Chapter Ten Chapter Ten Jack
returned from his foray with two flagons of the good white rum, a skin of
water, and some almonds. He doubted Suzanna would eat in the middle of this,
but then you never knew with her.
“I thought this was looking like at least a two flagon conversation,” he
offered, handing her one and getting as comfortable as he could for whatever
came next.
Suzanna nodded appreciatively and sat nursing the rum for a while, while Jack
took several large swallows.
“I can’t talk about what happened the other night without giving you some way
to understand it all, and that means telling you all sorts of other things. I’m
not sure how to do this except to just start. Oh hell, I’ve imagined having
this conversation with you before, Jack, several times, but it didn’t feel like
this—like I had to try to explain everything all at once....” Her voice trailed
off, and she looked very far away.
Jack watched her struggles. “I’m not going anywhere, luv. Take all the time you
need.”
Suzanna took a deep breath.
“I had an amazing amount of fun when I was a little girl, particularly for
someone in my position. Even though my family was royalty and we lived in a
house so big that you could literally get lost enough so that the grown ups
couldn’t find you, we spent a lot of time together. My father spent every
morning in his office receiving visitors and managing correspondence and, of
course in the evening, there were often balls or dinners and so forth. But in
the afternoon we often did things together as a family. I don’t know if you can
appreciate how strange that is, Jack, but no one could really argue with my
father when he made up his mind about something, and that was what he wanted.
We’d go riding or hunting, have wonderful discussions over tea, play
chess....anyway, we were unusually close for a father and daughter, and I was
included in things a great deal. My father loved to talk politics and strategy
and all that. I imagine if he had had a son before me, it might have been
different. But I was 12 by the time my brother was born, and by then the
pattern had been well established. So when the three of us were together, he
and my mother and I, we had a grand time. I think there were many moments,
though of course now I question if I imagined them, when even while it was
happening I realized how lucky I was.”
She took a large swallow.
“When
I was 9 my aunt died, and my mother had to go to
“I know the feeling,” Jack muttered. Truth be told, if Suzanna had not been so
deeply in the past telling her story, she might have stopped to consider the
import of Jack’s comment. But in her mind, she was only 9 years old now and
full of excitement for travel, and the crossing of a far colder sea was what
tugged at her heart and the love of a pirate still beyond her wildest
imaginings.
“We spent 6 months in Brittany, my mother and I, and it was amazing. Actually,”
her eyes shifted now from somewhere far away to those that watched her, “that
was my first time on a ship,” she offered proudly. “I seem to remember that I
drove the captain mad with questions until finally I got him talking about why
he wanted to be a sea captain.”
“Ha!” said Jack. “That would explain a few things. You’ve been practicing
charming sea captains for nigh on 25 years, and saving yourself from the swim
you might have expected after them being subject to your curiosity. Someone
should have told me just how much trouble I was in, really.”
“Anyway,” Suzanna glared at him, mostly in jest, “we had such a glorious time
together, my mother and I. We rode our horses all around, although not on the
beach very often because most of it wasn’t safe. I could tell my mother was
having a wonderful time. Her sister, my aunt, was really a half-sister from her
father’s first wife and was already out of the house and married by the time my
mother came along, so mother wasn’t really sad. It felt glorious to me. I
already knew some French, but I learned Breton, which is a beautiful language
all its own and about my mother’s history. Have you ever been to France, Jack?”
“Only to ports—once to Le Havre but only to change ships when I was just a boy,
and then about a fortnight when I was 18 or so in Marseille. There’s a city
that could give
“Well someday you should see more than just the most notorious ports. There is
so much beauty there. My very favorite place in the whole world is a place
called
“ ‘Eat your breakfast, ‘tite fille,’ my mother told me, ‘and you will see.’ We
sat there for several hours, talking very little but just taking it all in, and
then I realized that the ocean was slowly going away. You could see more of the
sand as the tide receded, and the sun grew stronger and dried things out even
more. Suddenly I saw that people were starting to walk across the sand where
the water had been only moments before, and I even remember a monk in his black
habit riding the smallest little donkey that I could not imagine it could carry
him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My mother laughed with me, and said she still
remembered every detail of the first day she spent there.
“We slowly made our way across the sand, leaving our skirts tied up as we would
for riding. The sand squished between our toes and we could hardly breath for
laughing at first. It smelled all new and full of treasure, and in fact we saw
people now with their small wooden rakes and pails going out to gather mussels
and oysters and other manner of creatures that the sea had deposited upon their
doorsteps—it was like waking up to find a present every morning.
“When we got to the island itself, I could see just how imposing the place was.
There is a street that curves around the whole island with shops and inns and
what not and then it keeps spiraling upward to the abbey and the church itself.
The walls are as thick and as strong as any castle, and at times it is
difficult to tell what was rock and what was crafted by the creator and what by
man.
“We walked all around and ate moules marineres with crusty bread for lunch—I
thought it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. Then we went up to the abbey
itself. Normally, women wouldn’t have been allowed inside, but my mother’s
family was a great benefactor to the abbey and a lovely old priest named Pere
Joseph took us around for a little visit.”
Jack smiled softly at Suzanna, thinking that she was probably completely
unaware that she had slipped into a slight French accent, and the whole cadence
of her voice had changed talking about this time with her mother. It was quite
charming.
“Afterward, we went outside and ate the berries from our picnic while we looked
out at the sand and the sea. My mother asked me, ‘What do you feel here,
Suzanna?’ I was so happy when she asked the question because I had been afraid
to say that I had the impression as if the rocks themselves were singing to me,
a soft hum like you would croon to a lover or a child.
“She smiled and pulled me into her embrace and told me, ‘I have always heard
this music here as well, since I was your age. The priests will tell you that
it is because St. Michael appeared here. But my grandmother told me that the
ocean and the earth have been making love together here far before there were
priests or churches or Romans to hide from. This is just one of those special
places.’ I was so happy that she understood it and felt it too and that
whatever it was, it wouldn’t go away when I got older.
“Anyway
it was a magical day, and I had that same sense again that I’d have playing
chess with my father, while he explained some strategy—that my life was
special, that I was somehow special.” Her expression became very taut and
pained and she added abruptly, “That’s why I’m rambling on about this, so you
can understand what comes next.”
Jack looked back at her, frowning a bit. “Wherever you’re going with this, I’ve
hardly looked bored so far have I? Seems to me I’ve been so busy answering
questions I haven’t asked very many of my own. And I want to hear your stories
as well, luv.”
“Well, I’ve had a lot of practice at making people talk about themselves so
they’ll forget to ask about me,” Suzanna admitted.
Jack watched her as she drank from the bottle. He hadn’t so much as kissed her
since the night in the alley, and his whole body ached with wanting to touch
her. Now. But he also knew that if they were to get back what they had, they
needed to find someway through whatever was happening and Suzanna had the only
map. So he let her keep talking.
“So...we were a happy family with no real quarrels until about my 16th birthday
when the discussions started about husbands. There are girls that have
marriages arranged for them before they’re barely out of the cradle, but that
wasn’t my father’s way. He knew I would never be happy with just anyone. He’d
trained my mind, and he wanted it put to good use. And so began an endless
parade of teas ands soirees and balls and so on and so forth. But in my
experience they were all so bloody boring and my father didn’t have it in him
to force me, although he could have if he’d chosen to. Those 2 years between my
sixteenth and eighteenth birthdays seem so long to me. Handsome young men, or
not so handsome, from good, respectable families being polite and saying the
right things and I felt no spark at all. My father didn’t push, even though it
was becoming something of an embarrassment that I wasn’t yet engaged.”
Jack was about to interject with a snide comment here but watched her face
change instead. In fact, her whole body seemed to get smaller suddenly, and
when she spoke it was in barely a whisper. “It was a few days after my birthday
party. My mother went out for a ride early in the morning and there was an
accident. She was an amazing horsewoman but something happened to throw her,
and she landed wrong and broke her neck…and she died.
“I remember watching my father at the funeral, and really, it was as if he’d
aged 20 years in a few days. All the life had gone out of his face. It’s funny
because as much as I knew he loved my mother, I don’t think I knew how much
until that day. That horse killed both of them.
“First we had to survive the hideous mourning period—all those people coming to
express their condolences, black everywhere, having to dress in black all the
time. There were days I would just stand in my room and scream. I remember one
day I ran out into the garden and started tearing petals off the flowers until
I had a big pile of red and yellow and blue, then I threw myself on the ground
and rolled around in them trying to get the black off of me and the color back
on. After that I just refused to wear mourning clothes anymore or to see anyone
for a while and no one could say anything to me.
“And actually, even though my behavior was considered scandalous, it seemed to
cheer my father up, like he saw some of my mother coming back in me. We started
to do things together again. It wasn’t the same, it could never be the same,
but it was like we weren’t both only dead any more—we were both just a little
alive again.”
This part of the story had cost her, and Suzanna took quite a few big long
gulps very fast. Jack was tempted to tell her to slow down, but he didn’t.
“Well, the only thing that could be called good about this mourning business
was that it put an end to the suitors for a while, but once the year was up,
they returned in droves. Now I was 19, and it really was getting to be
scandalous that I’d not yet married.”
Suzanna took another slug of rum. “One night at a ball, I was introduced to a
man named Benjamin Harcourt. He was about 30, not too much the dandy but well
dressed, and very well spoken. There’s no doubt he was very intelligent as
well, and he had already garnered a lot of favor at court through his wit.
“The next day, he asked permission to call on me, and he came to our home
several times. Actually, he spent more time with my father than with me,
actually, and even beat him at chess, which was no small feat let me tell you.
I only beat my father twice, and I’m still not sure that he didn’t let me win
because he thought I was getting discouraged after all those years of losing
every game.”
Suzanna’s hands belied her calm tone of voice, and it was not lost on Jack that
the bottle and the sheet were undergoing a lot of twisting and tangling.
“After a month or so the inevitable happened, and he asked my father’s
permission to marry me. He never mentioned it to me, mind you; he was going
through proper channels, as it were. Of course, we’d had almost no time alone
together, tradition protecting my sacred virginity and all that, but he did
quite startle me at a ball when he danced me behind a rather large potted plant
and kissed me. I could tell he’d been drinking whiskey, I could taste it, but
the whole experience wasn’t entirely disagreeable. It was more surprising or interesting
than anything else.”
Not how she would describe their first kiss, Jack was certain. Despite all the
lovers he’d been with in his life, that first kiss between them had melted his
bones right out of his body. That fire had been there for them the moment
they’d first set eyes on each other.
Suzanna reached for Jack’s rum now, having finished her own, and rolled it
around her mouth for a while, trying to rinse away a ghost.
“My father came to me with Harcourt’s request—he’d not yet given Harcourt an
answer—and explained that he wanted to talk to me first.” Suzanna sat up now,
tucking her legs underneath her and sitting up a little straighter, almost as
if to give herself the courage now that she couldn’t find all those years ago.
“He wanted to know what I thought. I told him that at least Harcourt was
intelligent - I couldn’t deny that - but that I still had no interest in
marriage, which as far as I could tell, could only make my life worse. I had no
desire to leave my father or become someone else’s property.
“ ‘You mustn’t think of it that way,’ ” he had said.
“Why not? It’s true isn’t it? If I get married nothing will be my own anymore.
I have everything here, why would I want to do this?”
“ ‘Because I can’t protect you forever, Suzanna. I love you, but you are going
to have to find your own way eventually.’ ”
”It seemed by mutual agreement that we let the matter drop between us and we
didn’t speak of it for several weeks. Things were strained, but we both made an
effort.
“That
November was vile. It seemed as if the fog in
“Bastard,” Jack spat. “He gave you no choice...”
Suzanna looked utterly surprised to find someone else in the room. She shook
her head slightly. “I know he had the best intentions. But believe me when I
tell you I have lived that night over thousands of times wondering if I could
have said no and lived with those consequences instead of these...
“So I married Benjamin.” She said his name as if it were the foulest curse she
could think of. “It was huge and elaborate and I left all the details to the
courtiers who managed that sort of thing and I hated every moment of it. I kept
feeling like I would wake up any minute and have my beautiful life back, but it
didn’t happen. And when the priest had declared us man and wife, he really had
to hold me up to walk down the aisle when we left the cathedral or I’d have
fallen over.
“That night, I retired earlier than Benjamin. He stayed up drinking with his
friends for some time, despite the fact that it was his wedding night, and I
laid there in the dark wondering what would happen. Maybe he would be too drunk
or I didn’t know what. Eventually I heard loud voices outside the door and I
saw that chairs had been placed outside our sleeping chambers for the
witnesses.”
“Wait,” interjected Jack. Suzanna saw the confusion on his face. “I’m sorry to
interrupt, luv, but I don’t understand. What do you mean, ‘witnesses’?”
“No, there’d be no reason for you to know. When there’s so much money and land
involved with a marriage, Jack, they need proof of two things: the bride’s
virginity and that her husband did in fact take her for his own. So they sit
outside the bed chamber and wait.”
For one of the few times in his life, Jack Sparrow was completely at a loss for
words.
“He bumped around a bit in the dark, but he wasn’t that drunk. I imagine he
didn’t want to take any chances. I could hear him undressing and felt him crawl
into bed with me and then he climbed on top of me, hiking up my gown. He stuck
his tongue down my throat—I couldn’t call it a kiss—and it was just crystal
clear to me in that moment what this was all about. You know those times when
everything is muddy and confusing and then it just all falls into place and you
can see things as they are. He had played us all so well, and now he was
claiming his prize. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of screaming when he
pushed himself into me. It hurt like hell; I broke the skin on my wrist, biting
myself to keep from screaming. It was strange, how even in the middle of all
this I tasted the blood in my mouth and I thought, that’s what I’m doing now, I
am spilling my blood for this prick. I hated him at that moment and I hated the
world and I hated father for making me promise to do this and I hated for my
mother for leaving me to it.
“When
he was finished, he rolled off me and went to sleep. I lay there just, just...I
don’t know...like I was dead again.
“I didn’t think things could get any worse, but I was wrong. When he woke up in
the morning, he hurried me out of bed and pulled the sheet off and carried it
outside—the blood and semen stains were proof that our marriage had been
consummated, and that I had been pure.
“I can still hear Benjamin saying to me, ‘I’m glad to see you are no longer
indisposed, darling, and our clever girl is back with us.’ The condescension
just dripped from every syllable and more than anything I wanted to fling my
hot tea right in that smirking face, but I held my tongue and smiled instead.
And I thought that he didn’t know how right he was, because the clever girl was
indeed back.
Jack had an idea of how she felt, because he wanted to kill someone right now
too, but there was nothing to do for that, so he was taking a lot of deep
breaths and holding onto her hand. He didn’t remember taking it but, he was
glad for that connection now and a way to anchor her here, with him. But then
she let go.
“So I lived the next 3 years of my life as the world’s greatest actress. We did
all the expected things together, attended all the events, and and his star
continued to be on the rise at court. My father had taught me well, though he
could never have imagined the purpose to which his lessons would be put, and
now I put it all into practice. I learned how to grant and acquire favors and I
made my husband a lot of money but I also managed to hide some of my own.
“When he came to my bed—which mercifully was not very often since he loved to
go out drinking and gambling with his old friends—I would submit but I wouldn’t
pretend. He could pay for that if he wanted it, but he wouldn’t get it from me.
I always had the impression that whatever he did to me, it had nothing to do
with sex for him. It was more like an animal pissing on a tree to mark its
territory.
“You’ve had it all already tonight, that much is obvious, so what do you need
me for?”
“ ‘Because when I want you, I have you!’ he snarled at me. I should have seen
it coming, and I did just at the last minute when I ducked, but I wasn’t quick
enough. He backhanded me across the face and his ring caught and ripped right
along the top of my eye. There was blood everywhere, but it didn’t even slow
him down. He climbed on top of me and this time I fought like hell, I swear I
did, but he was just so much stronger than me and I couldn’t stop him
and...and...” her eyes were wide now and her hands twisted into claws. Suzanna
keened a cry that chilled Jack to his bones and that he could never forget
hearing just once before—in the slave market in
“I lived through it. That’s about all I can say, except it made me even more
determined. If that kind of ruthlessness was what had been my downfall, now it
became my salvation. I learned to beat them all at their own game. I could hear
my father’s voice in my head telling me when to move and why. My plan was to
hide enough money that eventually I could disappear. I would go to
Now she smiled for the first time since she’d talked about her mother, but it
was a slightly disturbing smile. “Then the bastard did the one unbelievably
kind thing for which I will always be grateful. He got himself killed.
Apparently he was coming home drunk and got into a fight on a bridge and either
got pushed or fell off and then drowned. I had to look very serious when they
came to tell me, but when the door was closed, I shrieked with delight and went
running outside in the garden to tell my parents we’d won.
“I had to learn how to live like some sort of real person again, someone whose
life wasn’t consumed by getting away or getting even, and that’s when I started
writing. As a widow, I was in the best position I could possibly be in. I’d
been married, which made me respectable, and I owned my titles and lands so
they couldn’t be taken away. I finally got to try to make my life about what I
wanted. The writing started as a way to think, really, but then it just grew
from there.”
They were both quiet for a while. A long while. He didn’t want to push her, but
they had to finish this. “So the other night in the alley brought it all back
again?”
She nodded. “Feeling helpless and at somebody’s mercy—no mercy—I hated it. I
hate it. I wanted to fight, but if I moved, I thought he would cut me for sure.
I was terrified all over again. I haven’t felt that in such a long time, and I
didn’t know how to begin to tell you all this...”
“So are you angry with me, then, for letting it happen? I’m angry as hell at
myself...”
“No!” She answered sharply, cutting him off. “I’m not done yet.”
She was gripping his hands really tightly. Jack relaxed some more and took a
deep breath trying to get her to do the same.
She looked up at him a little frantically, so Jack chose his words carefully.
“I’m a pirate, luv. And I suppose that’s what you’d call a unique perspective.
But it seems to me that every man…or woman…has things they’re willing to die
for and things they’re willing to fight for. I think fighting takes a lot more
courage.”
She hadn’t expected it, but Suzanna felt much of the tension start to drain out
of her body at Jack’s words.
He let her sit with that for a while, before he added, “I will tell you one
thing, though. I wish the miserable prick was still alive just so I could kill
’em for ye.”
Suzanna stared for a moment and then truly laughed for the first time in 3
days. “Jack, that may be the most romantic thing you’ve said to me yet.”
And they were back. The laugh changed to hysteria and tears again fairly
quickly, but now they were facing them together, Suzanna stretched out on top
of Jack with her head cradled on his cheek.
When the tears were done and the warmth and friction of their bodies together
began to turn the tide, Jack found himself at a loss with a woman for the first
time in many, many years. He felt like a virgin again—desperate to touch her
but afraid to do so after all she’d told him. It was bizarre. He should be
comforting her and, instead, here she was seducing him, reassuring him. Her
hands ran over his chest and back up along his sides, and he gasped as she
suckled at his neck and buried her face there. His desire raging
but his touches were feather light and she teased kisses out of him, feeling
his reluctance.
Suzanna felt a flash of uncertainty that perhaps he didn’t want her anymore now
that he knew, but it left as quickly as it arrived. They’d shared too much
together for her to believe that. And she trusted him.
She reached between them, feeling how hard he was as she rubbed lightly against
him with one hand, while her other unbuttoned her shirt. Finally she took his
hands in hers and brought them to her breasts where they began to tentatively
stroke and explore. Reaching her hand inside his breeches she leaned over and
kissed him again, pressing her breasts further into his hands as she did so. “Jack,”
she groaned, “I want you and I need you. Now.” She bit his lip, and he believed
her.
All the frustration and wanting of the last 3 days surged forward in a rush. Jack kissed her fiercely, stripping off his pants and her shirt to feel as much skin as possible. He brought her down on top of him, wanting her to be in control, but no longer hesitant as he pulsed within her, his lips and tongue ravishing her nipples while his fingers sought to bring her release. She set the rhythm, but it was his as well, and it almost hurt it was so sweet, neither wanting it to end but unable to slow down, both desperate to chase away the pain and fill the space with each other. This time it was Jack that would not let her go, and they fell asleep with him still inside her, both of them finally home.