PotC fic: Carpe Diem (One-shot, Norrington/Elizabeth, G)
Title: Carpe Diem
Author: marinarusalka
Rating: G
Characters: Norrington and Elizabeth, about a year before the movie
Summary: Elizabeth Swann is becoming a fine woman. James Norrington is starting to notice.
Disclaimer: Disney owns Norrington, Elizabeth, and everything else connected to PotC. And I don't. Bummer.
Notes: Look! I wrote a PotC story that's not six chapters long! Huge thanks to galadhir and fabu for beta reading, and to shezan for help with the French.
"His Excellency has not yet returned, Sir." The footman managed to look simultaneously officious and apologetic as he ushered Norrington inside. "He has sent a message instructing me to convey his apologies, and to offer you refreshment in the blue parlor should you decide to wait."
"I think I will wait, thank you." Norrington handed over his hat. The delay was not entirely unexpected. A delegation from England had arrived two days before, bearing royal decrees and instructions and throwing all of Port Royal into disarray. Swann had been pressed into accompanying some of the emissaries to a cricket match earlier in the day, and cricket matches took however long they took, regardless of the spectators' dinner plans. Norrington had been dining with the Governor for over seven years now, on as near to a regular basis as their respective duties allowed. He was accustomed to these occasional waits.
Settled in a comfortable chair with a glass of claret and a six-month old copy of the Naval Gazette, Norrington felt quite prepared to sit in solitude for several hours if need be. But he barely had time to turn a page before a burst of noise on the other side of the parlor door attracted his attention. There was a dull thump, followed by a distressed girlish squeal, followed by a stream of French in an unfamiliar female voice. Norrington laid the Gazette aside and went to investigate.
Elizabeth Swann was standing in the hallway, looking unusually harassed. Behind her, a tall, bony woman made even taller by a great quantity of pale blond hair was scowling in obvious disapproval. A book lay on the floor at Elizabeth's feet. Norrington bent to retrieve it.
"Good evening, Miss Swann. And, uhm…"
"That's Madame Laurent," Elizabeth said sulkily. "She doesn't speak any English. And if you speak bad French at her, she will sneer and give a lecture."
"Je suis ravi de faire votre connaissance, Madame.," Norrington said politely. Apparently, his French passed muster, because Madame Laurent favored him with a disdainful sniff and an icily muttered "Bon soir, Monsieur" before fixing her glare on Elizabeth.
"Mademoiselle Swann. Veuillez reprendre votre livre et reprenez depuis le début."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Oui, oui, tout de suite!," she grumbled, then summoned up a polite smile for Norrington. "May I have my book, please, Captain?"
"Yes, of course. My apologies." He handed it over, noting the gold-embossed lettering on the spine as he did so. "Plutarch's Lives? Not your usual choice of reading, I believe." Elizabeth's reading tastes ran to novels and sensational accounts of sea voyages, particularly if pirates or shipwrecks were involved.
"Oh, I'm not reading it." Elizabeth regarded the book with distaste before placing it on top of her head. It wobbled there for a moment, but stabilized when she adjusted her posture. "I must take a turn through every room in the house without dropping this bl-- stupid book, and I only had two rooms left on this floor, and now I have to start all over again. Why is the knob on this door set so low?"
"I'm sure I don't know," Norrington said. A humorous speculation about the height of the previous occupants sprang to mind, but he did not voice it. He had never really found the knack of conversing with Elizabeth Swann. During the first months of their acquaintance, on the voyage from England, he'd begun by unthinkingly addressing her in the same tone he was accustomed to using with the junior midshipmen. This had seemed to suit her well enough, but Swann had disapproved, which left Norrington at a loss. A life spent mostly at sea since age twelve had afforded him few opportunities to converse with young females. He'd thought back to his sisters, but Margaret was six years older than he, and Georgiana was a soft, frilly, giggly creature entirely unlike Elizabeth. It was quite impossible to imagine Georgiana wading barefoot through a tide pool or climbing a tree or teaching an apprentice blacksmith to read. Stymied, Norrington had resorted to polite formality. The Governor had voiced no further objections, which was a relief, but he was left with a suspicion that Elizabeth found him stultifyingly boring.
Boring or not, she seemed pleased enough with his company now. "Would you walk with me, Captain? You can tell me if my chin starts to droop and warn me of carpet-edges and low doorknobs. Maybe then I'll have some chance of managing this."
"Will Madame approve?"
Elizabeth heaved a great sigh, making the Plutarch wobble again. "Does it matter? Please, Captain Norrington. I've been trying to do this for five hours straight."
"All right, then. Chin up." Norrington held out his arm. Elizabeth took it gingerly and he steered her into the parlor, ignoring Madame Laurent's cries of "Çà ne va pas du tout!"
They circled the parlor slowly. Elizabeth's face was set in a frown of intense concentration. When they reached the door again she hesitated for a moment, then dipped, holding her spine perfectly straight, grasped the treacherous doorknob with a firm hand and glided into the hallway without mishap.
"Very good," Norrington said as they inched their way down the corridor toward the library. "May I ask the purpose of this exercise?"
"Comportment lessons," Elizabeth said glumly. "Father says I'm allowed to come and dance at his next ball. So he sent Miss Dobson away and hired Madame Laurent as my new governess. Madame is teaching me etiquette, and all the new dance steps, and how to walk around with Plutarch on my head."
So Swann had decided it was time for his daughter to enter society. Not very surprising, that. Elizabeth was nearly eighteen -- would be eighteen by the time the ball took place. And the Governor's annual ball reigned unchallenged as the social occasion of the year. In the past, Elizabeth had been known to complain bitterly about being confined upstairs while all of Jamaican high society disported itself in her father's ballroom.
"You don't sound very pleased," Norrington said. "I thought you'd been wanting to dance."
"I thought so too." Elizabeth smiled ruefully. "But that was before I discovered how much work it was going to be. And for what? I've been sneaking out to watch the dancing from the upstairs landing every year since I was twelve, and not once in all these years have I ever seen a single woman with a book on her head. I can't imagine what possible good this is supposed to be doing me."
Norrington wanted to say, "Perhaps it's the latest Paris fashion?" What he said instead was, "I'm sure there's a purpose to it." And truth to tell, the book's presence was forcing Elizabeth into an unusually straight posture and a smooth, gliding walk that would serve her well on the dance floor. She did not look ready to be convinced of it, however, and Norrington decided not to press the point.
"Here's the library door," he said. "Careful, there's a little ridge here where one rug overlaps the other."
"Thank you." Elizabeth bit her lip in concentration as she negotiated the ridge. "This is ridiculous. Do society ladies really never look at their feet?"
Norrington privately agreed that it was ridiculous, but it was not his place to further undermine Madame Laurent's obviously shaky authority.
"Let's just get it over with," he said. "Watch out for that footstool."
The library. The yellow parlor. Three guest bedrooms, one after the other. Norrington had never before appreciated just how many rooms the Governor's mansion had. Swann had given him a tour of the place years ago, during his first dinner visit, but that wasn't quite the same as inching round at a snail's pace with a clearly miserable seventeen-year-old girl on his arm and a disapproving French governess trailing behind. The drawing room, the music room, the stairs... Norrington had a moment's qualm at the stairs, but Elizabeth set her jaw, gripped the banister with her free hand and made her way down with barely a wobble.
"Good show," Norrington said. Elizabeth gave him a wan smile.
"I really should apologize. I'm sure this isn't the way you'd intended to spend your evening when you came here."
"My pleasure," Norrington assured her. "I'm only sorry I won't be there to see all that effort pay off when you dance at the ball."
"Won't be there?" Elizabeth frowned. "But Father always invites you."
"New orders. I'll be taking the Bonaventure around the Horn and up the Pacific coast. There are rumors that the Spanish are amassing a fleet in Santiago. I'm to see if this is true."
"But we're not at war with Spain… are we?"
"Not at the moment. If the rumors are true, that might change."
Elizabeth's frown deepened, though Norrington couldn't be sure if this was due to thoughts of war or to the fact that they'd just reached the entrance to the dining room. Norrington opened the big double doors for her, ignoring Madame Laurent's protest. Surely, at no other time in her life would Elizabeth be expected to open heavy doors for herself. Elizabeth smiled at him as he guided her through.
"Well, I do hope there isn't a war. But… you'll be going round Cape Horn, then? I'm sure that'll be terribly exciting!"
"I hope not," Norrington said dryly. He'd gone around the Horn twice in the course of his career, and once was more than enough to learn that excitement was the last thing one wanted on the voyage. His answer seemed to disappoint Elizabeth, however. She stopped smiling and stared straight ahead in silence while they toured the dining room, the smoking room, the billiards room and the front hall.
The ballroom was last. Elizabeth gave a triumphant shriek when they entered it, snatched the Plutarch from her head and hurled it across the room with surprising force. The book struck the opposite wall and bounced back a foot to land on the floor, open and face down.
"Miss Swann! It's not the book's fault." Norrington retrieved the abused volume, checking the spine for damage before tucking it away in his coat pocket. "I will return it to the library."
"Do whatever you like with it." Elizabeth collapsed into one of the chairs that stood in a row against the back wall. She kicked off her shoes, pulled her left foot into her lap and began to rub it. Madame Laurent yelped. Elizabeth startled, looked guilty, and hastily planted both feet on the floor, though she continued to slouch in her seat in a manner that even the tolerant Miss Dobson would've found scandalous. "Pardon," she murmured to Madame, then wrinkled her nose at Norrington. "I don't know what aches more," she complained, "my neck or my feet."
"Epsom salts," Norrington said. Elizabeth gave him a puzzled look. "For the feet. My father always swore by it for his gout."
"Oh," Elizabeth said, and Norrington got the distinct feeling that, Cape Horn notwithstanding, he'd just reaffirmed his status as a stultifying bore. For some reason, this time it bothered him.
"I believe I'll just sit here for a while." Elizabeth fanned herself with one hand. "I've earned it, don't you think?"
"Indeed you have." Norrington decided that he'd earned it too and sat down one chair over. "I think you can justifiably take pride in your accomplishment."
"Some accomplishment -- being led about the house like a dog on a leash." Elizabeth sighed and seemed to wilt a little. "What if it doesn't work?" she said in a small voice.
"What if what doesn't work?"
"The comportment lessons. It took me over a week just to learn to do this, and I'm still getting all the dance steps mixed up, and Madame Laurent says I'm impossible, and-- do you think I'm a hoyden?"
"I beg your pardon?" Norrington just barely managed to turn his spasm of hilarity into a neutral cough.
"Mrs. Hodgkins thinks I'm a hoyden. I heard her say so to Cook two days ago." Mrs. Hodgkins was Swann's housekeeper, a tiny, terrifying woman who ran the household staff with all the efficiency of a well-drilled ship's crew.
"I don't think you're a hoyden," Norrington said solemnly. Elizabeth didn't appear to hear him.
"I'm to have lessons on how to hold a fan tomorrow. Why does one need lessons on how to hold a fan? Is there a secret to it? Have I been doing it wrong all these years?"
"I have no idea," Norrington admitted. Elizabeth sank down a little lower in her chair.
"I'll never get all these things right," she said miserably. "It's going to be my first ball, and I will clomp about like a big clumsy donkey and no one will want to dance with me."
Norrington thought it highly unlikely that the Governor's daughter would go partnerless at the Governor's ball, but he suspected that it wasn't what Elizabeth needed to hear at the moment. He was trying to formulate a compliment that would restore her spirits yet still pass muster if Madame turned out to know more English than she let on, when Elizabeth smiled at him again.
"It's a shame you won't be there," she said wistfully, "then I would've had at least one partner. You would've danced with me, wouldn't you?"
"I would," Norrington said. And then, before he had time to think about it, "I will."
Elizabeth blinked at him. "What?"
"I will come to the ball and dance with you. Even if I have to fight off every other man in Port Royal, which I probably will."
"B-but… your orders… won't you be in the Pacific?"
"Not if I complete my mission by then. I'll just have to make good time, that's all."
It could be done. The Bonaventure was a fast ship and he had a fine, handpicked crew to sail her. If the winds were favorable and nothing unforeseen occurred-- well, all right, something unforeseen always occurred. But still, it could be done.
"I will be there," he said, "but you must promise to save me a minuet. I would hate to rush back all the way from the Pacific only to discover all your dances have been spoken for."
Elizabeth's glum expression vanished in an instant, to be replaced by a smile so incandescently hopeful that Norrington found himself wishing he could dance with her right then and there, just to keep her looking like that.
"A minuet. Very well, then, Captain. You have my word."
She held out her hand, and Norrington shook it. "And you have mine."
As it happened, the Bonaventure docked in Port Royal on the morning of the day of the Governor's Ball. Norrington hadn't intended to cut it that close. They'd made good time on the voyage, and had been well on their way to arriving with over a week to spare. But after the gale that had caught them at the Horn, Norrington frankly considered himself fortunate to be arriving anywhere at all. They'd fetched up much further east than intended, and spent several frantic days repairing the rigging on a frozen spit of land populated by penguins and fat, barking seals. Now, weeks later, the boatswain still wore a look of permanent confusion at his captain's adamant insistence on limping all the way to Jamaica under a jury rig instead of stopping in Barbados for repairs.
Norrington himself knew it was foolish. He entertained no illusions about Elizabeth even remembering their last conversation, let alone taking it seriously enough to reserve a dance for him all these months later. And the whole thing was shamefully frivolous, really, unworthy of an officer's consideration. Nonetheless, he had given his word. He would do all in his power to keep it.
By the middle of the afternoon, it looked as if all in his power might not be enough. The Bonaventure had been unloaded and drydocked, all his reports delivered, the men released to wreak merry havoc on shore, and Norrington had just had time to return home and sort through the mountain of accumulated mail to find his invitation when a messenger boy arrived with a note requesting him to take five o'clock tea with Commodore Peyton.
Only the boy's presence prevented Norrington from expressing his reaction in language that would've quite startled anyone who knew him. The last thing he needed now was tea with the commodore. Peyton himself would be attending the ball, of course, but the man was always late -- how a navy officer managed to survive and flourish without developing the slightest grasp of time was surely one of God's mysteries. And Norrington, faced with an invitation from a superior officer, was now doomed to be late himself.
There was nothing to be done for it. Norrington sent the boy away with a shilling and a hastily scribbled acceptance and sent Jennings to fetch his dress uniform. Perhaps he could save some time by going straight from Peyton's house to the Governor's mansion.
Peyton received him with a great deal of smiling and backslapping. He was a pink, paunchy, jovial man who had almost never gone to sea since his appointment as commodore. A bad sailor but an excellent administrator, he had delegated all military tasks to his captains with great success, and the squadron had prospered in his charge. Norrington liked the man well enough most of the time, so he swallowed his impatience and did his best to be civil. There were endless cups of tea, and detailed questions about his voyage, and more sandwiches than any rational man could possibly wish to eat before dancing, and more questions -- strangely probing and detailed ones about Norrington's family, connections and political opinions. Norrington answered cautiously, sipped his tea and waited for Peyton to reveal his purpose.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, Peyton leaned back in his chair and dabbed at his lips with a napkin.
"All right, young man," he said cheerfully, "you can stop fidgeting. I'm about to come to the point."
"Sir." Norrington, who hadn't been aware of fidgeting, put down the watercress sandwich he'd been pretending to nibble for ten minutes and sat up ramrod-straight.
Peyton's grin widened. "I had dinner with Admiral Beckett in Nassau last week," he said. "He has informed me that he intends to retire upon his sixtieth birthday, in July of next year."
It took Norrington only a moment to grasp the full significance of this news. Peyton was currently the seniormost captain on the navy list. With Beckett's retirement, he would achieve flag rank.
"Congratulations, sir."
"Thank you, Captain. But I didn't summon you here only to gloat over my own good fortune. Once the promotion is official, there is a good chance I'll be given Beckett's post in the Bahamas. In that case, I intend to recommend that the Admiralty appoint you commodore here in my place."
"Sir." Norrington carefully put his cup down and took a deep breath. "I-- that's-- there are far more senior captains in the squadron, sir."
"So there are." Peyton didn't seem especially concerned by this. "I will take Dougherty and Greene with me -- that'll spare you some trouble. The others, you'll have to deal with. There will be resentment, of course. Petty jealousies. Some political shenanigans behind your back, perhaps. But I believe you can sort them out." He folded his hands across his paunch and tapped his thumbs against his waistcoat. "Yes, I do believe you'll sort them out, Captain Norrington. You'd better. The Jamaica squadron is too important to be handed over to a random idiot with seniority. I'm placing my bets on you."
"You honor me, sir." Norrington felt his face grow warm. "I'll endeavor to live up to it."
"I don't doubt it," Peyton said placidly and flipped open his pocket watch. "My goodness, look at the time. Give me a few minutes to dress, Captain, and you may join me in my carriage to the Governor's mansion."
They arrived forty minutes late, which was remarkably punctual by Peyton's standards. Norrington could hear the last lively notes of a gavotte fading into the warm evening air as he presented his invitation at the door. There was laughter and the soft murmur of voices and the clinking of wine glasses. After months at sea, entering a ballroom felt like entering a new world, more alien and exotic than anything in the Pacific. Norrington found himself nodding at people he only vaguely recognized, muttering responses to greetings he could barely hear. A glass of champagne materialized in his hand seemingly by magic. He drained it, and a servant with a tray instantly appeared to retrieve it.
He should've been seeking out Swann to pay his respects. Instead, Norrington found himself scanning the room for Elizabeth. He wished he knew what she was supposed to be wearing. It was difficult to make out individual faces in a rustling, shifting sea of colorful gowns, fluttering fans and elaborate hairstyles. Norrington wondered if she was enjoying herself, if she'd had time to discover just how baseless her fears had been. If she had noticed that he was late and assumed he wasn't coming. Not that it mattered; he just didn't care for the idea of Elizabeth -- of anyone -- thinking him to be careless with his promises.
The orchestra began a galliarde. Since he had no partner yet, Norrington accepted another glass of champagne and stopped to watch the dancers. For a moment, his view was blocked by a pair of stout civilian backs in exquisitely tailored brocade coats. Then the backs moved away, engaged in hushed conversation about lumber prices, and Norrington saw Elizabeth.
She was wearing a gown of pale aquamarine brocade, embroidered with silver thread and seed pearls, a froth of silver bullion lace at each cuff. There was a string of pearls around her neck and a matching clasp in her hair. She looked giddy, flushed and smiling as she glided across the floor on the arm of William DeLacey, heir to the DeLacey plantation and the eighty thousand pounds that were rumored to come with it. As the dance brought them closer together, DeLacey said something that made her laugh. Elizabeth broke form just long enough to swat him on the shoulder with her fan, then recovered and floated through the next movement so smoothly, her feet hardly seemed to touch the floor at all.
Norrington's mouth went abruptly dry. He took as sip of his drink. It didn't help. Surely it was some odd trick of the candlelight that made most of the dance floor recede into the background like that, turning all couples but one into faint shadows. Or perhaps he needed to take it easy on the champagne…
"Norrington! I didn't know you were back." Captain Dougherty of the Dauntless bore down on him with a plump, pink-faced woman in tow. "You know my wife Anna, don't you? Excuse us a moment, dear. So what's the news, Norrington? Are we going to war with the Spaniards?"
Norrington forced himself to turn and make polite conversation with the senior captain. It was hard to concentrate. In the corner of his vision, a pale silvery-blue cloud swirled in and out of sight in time with the music. It seemed impossible that he should be expected to pay attention to anything else. But Dougherty was walking away toward the refreshments table and Norrington was forced to follow. A couple of minutes spent in discussing nautical matters, with Elizabeth out of sight, served to steady him. Too long at sea, that was his problem. A perfectly reasonable explanation for this ludicrous overreaction to the sight of a girl he'd known for years. He needed time to reacclimate, that's all. And maybe another drink.
Doughterty collected his wife and moved on, looking faintly disappointed at the discovery that they were not going to war with Spain after all. Norrington remained where he was. He noted absently that the music had stopped, and wondered if he should make more of an effort to mingle. Find Swann, find a partner for the next dance…
"Captain Norrington, you're here!"
Norrington spun around. His just-acquired composure met Elizabeth's smile and shattered like glass.
"M-miss Swann. You look… very fine." He was aware that he sounded appallingly stiff and over-formal, but there was nothing to be done for it. He could be over-formal or he could make a spectacle of himself. There seemed no middle ground left to him, somehow.
"Thank you." Elizabeth favored him with a graceful curtsy, her posture Plutarch-perfect, then completely spoiled the effect by bouncing on her feet and clapping her hands. "Oh, I'm so glad you're here! I asked Father last night, and he said the Bonaventure hadn't come in yet."
She'd been asking about him? Norrington's attempt at a polite expression threatened to dissolve into a grin. He controlled it with an effort. "We came in this morning."
"So I see. And there I was, thinking you weren't going to make it in time."
"Of course I made it in time," Norrington said sternly. "I gave you my word."
"Oh, I remember. But that was months ago, and you had so far to travel… I was beginning to worry that I'd have to sit out the minuet -- and after all the trouble Madame Laurent had gone through to teach it to me. I'd turned away four partners for it already."
She'd turned away dance partners. Norrington felt rather like the bubbles in his champagne, ready to float to the ceiling and burst. "I didn't think you'd remember," he admitted.
"Of course I remembered." Elizabeth drew herself up and mimicked Norrington's tone and accent with devastating accuracy. "I gave you my word."
"Indeed you have." Norrington decided that he could risk a small smile without disgracing himself. "I apologize for ever having doubted you. Can you forgive me?"
"Well…" Elizabeth tapped her fan against her chin and pretended to look pensive for a moment. "Just this once. Oh, there go the musicians again. I promised Lieutenant Brown I'd dance a reel with him. I'll meet you on the floor for the minuet in twenty minutes, Captain." And she darted back toward the dance floor, where a gangling young idiot in a Marines uniform was waiting for her.
Twenty minutes. It began to dawn on Norrington, far too late, that he was about to make himself extremely conspicuous. What the devil had he been thinking? If he'd had any wits about him at all, he would've asked Elizabeth to join him in a cotillion, or one of the country dances that made up most of the ball. Then they would've been just one of dozens of couples prancing around the dance floor, nothing to attract notice. Instead, he was about to monopolize both the floor and the Governor's daughter. For a dance he hadn't attempted in years and had had no chance to rehearse beforehand. Bloody hell.
Norrington spent the next twenty minutes in the corridor outside the ballroom, tapping his fingers against his leg in three-quarter time and frantically reviewing the steps in his mind.
Elizabeth must've had matters well in hand, for by the time he came back into the room, the floor was clear and she was waiting for him. A number of young men were glaring at him with sullen resentment. A number of women were whispering behind their fans. Swann himself, resplendent in peacock-blue brocade and snowy lace, surveyed the scene wth an indulgent smile. Norrington thought his spine might crack from the effort of keeping it straight. And then Elizabeth smiled and held out her hand to him, and he forgot there were other people in the room.
Afterwards, he found it rather unfair that the only part of the dance he could recall clearly was Elizabeth urgently whispering, "Right hand turn… no, your right!" somewhere near the half-way point. He thought he'd done tolerably well the rest of the time -- no one was openly smirking when they left the floor -- but the whole experience was a blur.
When clarity returned, he found himself on the terrace, leaning heavily against the wrought-iron railing. It felt good to be outdoors for a little while. The evening air felt cool in comparison to the stifling closeness of the ballroom, and he could smell the sea.
"A fine performance back there." Swann stepped through the French doors, carrying a glass of claret in each hand. He handed one to Norrington and raised the other for a toast. "Welcome back, Captain. It's good to see you safe in Port Royal again."
"Thank you, Governor." Norrington clinked his glass against Swann's. "It's good to be back."
They stood for a while in companionable silence, watching the dancing couples spin merrily past the open doors. From time to time, Norrington caught a glimpse of Elizabeth on the arm of some clumsy young oaf he vaguely recognized as the nephew of the retiring Admiral Beckett.
"She hasn't danced with the same partner twice all evening, has she?"
"No, not once." Swann was smiling easily enough, but his voices sounded a little wistful. "My little Lizzie. The belle of the ball. And she was so terrified beforehand."
"I can't imagine why. She's an excellent dancer."
"You two made a handsome couple." Swann smiled into his drink. "I hope you found her a good partner." He took another small sip, then put his glass down on the stone table in the corner and adjusted his cuffs before picking it up again. "I'd better go back in. Wouldn't do for the host to disappear for too long, would it? What about you, Captain?"
"I'll be in shortly," Norrington said. His voice sounded slightly strangled to his own ears, but Swann didn't seem to notice.
Alone on the terrace again, Norrington gazed out into the moonlit garden and tried to collect his thoughts. It appeared -- all the evidence was for it, really -- that he was falling in love with Elizabeth Swann. Which was unexpected. And disconcerting. But not, when he really considered it, such a terrible thing.
He could, perhaps, have found an easier woman to settle his heart on. Elizabeth was… Norrington sighed and twirled his wineglass and in his fingers as he mentally sorted through all the adjectives that leapt to mind. Willful. Stubborn. Spoiled. Blithely accustomed to having her own way. But also clever and spirited, with a humor that matched well with his. Unconventional, in both the worst and the best ways. It would never grow dull, he thought, being in love with Elizabeth Swann.
Her father approved, if Norrington was reading his words correctly. He wondered if Commodore Peyton had spoken to Swann about his plans. A mere post-captain was not, perhaps, the most desirable match for the governor's daughter. But the commodore of the Jamaica squadron… that was a different story.
It might not happen, of course. Peyton might not succeed in getting his appointment confirmed. But Peyton usually did succeed, when dealings with the Admiralty were involved. And if it was a year before the promotion came through… well, it would probably take that long to win Elizabeth over, to make her see him as something more than merely another dull friend of her father's. Norrington thought he might've made a good start on it. She did save the minuet for him. And the way she gaily switched partners with every dance suggested that her heart was free. He had a good as chance as anyone. Better than most, considering his friendship with the family.
Yes, Norrington decided, that was the way to go. He would wait for his promotion to come through and then, if the way seemed favorable, he would speak. It was always important, after all, to do things at their proper time.
The End
Feedback makes me squee and do the happy dance.
Author: marinarusalka
Rating: G
Characters: Norrington and Elizabeth, about a year before the movie
Summary: Elizabeth Swann is becoming a fine woman. James Norrington is starting to notice.
Disclaimer: Disney owns Norrington, Elizabeth, and everything else connected to PotC. And I don't. Bummer.
Notes: Look! I wrote a PotC story that's not six chapters long! Huge thanks to galadhir and fabu for beta reading, and to shezan for help with the French.
"His Excellency has not yet returned, Sir." The footman managed to look simultaneously officious and apologetic as he ushered Norrington inside. "He has sent a message instructing me to convey his apologies, and to offer you refreshment in the blue parlor should you decide to wait."
"I think I will wait, thank you." Norrington handed over his hat. The delay was not entirely unexpected. A delegation from England had arrived two days before, bearing royal decrees and instructions and throwing all of Port Royal into disarray. Swann had been pressed into accompanying some of the emissaries to a cricket match earlier in the day, and cricket matches took however long they took, regardless of the spectators' dinner plans. Norrington had been dining with the Governor for over seven years now, on as near to a regular basis as their respective duties allowed. He was accustomed to these occasional waits.
Settled in a comfortable chair with a glass of claret and a six-month old copy of the Naval Gazette, Norrington felt quite prepared to sit in solitude for several hours if need be. But he barely had time to turn a page before a burst of noise on the other side of the parlor door attracted his attention. There was a dull thump, followed by a distressed girlish squeal, followed by a stream of French in an unfamiliar female voice. Norrington laid the Gazette aside and went to investigate.
Elizabeth Swann was standing in the hallway, looking unusually harassed. Behind her, a tall, bony woman made even taller by a great quantity of pale blond hair was scowling in obvious disapproval. A book lay on the floor at Elizabeth's feet. Norrington bent to retrieve it.
"Good evening, Miss Swann. And, uhm…"
"That's Madame Laurent," Elizabeth said sulkily. "She doesn't speak any English. And if you speak bad French at her, she will sneer and give a lecture."
"Je suis ravi de faire votre connaissance, Madame.," Norrington said politely. Apparently, his French passed muster, because Madame Laurent favored him with a disdainful sniff and an icily muttered "Bon soir, Monsieur" before fixing her glare on Elizabeth.
"Mademoiselle Swann. Veuillez reprendre votre livre et reprenez depuis le début."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Oui, oui, tout de suite!," she grumbled, then summoned up a polite smile for Norrington. "May I have my book, please, Captain?"
"Yes, of course. My apologies." He handed it over, noting the gold-embossed lettering on the spine as he did so. "Plutarch's Lives? Not your usual choice of reading, I believe." Elizabeth's reading tastes ran to novels and sensational accounts of sea voyages, particularly if pirates or shipwrecks were involved.
"Oh, I'm not reading it." Elizabeth regarded the book with distaste before placing it on top of her head. It wobbled there for a moment, but stabilized when she adjusted her posture. "I must take a turn through every room in the house without dropping this bl-- stupid book, and I only had two rooms left on this floor, and now I have to start all over again. Why is the knob on this door set so low?"
"I'm sure I don't know," Norrington said. A humorous speculation about the height of the previous occupants sprang to mind, but he did not voice it. He had never really found the knack of conversing with Elizabeth Swann. During the first months of their acquaintance, on the voyage from England, he'd begun by unthinkingly addressing her in the same tone he was accustomed to using with the junior midshipmen. This had seemed to suit her well enough, but Swann had disapproved, which left Norrington at a loss. A life spent mostly at sea since age twelve had afforded him few opportunities to converse with young females. He'd thought back to his sisters, but Margaret was six years older than he, and Georgiana was a soft, frilly, giggly creature entirely unlike Elizabeth. It was quite impossible to imagine Georgiana wading barefoot through a tide pool or climbing a tree or teaching an apprentice blacksmith to read. Stymied, Norrington had resorted to polite formality. The Governor had voiced no further objections, which was a relief, but he was left with a suspicion that Elizabeth found him stultifyingly boring.
Boring or not, she seemed pleased enough with his company now. "Would you walk with me, Captain? You can tell me if my chin starts to droop and warn me of carpet-edges and low doorknobs. Maybe then I'll have some chance of managing this."
"Will Madame approve?"
Elizabeth heaved a great sigh, making the Plutarch wobble again. "Does it matter? Please, Captain Norrington. I've been trying to do this for five hours straight."
"All right, then. Chin up." Norrington held out his arm. Elizabeth took it gingerly and he steered her into the parlor, ignoring Madame Laurent's cries of "Çà ne va pas du tout!"
They circled the parlor slowly. Elizabeth's face was set in a frown of intense concentration. When they reached the door again she hesitated for a moment, then dipped, holding her spine perfectly straight, grasped the treacherous doorknob with a firm hand and glided into the hallway without mishap.
"Very good," Norrington said as they inched their way down the corridor toward the library. "May I ask the purpose of this exercise?"
"Comportment lessons," Elizabeth said glumly. "Father says I'm allowed to come and dance at his next ball. So he sent Miss Dobson away and hired Madame Laurent as my new governess. Madame is teaching me etiquette, and all the new dance steps, and how to walk around with Plutarch on my head."
So Swann had decided it was time for his daughter to enter society. Not very surprising, that. Elizabeth was nearly eighteen -- would be eighteen by the time the ball took place. And the Governor's annual ball reigned unchallenged as the social occasion of the year. In the past, Elizabeth had been known to complain bitterly about being confined upstairs while all of Jamaican high society disported itself in her father's ballroom.
"You don't sound very pleased," Norrington said. "I thought you'd been wanting to dance."
"I thought so too." Elizabeth smiled ruefully. "But that was before I discovered how much work it was going to be. And for what? I've been sneaking out to watch the dancing from the upstairs landing every year since I was twelve, and not once in all these years have I ever seen a single woman with a book on her head. I can't imagine what possible good this is supposed to be doing me."
Norrington wanted to say, "Perhaps it's the latest Paris fashion?" What he said instead was, "I'm sure there's a purpose to it." And truth to tell, the book's presence was forcing Elizabeth into an unusually straight posture and a smooth, gliding walk that would serve her well on the dance floor. She did not look ready to be convinced of it, however, and Norrington decided not to press the point.
"Here's the library door," he said. "Careful, there's a little ridge here where one rug overlaps the other."
"Thank you." Elizabeth bit her lip in concentration as she negotiated the ridge. "This is ridiculous. Do society ladies really never look at their feet?"
Norrington privately agreed that it was ridiculous, but it was not his place to further undermine Madame Laurent's obviously shaky authority.
"Let's just get it over with," he said. "Watch out for that footstool."
The library. The yellow parlor. Three guest bedrooms, one after the other. Norrington had never before appreciated just how many rooms the Governor's mansion had. Swann had given him a tour of the place years ago, during his first dinner visit, but that wasn't quite the same as inching round at a snail's pace with a clearly miserable seventeen-year-old girl on his arm and a disapproving French governess trailing behind. The drawing room, the music room, the stairs... Norrington had a moment's qualm at the stairs, but Elizabeth set her jaw, gripped the banister with her free hand and made her way down with barely a wobble.
"Good show," Norrington said. Elizabeth gave him a wan smile.
"I really should apologize. I'm sure this isn't the way you'd intended to spend your evening when you came here."
"My pleasure," Norrington assured her. "I'm only sorry I won't be there to see all that effort pay off when you dance at the ball."
"Won't be there?" Elizabeth frowned. "But Father always invites you."
"New orders. I'll be taking the Bonaventure around the Horn and up the Pacific coast. There are rumors that the Spanish are amassing a fleet in Santiago. I'm to see if this is true."
"But we're not at war with Spain… are we?"
"Not at the moment. If the rumors are true, that might change."
Elizabeth's frown deepened, though Norrington couldn't be sure if this was due to thoughts of war or to the fact that they'd just reached the entrance to the dining room. Norrington opened the big double doors for her, ignoring Madame Laurent's protest. Surely, at no other time in her life would Elizabeth be expected to open heavy doors for herself. Elizabeth smiled at him as he guided her through.
"Well, I do hope there isn't a war. But… you'll be going round Cape Horn, then? I'm sure that'll be terribly exciting!"
"I hope not," Norrington said dryly. He'd gone around the Horn twice in the course of his career, and once was more than enough to learn that excitement was the last thing one wanted on the voyage. His answer seemed to disappoint Elizabeth, however. She stopped smiling and stared straight ahead in silence while they toured the dining room, the smoking room, the billiards room and the front hall.
The ballroom was last. Elizabeth gave a triumphant shriek when they entered it, snatched the Plutarch from her head and hurled it across the room with surprising force. The book struck the opposite wall and bounced back a foot to land on the floor, open and face down.
"Miss Swann! It's not the book's fault." Norrington retrieved the abused volume, checking the spine for damage before tucking it away in his coat pocket. "I will return it to the library."
"Do whatever you like with it." Elizabeth collapsed into one of the chairs that stood in a row against the back wall. She kicked off her shoes, pulled her left foot into her lap and began to rub it. Madame Laurent yelped. Elizabeth startled, looked guilty, and hastily planted both feet on the floor, though she continued to slouch in her seat in a manner that even the tolerant Miss Dobson would've found scandalous. "Pardon," she murmured to Madame, then wrinkled her nose at Norrington. "I don't know what aches more," she complained, "my neck or my feet."
"Epsom salts," Norrington said. Elizabeth gave him a puzzled look. "For the feet. My father always swore by it for his gout."
"Oh," Elizabeth said, and Norrington got the distinct feeling that, Cape Horn notwithstanding, he'd just reaffirmed his status as a stultifying bore. For some reason, this time it bothered him.
"I believe I'll just sit here for a while." Elizabeth fanned herself with one hand. "I've earned it, don't you think?"
"Indeed you have." Norrington decided that he'd earned it too and sat down one chair over. "I think you can justifiably take pride in your accomplishment."
"Some accomplishment -- being led about the house like a dog on a leash." Elizabeth sighed and seemed to wilt a little. "What if it doesn't work?" she said in a small voice.
"What if what doesn't work?"
"The comportment lessons. It took me over a week just to learn to do this, and I'm still getting all the dance steps mixed up, and Madame Laurent says I'm impossible, and-- do you think I'm a hoyden?"
"I beg your pardon?" Norrington just barely managed to turn his spasm of hilarity into a neutral cough.
"Mrs. Hodgkins thinks I'm a hoyden. I heard her say so to Cook two days ago." Mrs. Hodgkins was Swann's housekeeper, a tiny, terrifying woman who ran the household staff with all the efficiency of a well-drilled ship's crew.
"I don't think you're a hoyden," Norrington said solemnly. Elizabeth didn't appear to hear him.
"I'm to have lessons on how to hold a fan tomorrow. Why does one need lessons on how to hold a fan? Is there a secret to it? Have I been doing it wrong all these years?"
"I have no idea," Norrington admitted. Elizabeth sank down a little lower in her chair.
"I'll never get all these things right," she said miserably. "It's going to be my first ball, and I will clomp about like a big clumsy donkey and no one will want to dance with me."
Norrington thought it highly unlikely that the Governor's daughter would go partnerless at the Governor's ball, but he suspected that it wasn't what Elizabeth needed to hear at the moment. He was trying to formulate a compliment that would restore her spirits yet still pass muster if Madame turned out to know more English than she let on, when Elizabeth smiled at him again.
"It's a shame you won't be there," she said wistfully, "then I would've had at least one partner. You would've danced with me, wouldn't you?"
"I would," Norrington said. And then, before he had time to think about it, "I will."
Elizabeth blinked at him. "What?"
"I will come to the ball and dance with you. Even if I have to fight off every other man in Port Royal, which I probably will."
"B-but… your orders… won't you be in the Pacific?"
"Not if I complete my mission by then. I'll just have to make good time, that's all."
It could be done. The Bonaventure was a fast ship and he had a fine, handpicked crew to sail her. If the winds were favorable and nothing unforeseen occurred-- well, all right, something unforeseen always occurred. But still, it could be done.
"I will be there," he said, "but you must promise to save me a minuet. I would hate to rush back all the way from the Pacific only to discover all your dances have been spoken for."
Elizabeth's glum expression vanished in an instant, to be replaced by a smile so incandescently hopeful that Norrington found himself wishing he could dance with her right then and there, just to keep her looking like that.
"A minuet. Very well, then, Captain. You have my word."
She held out her hand, and Norrington shook it. "And you have mine."
As it happened, the Bonaventure docked in Port Royal on the morning of the day of the Governor's Ball. Norrington hadn't intended to cut it that close. They'd made good time on the voyage, and had been well on their way to arriving with over a week to spare. But after the gale that had caught them at the Horn, Norrington frankly considered himself fortunate to be arriving anywhere at all. They'd fetched up much further east than intended, and spent several frantic days repairing the rigging on a frozen spit of land populated by penguins and fat, barking seals. Now, weeks later, the boatswain still wore a look of permanent confusion at his captain's adamant insistence on limping all the way to Jamaica under a jury rig instead of stopping in Barbados for repairs.
Norrington himself knew it was foolish. He entertained no illusions about Elizabeth even remembering their last conversation, let alone taking it seriously enough to reserve a dance for him all these months later. And the whole thing was shamefully frivolous, really, unworthy of an officer's consideration. Nonetheless, he had given his word. He would do all in his power to keep it.
By the middle of the afternoon, it looked as if all in his power might not be enough. The Bonaventure had been unloaded and drydocked, all his reports delivered, the men released to wreak merry havoc on shore, and Norrington had just had time to return home and sort through the mountain of accumulated mail to find his invitation when a messenger boy arrived with a note requesting him to take five o'clock tea with Commodore Peyton.
Only the boy's presence prevented Norrington from expressing his reaction in language that would've quite startled anyone who knew him. The last thing he needed now was tea with the commodore. Peyton himself would be attending the ball, of course, but the man was always late -- how a navy officer managed to survive and flourish without developing the slightest grasp of time was surely one of God's mysteries. And Norrington, faced with an invitation from a superior officer, was now doomed to be late himself.
There was nothing to be done for it. Norrington sent the boy away with a shilling and a hastily scribbled acceptance and sent Jennings to fetch his dress uniform. Perhaps he could save some time by going straight from Peyton's house to the Governor's mansion.
Peyton received him with a great deal of smiling and backslapping. He was a pink, paunchy, jovial man who had almost never gone to sea since his appointment as commodore. A bad sailor but an excellent administrator, he had delegated all military tasks to his captains with great success, and the squadron had prospered in his charge. Norrington liked the man well enough most of the time, so he swallowed his impatience and did his best to be civil. There were endless cups of tea, and detailed questions about his voyage, and more sandwiches than any rational man could possibly wish to eat before dancing, and more questions -- strangely probing and detailed ones about Norrington's family, connections and political opinions. Norrington answered cautiously, sipped his tea and waited for Peyton to reveal his purpose.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, Peyton leaned back in his chair and dabbed at his lips with a napkin.
"All right, young man," he said cheerfully, "you can stop fidgeting. I'm about to come to the point."
"Sir." Norrington, who hadn't been aware of fidgeting, put down the watercress sandwich he'd been pretending to nibble for ten minutes and sat up ramrod-straight.
Peyton's grin widened. "I had dinner with Admiral Beckett in Nassau last week," he said. "He has informed me that he intends to retire upon his sixtieth birthday, in July of next year."
It took Norrington only a moment to grasp the full significance of this news. Peyton was currently the seniormost captain on the navy list. With Beckett's retirement, he would achieve flag rank.
"Congratulations, sir."
"Thank you, Captain. But I didn't summon you here only to gloat over my own good fortune. Once the promotion is official, there is a good chance I'll be given Beckett's post in the Bahamas. In that case, I intend to recommend that the Admiralty appoint you commodore here in my place."
"Sir." Norrington carefully put his cup down and took a deep breath. "I-- that's-- there are far more senior captains in the squadron, sir."
"So there are." Peyton didn't seem especially concerned by this. "I will take Dougherty and Greene with me -- that'll spare you some trouble. The others, you'll have to deal with. There will be resentment, of course. Petty jealousies. Some political shenanigans behind your back, perhaps. But I believe you can sort them out." He folded his hands across his paunch and tapped his thumbs against his waistcoat. "Yes, I do believe you'll sort them out, Captain Norrington. You'd better. The Jamaica squadron is too important to be handed over to a random idiot with seniority. I'm placing my bets on you."
"You honor me, sir." Norrington felt his face grow warm. "I'll endeavor to live up to it."
"I don't doubt it," Peyton said placidly and flipped open his pocket watch. "My goodness, look at the time. Give me a few minutes to dress, Captain, and you may join me in my carriage to the Governor's mansion."
They arrived forty minutes late, which was remarkably punctual by Peyton's standards. Norrington could hear the last lively notes of a gavotte fading into the warm evening air as he presented his invitation at the door. There was laughter and the soft murmur of voices and the clinking of wine glasses. After months at sea, entering a ballroom felt like entering a new world, more alien and exotic than anything in the Pacific. Norrington found himself nodding at people he only vaguely recognized, muttering responses to greetings he could barely hear. A glass of champagne materialized in his hand seemingly by magic. He drained it, and a servant with a tray instantly appeared to retrieve it.
He should've been seeking out Swann to pay his respects. Instead, Norrington found himself scanning the room for Elizabeth. He wished he knew what she was supposed to be wearing. It was difficult to make out individual faces in a rustling, shifting sea of colorful gowns, fluttering fans and elaborate hairstyles. Norrington wondered if she was enjoying herself, if she'd had time to discover just how baseless her fears had been. If she had noticed that he was late and assumed he wasn't coming. Not that it mattered; he just didn't care for the idea of Elizabeth -- of anyone -- thinking him to be careless with his promises.
The orchestra began a galliarde. Since he had no partner yet, Norrington accepted another glass of champagne and stopped to watch the dancers. For a moment, his view was blocked by a pair of stout civilian backs in exquisitely tailored brocade coats. Then the backs moved away, engaged in hushed conversation about lumber prices, and Norrington saw Elizabeth.
She was wearing a gown of pale aquamarine brocade, embroidered with silver thread and seed pearls, a froth of silver bullion lace at each cuff. There was a string of pearls around her neck and a matching clasp in her hair. She looked giddy, flushed and smiling as she glided across the floor on the arm of William DeLacey, heir to the DeLacey plantation and the eighty thousand pounds that were rumored to come with it. As the dance brought them closer together, DeLacey said something that made her laugh. Elizabeth broke form just long enough to swat him on the shoulder with her fan, then recovered and floated through the next movement so smoothly, her feet hardly seemed to touch the floor at all.
Norrington's mouth went abruptly dry. He took as sip of his drink. It didn't help. Surely it was some odd trick of the candlelight that made most of the dance floor recede into the background like that, turning all couples but one into faint shadows. Or perhaps he needed to take it easy on the champagne…
"Norrington! I didn't know you were back." Captain Dougherty of the Dauntless bore down on him with a plump, pink-faced woman in tow. "You know my wife Anna, don't you? Excuse us a moment, dear. So what's the news, Norrington? Are we going to war with the Spaniards?"
Norrington forced himself to turn and make polite conversation with the senior captain. It was hard to concentrate. In the corner of his vision, a pale silvery-blue cloud swirled in and out of sight in time with the music. It seemed impossible that he should be expected to pay attention to anything else. But Dougherty was walking away toward the refreshments table and Norrington was forced to follow. A couple of minutes spent in discussing nautical matters, with Elizabeth out of sight, served to steady him. Too long at sea, that was his problem. A perfectly reasonable explanation for this ludicrous overreaction to the sight of a girl he'd known for years. He needed time to reacclimate, that's all. And maybe another drink.
Doughterty collected his wife and moved on, looking faintly disappointed at the discovery that they were not going to war with Spain after all. Norrington remained where he was. He noted absently that the music had stopped, and wondered if he should make more of an effort to mingle. Find Swann, find a partner for the next dance…
"Captain Norrington, you're here!"
Norrington spun around. His just-acquired composure met Elizabeth's smile and shattered like glass.
"M-miss Swann. You look… very fine." He was aware that he sounded appallingly stiff and over-formal, but there was nothing to be done for it. He could be over-formal or he could make a spectacle of himself. There seemed no middle ground left to him, somehow.
"Thank you." Elizabeth favored him with a graceful curtsy, her posture Plutarch-perfect, then completely spoiled the effect by bouncing on her feet and clapping her hands. "Oh, I'm so glad you're here! I asked Father last night, and he said the Bonaventure hadn't come in yet."
She'd been asking about him? Norrington's attempt at a polite expression threatened to dissolve into a grin. He controlled it with an effort. "We came in this morning."
"So I see. And there I was, thinking you weren't going to make it in time."
"Of course I made it in time," Norrington said sternly. "I gave you my word."
"Oh, I remember. But that was months ago, and you had so far to travel… I was beginning to worry that I'd have to sit out the minuet -- and after all the trouble Madame Laurent had gone through to teach it to me. I'd turned away four partners for it already."
She'd turned away dance partners. Norrington felt rather like the bubbles in his champagne, ready to float to the ceiling and burst. "I didn't think you'd remember," he admitted.
"Of course I remembered." Elizabeth drew herself up and mimicked Norrington's tone and accent with devastating accuracy. "I gave you my word."
"Indeed you have." Norrington decided that he could risk a small smile without disgracing himself. "I apologize for ever having doubted you. Can you forgive me?"
"Well…" Elizabeth tapped her fan against her chin and pretended to look pensive for a moment. "Just this once. Oh, there go the musicians again. I promised Lieutenant Brown I'd dance a reel with him. I'll meet you on the floor for the minuet in twenty minutes, Captain." And she darted back toward the dance floor, where a gangling young idiot in a Marines uniform was waiting for her.
Twenty minutes. It began to dawn on Norrington, far too late, that he was about to make himself extremely conspicuous. What the devil had he been thinking? If he'd had any wits about him at all, he would've asked Elizabeth to join him in a cotillion, or one of the country dances that made up most of the ball. Then they would've been just one of dozens of couples prancing around the dance floor, nothing to attract notice. Instead, he was about to monopolize both the floor and the Governor's daughter. For a dance he hadn't attempted in years and had had no chance to rehearse beforehand. Bloody hell.
Norrington spent the next twenty minutes in the corridor outside the ballroom, tapping his fingers against his leg in three-quarter time and frantically reviewing the steps in his mind.
Elizabeth must've had matters well in hand, for by the time he came back into the room, the floor was clear and she was waiting for him. A number of young men were glaring at him with sullen resentment. A number of women were whispering behind their fans. Swann himself, resplendent in peacock-blue brocade and snowy lace, surveyed the scene wth an indulgent smile. Norrington thought his spine might crack from the effort of keeping it straight. And then Elizabeth smiled and held out her hand to him, and he forgot there were other people in the room.
Afterwards, he found it rather unfair that the only part of the dance he could recall clearly was Elizabeth urgently whispering, "Right hand turn… no, your right!" somewhere near the half-way point. He thought he'd done tolerably well the rest of the time -- no one was openly smirking when they left the floor -- but the whole experience was a blur.
When clarity returned, he found himself on the terrace, leaning heavily against the wrought-iron railing. It felt good to be outdoors for a little while. The evening air felt cool in comparison to the stifling closeness of the ballroom, and he could smell the sea.
"A fine performance back there." Swann stepped through the French doors, carrying a glass of claret in each hand. He handed one to Norrington and raised the other for a toast. "Welcome back, Captain. It's good to see you safe in Port Royal again."
"Thank you, Governor." Norrington clinked his glass against Swann's. "It's good to be back."
They stood for a while in companionable silence, watching the dancing couples spin merrily past the open doors. From time to time, Norrington caught a glimpse of Elizabeth on the arm of some clumsy young oaf he vaguely recognized as the nephew of the retiring Admiral Beckett.
"She hasn't danced with the same partner twice all evening, has she?"
"No, not once." Swann was smiling easily enough, but his voices sounded a little wistful. "My little Lizzie. The belle of the ball. And she was so terrified beforehand."
"I can't imagine why. She's an excellent dancer."
"You two made a handsome couple." Swann smiled into his drink. "I hope you found her a good partner." He took another small sip, then put his glass down on the stone table in the corner and adjusted his cuffs before picking it up again. "I'd better go back in. Wouldn't do for the host to disappear for too long, would it? What about you, Captain?"
"I'll be in shortly," Norrington said. His voice sounded slightly strangled to his own ears, but Swann didn't seem to notice.
Alone on the terrace again, Norrington gazed out into the moonlit garden and tried to collect his thoughts. It appeared -- all the evidence was for it, really -- that he was falling in love with Elizabeth Swann. Which was unexpected. And disconcerting. But not, when he really considered it, such a terrible thing.
He could, perhaps, have found an easier woman to settle his heart on. Elizabeth was… Norrington sighed and twirled his wineglass and in his fingers as he mentally sorted through all the adjectives that leapt to mind. Willful. Stubborn. Spoiled. Blithely accustomed to having her own way. But also clever and spirited, with a humor that matched well with his. Unconventional, in both the worst and the best ways. It would never grow dull, he thought, being in love with Elizabeth Swann.
Her father approved, if Norrington was reading his words correctly. He wondered if Commodore Peyton had spoken to Swann about his plans. A mere post-captain was not, perhaps, the most desirable match for the governor's daughter. But the commodore of the Jamaica squadron… that was a different story.
It might not happen, of course. Peyton might not succeed in getting his appointment confirmed. But Peyton usually did succeed, when dealings with the Admiralty were involved. And if it was a year before the promotion came through… well, it would probably take that long to win Elizabeth over, to make her see him as something more than merely another dull friend of her father's. Norrington thought he might've made a good start on it. She did save the minuet for him. And the way she gaily switched partners with every dance suggested that her heart was free. He had a good as chance as anyone. Better than most, considering his friendship with the family.
Yes, Norrington decided, that was the way to go. He would wait for his promotion to come through and then, if the way seemed favorable, he would speak. It was always important, after all, to do things at their proper time.
The End
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