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From: elf@drizzle.com (Elf Sternberg)
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Subject: {ASSM} Bloody Beth, Chapter 10  (ff, historical romance, slow)
Date: Mon,  4 Mar 2002 18:10:05 -0500
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Bloody Beth, Chapter 10

Beth, dressed as a lady of Jamaica, watched with some satisfaction as
William Marbry was led away in chains. He gave her just a glance as
the marines led him down to the Macedonia. "What will he tell the
court?" she asked Allison.

"He will tell them all sorts of things, of course, but none of it will
matter. Our story is simple. When he attempted to have you murdered,
your father's men, who were always loyal both to your father and the
Crown, smuggled you to a Portuguese family of minor peerage, who
raised you to young adulthood. When you heard that your brother was
coming to Jamaica, you returned to the island and convinced me both of
your peerage and the threat. I acted accordingly. The Ladder did what
it had to do to survive as a merchant trader in local waters,
remaining in contact with you as befit a loyal crew. You, Lady Co... I
mean, Lady Speer, and I will all testify that the men on board acted
honorably and that all of the reports of it being a terror on the high
seas were falsified or generated by Marbry's bribes."

"Will it work?"

"With 150 tons of gold? Of course it will work. It was most convenient
of the Spanish to launch an assault on the Portuguese holdings in
Mexico. We can always claim that adopters were killed and there will
be nobody to refute your story." Allison gave her a smile that
betrayed his usually honorable demeanor. "I am not a cunning man, my
lady, but I am a member of the court. I do know how these things
work."

She grinned at him. "When we get to England, dear Captain, tell me
what salons you attend, and Jessica and I will do our best to be
there. You and I shall share scotch and stories and shock all of those
around us."

"I shall do that."

She nodded and walked back up the length of the peer and back onto the
soil of Kingston. After so long at sea the land felt as if it were
rocking back and forth uncomfortably. The price on her head had been
lifted and for the first time in ten years the Jacob's Ladder lay in
Kingston's harbor, ready to be hauled onto a framework of land to be
patched and hulled. From where she stood it did not look as if the
Ladder would ever sail again with anything like her old speed. One
enormous hole, exposing a torn futtock, seemed to make up most of the
starboard quarter of her stern.

She and Spike, still at her right hand, made their way back to the
Governor's mansion, where the rest of this day's travesty was to be
played out. The new Governor of Jamaica, The Honorable Gabriel
Whitney, waited for them under the architrave of the mansion entrance.
He had come from a family of minor peerage and, while probably just as
given to the fractious infighting as Marbry, the local noblemen had
decided that of all of them, Lord Whitney was the least likely to
follow in Marbry's corrupt footsteps. He bowed courteously. "Lady
Harcourt."

"Lord Whitney," she said. "A pleasure, this time."

"Indeed. I take it you will be heading to England as soon as this is
all over?"

"The sooner the better."

"I understand. I have someone I want you to meet. Elvio?" He gestured
inside and a tall, black man with a shaved head and one earring
stepped into the light. She looked at him and a dim memory stirred.
Then, a louder one. "Elvio?" she said.

"You remember me!"

"You were my father's gardener!" she said, running up into his arms.
"You... you worked for Marbry?"

"And it was my letters, passed through Alvone's hands, that led you to
Marbry's vessels, remember?"

"That was you?" she asked, amazed. "I always wondered where that
sodden ol' rum-running frog got his news." She hugged him tightly.
"Quick, how did you sign them?"

"'From a friend of your fathers,'" he said.

"Oh, it is you! God, what next?"

"I would not ask that too loudly, Lady Harcourt. Fortune often comes
with both hands holding."

"Indeed," Beth said. "Indeed." She turned around. "Governor Whitney,
may I see Amalynn?"

"We have not decided what to do with her. She is in the jail below,
but there is no charge we can hold her on. Certainly to hold her on a
charge of whoring would be ridiculous, and she could not know that she
was threatening the life of a lady of the court."

"I would brand her with the mark of a traitor, if I had my choice,"
Beth snarled. "What was she offered?"

"Passage to Spain, I suspect," Lord Whitney.

"Is that all?" Beth sighed. "My life was worth a trip to the Spanish
mainland?"

"That and some bounty besides if you were caught. It is appreciably
more than she could make in a night. I suspect that she wanted to
return as a lady of some wealth."

Beth nodded. "I would still like to see her."

"Elvio, you know the way."

"Indeed I do." The black secretary led Beth and Spike down into the
dungeons and to a small room with a door, half-wood, half iron bars.

"Hello, Amalynn," Beth said, peering down on the sad-looking beauty
within.

"Oh, Beth," she said. "I never meant for you... I didn't want you
to..."

"Yes you did. You did it for the money. You did it because you wanted
more than was offered to you by the life you had. I don't blame you
too much, Amalynn. I just wish I did not feel so betrayed."

"Why should you feel betrayed? I am a whore. A criminal."

"And I was a pirate! And in all my years as a pirate I never felt the
want to betray my friends, my customers, those who relied upon me.
When running rum or timber or anything else, I was fair to those about
me. I expected as much honor from you."

Amalynn hid her face in her hands.

Beth turned to Spike. "How much money does the compact have?"

Spike fumbled for numbers. "Too much," he finally said.

"Would the bounty on my head make much of a hole in it?"

"Nay," Spike said.

"Give it to her."

"What?" Spike and Amalynn said at the same time.

"Give it to her. She earned her blood money. Give it to her and put
her on the first boat out of Jamaica headed toward Europe. I want her
off the soil my father loved and I do not want her on the soil where
my mother's bones are buried. Let her see if money will buy her what
it could not buy William Marbry." She looked down at the girl who sat
on the torn and stained wooden bench, her only bedding. Amalynn's face
was caught between shame and shock, and Beth wanted to keep that
memory alive. She turned away.

Still fuming, she walked away from her party and took to the stairs,
seeking air. She walked up, up, to the second floor of the Governor's
mansion, where she had spent too much of her time in the past two
days, establishing her bona fides and signing papers that turned her
father's territory over to her. Jacob had stood by her side and looked
on, pleased, as she reclaimed her heritage.

She had been bad at paperwork on the Ladder. It had been no better
doing it on dry land. What she had wanted, more than anything else,
was to get alone with Jessica, to comfort her and hold her. She had
been in shock following the voyage, the sudden realization that she
was going to own all of Edric's holdings until her child was born, and
even then she was going to be caretaker of those holdings until the
child was of age and capable of taking care of those holdings himself.
There was, Beth had noted, an assumption in the Governor's Letter Of
Findings that Jessica was carrying a boy.

She sighed as she finally put the last pen away, looking up at Whitney
and Elvio. "Is that it?"

"That is it," Whitney agreed with satisfaction. "It is good to hear
that you intend to return your farm to production. I understand your
brother's preoccupation, my lady, so I understand the reasons that it
has remained fallow. But if he and his wife are to remain here, they
will have to return the farm to prosperity." There was a twinkle in
his eyes as he said 'wife,' as if he imagined himself bedding the
woman who rumor held was the most beautiful on all of the island. She
had seen Elaine without her clothes and had to agree-- there was an
angelic, almost unnatural magnificence to her, with her rounded
figure, her full and inviting breasts. But Elaine was as besotted with
Jacob and he with her. There would be no one coming between them. At
least, not without force.

And anyone using force would have to contend with the fact that Elaine
and Jacob were under the protective eye of Bloody Beth. To England,
she had been turned into a fiction, but the Islanders knew better.
_________________________________________________________________

Beth made her way down to the cabin, the young man who led her clearly
made nervous by her mere proximity. She could hardly blame him; she
was, after all, the infamous Bloody Beth, and he knew it as readily as
she did herself.

The cabin was small, but clearly made for two. Captain Allison had
made it clear to his men that the two women passengers destined for
England were to be left alone, and that had suited Beth just fine. She
opened the door of the cabin to find Jessica waiting for her, a smile
on her lips suggesting something playful and wonderful. The moment the
nervous boy was dismissed and the door closed, Beth fell into
Jessica's willing arms with a sigh of pleasure and satisfaction that
bordered on wholeness. "I love you," she whispered to Jessica.

"Oh, Beth, I have waited to hear those words." She kissed Beth's hair,
her forehead, her lips, and Beth embraced the beautiful woman who
shared her secret shame, their inversion. "But you love the sea more."

Beth nodded. "I grew up with it. Maybe it's time I did leave it, as a
child leaves home."

"I don't know any child who grew up in a home so unforgiving as the
sea. It is not a home-- it is just something to survive."

Beth held back her response that too many of the men on the Jacob's
Ladder were from homes even more unforgiving as the sea. Unforgiving
because at least, when you made a mistake on the sea, the sea had
mercy and killed.. Many of the men had escaped from homes that left
the body a mass of pain and the soul a thing of tatters. "I suppose
you are right, my love; the sea is something I love."

"What will we do when we get to England?"

"In public, you will be the Widow Coke, mourning your lost husband
even as he is convicted of crimes against another family. You will
probably lose half your holdings in penalty, but the Coke estate is
wealthy and you will survive. You will take up your new role' as my
teacher, distancing me from my barbaric Portuguese habits and
instructing me in the ways of the English peerage, even as I take up
my role' as your companion, helping you through your difficult
pregnancy. Together, we shall found a new partnership of Coke and
Harcourt, and with the money we have together we shall take up my
brother's investments in East India and the Western Islands, and we
shall be unstoppable!"

She looked down between them, where Jessica's larger breasts crushed
against her own, and pulled at one of the ties on Jessica's dress. "In
private, we shall be what we are, sisters of the flesh, inverts,
giving each other unreasonable, sinful pleasures that matter much to a
church that matters little to us." She pulled at another tie, letting
the brown ribbon free.

"Beth!" Jessica hissed.

"Are you not ready for this?"

"I am always ready!" Jessica whispered. "But... now?"

"We have the whole trip ahead of us, and I have no intention of
spending all of it in here with you, but it has been three days,
Jessica. Can you wait?" She reached her fingers into the bosom of
Jessica's gown and cupped one of those breasts, her thumb gliding
across the nipple.

Jessica whimpered. "No," she finally managed to choke. "No, I can't.
Not when you do that. Not when you tease me so." She pulled Beth
toward their cot and together they tumbled into it, Beth's slim, firm
form against Jessica's full, feminine one.

Beth went through Jessica's bows and ties with all the proficiency a
sailor should have with her knots, pushing aside the fabric of the
dress and kirtle, letting Jessica's breasts into the air with sudden
ease. Jessica moaned as Beth took one nipple into her mouth and
caressed it with her lips and her tongue. Beth's heart raced at the
sight of Jessica's easy lust, Jessica's readiness for her attentions.
A tide of wet heat in her own body headed south for her sex.

Jessica's fingers slid between Beth's legs and found the wetness that
had collected there. The press of a slim finger at that secret opening
made Beth swoon and wish for more, but she had come here today to care
for Jessica, not the other way around. She wanted to hear Jessica cry
out her name-- quietly, Jessica thought, as this was not the Ladder.

She left a glistening trail on Jessica's chest and her smooth,
beautiful belly, a belly that showed no sign of what they both knew
was happening within. She reached the start of Jessica's nether hair,
and inhaled deeply the clean scent that she and Jessica had started to
cultivate and appreciate. Thank Elaine for teaching them both the joys
of bathing!

She slid off the tiny cot. There was no room for two women to stretch
out on it lengthwise, and Jessica was clearly ready for anything Beth
would give her, in any position. Beth eased Jessica's legs over her
shoulders and pressed her mouth greedily to her sex, kissing and
licking her way into that precious, delicate core. Jessica moaned with
need as Beth's tongue performed magic on her. Beth knew that tiny
pearl at the top was the secret to a woman's pleasure and she abused
that knowledge by abusing Jessica's excitement. Jessica's hands were
in her hair, holding her in place, as Jessica's legs rose and parted,
opening up the fullness of her pudendum to Beth's hungry eyes. She let
her eyes fall on all the parts, the names of which she did not know
but could readily identify, lips and tissues and pearl and pink skin.
"What a beautiful woman you are!" she said.

Jessica was past receiving compliments. "Kiss me, Beth, oh kiss me
now!"

Beth gave in, pressing her lips and tongue to the pearl before her
eyes, kissing Jessica's demanding sex, licking at that pearl rapidly,
flicking her tongue like a porpoise's tail at full swim. "Oh, God,
Beth... Oh GOD!" Jessica shuddered, her whole body shaking, making the
cot creak. "Oh, God..."

She subsided even as Beth wiped her mouth with a kerchief she had left
on the tiny table. "Oh, Beth," Jessica sighed. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Jessica," Beth said gently. "I love you too." Beth's
own sex wept softly with joy, and Beth had a sudden wish to have it
filled. After some moments passed, she looked at Jessica and said,
"Would you... do that to me?"

"Yes!" Jessica nearly bounced off the cot as she sat up, eager to
please. Beth decided not to lie down lengthwise, but instead leaned up
against the wall of her cabin against which the bed lay, the better to
watch what Jessica did. She liked watching Jessica kiss her. There was
something of the animal in Jessica when she did.

Jessica took readily to Beth's sex, her mouth easily finding its way
into the parted lips of Beth's core. Jessica's tongue took long,
slurping licks along the length of Beth's small vulva, from the bottom
to the top. Beth felt the shocks of Jessica's kisses all the way to
her toes. She hadn't expected to want Jessica's attention so much, but
after all of the formal, ridiculous elegance of the past four days she
was ready to indulge herself in license. "Oh, Jessica... fingers,
please."

Jessica knew. She knew by now. One finger found its way into Beth's
body, then another, then a third, even as her damnable tongue kept up
its unrepentant torture of her pearl. Jessica even dared a fourth
finger, filling Beth's opening more than Beth would have thought
possible, and still in Beth's head the siren song of "more!" made its
way past her lips.

But already the cannon charge in her belly had been put to fuse,
already Jessica's attentions poured oil on the burning fire within
her, and Beth exploded in a groan of ecstasy so powerful she covered
her mouth with her hand and held back the screams, but not the tears.

"Oh, Jessica..." she whispered softly as she floated back down into
her body. "Oh... oh... oh... " She pulled the other woman into her
embrace and clasped her tight. "I will never let you go!"

"Nor I, you, my piratess," Jessica said. "Even if we are ordinary
ladies of the peerage for the rest of our lives."

"We... shall never be ordinary!" Beth gasped, laughing. Jessica
replied with her own laugh. "And I shall love you in Heaven, too,"
Beth said. "For there is nothing corrupt in my joys."

"Nor mine," Jessica agreed. She yawned. "I do not know why I am so
tired!"

"You're with child!" Beth said. "Of course that must tax you. I'm
sorry... I should have known!"

"No, no," Jessica said. "Don't deny me my pleasures, Beth. Just...
accommodate me."

Beth smiled. "I'll do that." She helped Jessica into her nightclothes
and under the covers. She dressed herself in the more commonplace
men's clothing she was used to, just another sailor, no longer even
the captain. She went on deck.

Jamaica was no longer visible to stern, and the ship held a good wind
with full sails. The smell of the sea, Caribbean sea, was all around,
a thing more constant even than the roll of the waves, and she
wondered if she could live without it. A part of her considered it an
act like living without air.

Her new life. She feared it. She wanted to see it, but as one might go
to India to see an elephant or a tiger.

But then little things came to her attention. Frayed ends of rope that
needed stitching and oakum. A loose flap to one sail. A water butt
with a loose top. The kinds of things that a captain might let go on
the last leg of a journey, when the crew was going home to reward,
pay, and then a return to the sea, when it would be the responsibility
of her next crew to get her in shape for the sea. She frowned and
fixed the cover on the butt, then sat down with the ropes. "You
there!" she called to the man at the wheel. "Where's the thread for
this?" She held up a rope.

The wheelman, a big fellow with arms like logs, was surprised at her
address, but then pointed down to a cabinet affixed to the forecastle
held shut with ties. Beth found the thick, waxy thread, and retrieved
a spool with which to begin fixing the ends. As she sat on the deck
and worked, she sighed, realizing that she would always be a seaman,
always be first to bend her own back. As she looked at the stars and
the full sails overhead, her hands going through the motions of
repairing the fray, she knew that being a lady could not last for her.
Jessica was right. Beth hoped that she could find a compromise.

The love of a good woman. The call of the sea. Beth wished for both as
tears of love welled up in her eyes. She imagined the future, and
hoped, wished, ached for days to come when she would hold cold, steely
friends in her hands by day as readily as she held a warm woman at
night. Looking out on the dark horizon, Beth whispered, "For
broadsides... fire!"
_________________________________________________________________

Bloodybeth' is Copyright (C) 1989-2002 Elf Mathieu Sternberg.
Distribution limited to electronic media not-for-profit use only. All
other rights are reserved to the author.

--
Elf M. Sternberg, Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1988
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/       (under construction)

Promiscuity, done right, is an inherently nerdlike pursuit that
requires discipline, practice and forethought.  -- Tracy Quan

They swash!  They buckle!  New stories at:
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/bloodybeth/

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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