin as if they'd just met at a party.

"Don't move!" she repeated, pointing the pistol directly at him. His grin vanished. "Everyone drop your swords."

"Madam," said the black man, between pants as he caught his breath. "We caught this thief robbing your house."

"Elizabeth, these men are here to kidnap Will. I was going to rescue him."

"That's a bit far-fetched, isn't it, Jack? Can't you do any better than that? Why are you holding my gold?"

"Your gold!" he sputtered. "It's my gold. I trusted you to hold it for me. And I notice a goodly chunk of it is gone."

"Mrs. Turner, is it?" asked the white man. "If I may ..."

She swung the pistol on him. "I'll shoot you if you move," she repeated. "I don't know you." She glanced around outside the house, relieved to see that the proceedings had not gone unnoticed. Two children were watching her with wide eyes.

"Elizabeth," begged Sparrow, "please don't do anything ..."

"John, Eleanor, run and get the guards. Go now!"

"... stupid," Sparrow finished despondently.

The children fled obediently.

The two strange men exchanged nervous glances.

"Mrs. Turner, if you'll put down the pistol, I'm sure we can explain everything in a civil manner."

Elizabeth kept the pistol steady. "I'll be very curious to hear what you're doing in my home. It's obvious why he's here."

Jack fidgeted, his kohl-rimmed eyes glancing at the doors and windows. "Elizabeth, luv, you know your business. You just keep them here. But, ah, I really need to be going."

"No, Jack, don't move. Except to put down my gold."

Jack gave her an indignant look, and stuffed the gold in a coat pocket. "Just shoot me then, Missy."

"Jack?" asked the black man. "Jack Sparrow?"

Jack sighed. "Captain Jack Sparrow, if you please."

While Elizabeth was still trying to decide what to do about Sparrow's defiance, the other two men exploded into action, shoving the kitchen table at her window, and then racing out the open door.

Furious, Elizabeth came around the side of the house, pistol at the ready, as the men sprinted across the grounds and into the refugee camp, where the crowd of innocents protected them from her. But there was still one use for her shot. She whirled around and raced in the door, just as Sparrow made for the open window.

"Avast!" she ordered. It was seamen's language for "stop" but it carried with it the imperative of immediate danger to the hearer or to the ship if the command were not obeyed.

It worked. Perched ludicrously on the window ledge, one leg still dangling inside the cottage, Sparrow jerked up short, swayed and then toppled back inside. He peered up at her with a wounded look from his disarray on the floor.

"What the blazes is going on, Jack?" she demanded, as he picked himself up, found his sword and sheathed it. She heard voices and tramping feet at the bottom of the street.

"Would you put the pistol down, lass?" he asked wearily.

"No! Then you'll run."

"Are you really going to give me to the city guards?" he asked, his gold-capped teeth flashing as he attempted a smile.

Elizabeth hesitated as the sound of feet grew closer.

"Did you sack George Town?" she hissed.

"Not lately, luv."

She dropped her arm, and Sparrow bounded out the window. Ten feet beyond was thick jungle.

Elizabeth glanced toward her door, but the sound of his voice turned her back to the window.

"Meet me at Pirate's Cove at midnight. Bring Will. And bring some food. I'm famished."

Then Sparrow was gone, and the guards were there.

Chapter Three

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