Chapter Text
Jack Dawkins’ hands are buried in the golden tangles of his hair, and his elbows brace against his knees as he takes in laboured breaths. Prison was not a good look on anyone, and Jack had spent almost four months behind bars - a sentence unheard of, when Gaines was alive to order prisoners hung.
His death had left a vacuum, and Port Victory had descended into lawlessness without the threat of the noose to instil a healthy fear in the masses. The prisons, once a short-term stay before a long drop, now housed petty thieves and beggars, rounded up by Gaines’ men who still enforced the law in his absence. The new Commander would arrive soon, and with him, freedom or a death sentence.
Until then, Port Victorys’ prisons had an overcrowding issue.
Belle reaches for the bars separating them, wishing that she were wrapping her hands around his instead, and speaks up. “Jack.”
Her voice was barely above a whisper, but his head snaps towards her and he stumbles to his feet, using the wall behind him as support. She lets her gaze run down the length of his figure before returning to his face, telling herself that it is with clinical interest that she notes his fragile wrists, the way his clothing hangs loose on his frame, the cough that wrecks him.
He doesn’t lean against the bars when he reaches them, doesn’t take her hands. Instead, he sways where he stands, an arms length from her, anger ticking at his jaw.
“You can’t keep coming here, Belle.” His voice is rough. He tells himself it’s the chest infection, blossoming worse every day. She tells herself it’s because he’s upset the only way they can see each other is with the bars between them. Possibly, they are both right.
Still, she withdraws her hands from the bars and hikes the front of her skirt up with purpose, turning her attention to the soldiers standing guard beside the cell. Without her eyes on Jack, her voice is stronger. “Why is it, every time I visit, the health of your prisoners has declined further?”
The soldiers share a look with one another, neither one willing to take responsibility.
Their silence angers Belle further. “That is not a rhetorical question. They need hydration, food. When is the last time the waste was removed? These cells are not being kept clean, you are not providing adequate nutrition, it’s no wonder everyone is falling ill.”
If there is an instruction in her words, the soldiers are too stupid to infer it.
Jack saves them from her continued onslaught. “Belle, please. You cannot be here. I did not save you only for you to fall ill again by exposing yourself to these conditions.”
Now that she isn’t holding the bars, he uses them to hold himself up. If he looks as pathetic as he feels, it isn’t enough to spare him her wrath.
Outrage rips from her throat. “You are not in charge of me. How dare you tell me what I can or cannot do, most especially when I’m here in your defence.”
He rests his forehead on the cold metal. “And who will defend me when you fall ill, Belle? It won’t be your mother.”
Somehow, he is brave enough to meet her gaze as he says it. In his peripheral vision, he sees panic flit across the soldiers faces. The reaction is enough that he casts his mind back over the words he said, brain muddled by the fever, but still working well enough to realise he’d put his foot in his mouth.
Again.
He’d be lucky if she didn’t order him to the gallows herself.
As it were, the fire in her eyes makes him thankful that the bars of the cell are between them. He imagines the resulting slap, were he reachable, would leave his cheek stinging. Belle takes a deep breath, preparing to berate him, and he stumbles back, as if he could escape whatever anger she is about to throw at him.
Her attention is stolen by cries for help in the next cell over. Jack throws himself against the bars as she and the guards rush over to see the commotion, desperate to know what is happening. Desperate to keep Belle in his sight.
“Belle.” He reaches through the bars. Briefly, deliriously, he thinks, in another month or so, he might be able to slide right through them. “Belle! What’s happening?”
There’s confidence in her voice when her words reach him, but they are directed at the soldiers instead of in answer to his question.
“Open this door right now or I’ll have you thrown in here yourself. You, why are you still here? You need to fetch a doctor. With haste.”
A soldier scrambles past Jack, rushing down the corridor and out of sight to fulfil his latest orders.
“I’m a doctor!” Jack yells indignantly. The scratch in his voice lessens any commanding effect the words may have had. He shakes the bars he’s grasping onto to little effect. All he does is incur a dizziness so overwhelming that he sinks to his hunches. “Let me out so I can help.”
His request goes unanswered.
“Fluids and clean towels, now.”
“I-I can’t, m’lady. The cell- I can’t leave-”
“Lock me in, you imbecile! Lock me in and bring me what I need.”
“No. No, no, no.” The words fall out Jacks’ mouth, soundless, and he scrambles to his feet again at the sound of keys turning. He tries to grab the soldier as he passes, but he’s too weak for his grip to do anything.
His shout of frustration echoes throughout the prison.
*
“I trust you are enjoying the position of head surgeon, Rainsford,” Lady Jane Fox says, watching as he pours them both a drink.
He hands her the glass and takes a seat behind the large mahogany desk he’d inherited from his predecessor. “Very much so, m’lady - though I didn’t expect quite as much paperwork, I’ll admit.”
Lady Jane offers him a tight smile from behind the glass, and revels in the nervous silence that stretches between them while she takes a sip. She hums her approval, appearing in deep thought as she swirls the liquid in the glass.
From behind the desk, Rainsford quells the urge to run away, and instead channels the energy into tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair.
“It strikes me that, now more than ever, you and my Belle would be quite suited.”
Of all the conversations he thought Lady Jane was here for, this was not it.
“I- I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, m’lady.”
She barely resists rolling her eyes, but she can not keep the disappointment in his deduction skills (or lack of) out of her voice. “You’ve known the family a long time, Rainsford. Belle has never made secret of the fact that she is interested in the medical field, and you have a highly coveted position here. Now, I know that she can be headstrong, and harbours delusions of being a surgeon one day, but we both know that simply isn’t possible.”
“No, of course not, m’lady. Woman can’t- I mean to say-”
Lady Jane levels him with a stern look. “Woman can’t be surgeons, Dr Sneed. You and I both know it.”
His nod is nearly imperceptible. “Quite right, m’lady.”
“You know, when we left England, I had hoped the sea air would be… restorative. Cure her flights of fancy. I do want my daughters to be happy, of course, but not at the expense of what is best for them.”
Rainsford hides his nerves behind a large swig of whiskey, grimacing at the burn. “And for Lady Belle…”
“You are what is best for Belle.” Lady Jane drains the last of the liquid in her glass and stands, brushing an imaginary speck of dirt from the front of her skirt. “Am I to begin making preparations for a wedding, Dr Sneed?”
Nerves coil in his stomach. “Yes. If she wants me, yes.”
Lady Jane does an unladylike thing, and snorts in derision. If Rainsford didn’t know that Lady Jane was as much a part of the good ol’ boys club as the Governor was, he would be shocked. As it is, it feels like a slight against his intelligence.
“Belle doesn’t know what she wants. No matter, arranged marriages are for precisely situations such as this.”
He is head surgeon, but since letting Lady Jane into his office, he has not felt in charge. Though a marriage to Belle did not seem an unpleasant undertaking, he knows that her headstrong personality make her the less favourable sister. He feels as though he should get more from the arrangement than simply a sizeable dowry.
“May I enquire as to what will become of Jack Dawkins, m’lady? If I am to marry Lady Belle, then perhaps the return of my most skilled surgeon could be arranged.”
Anger flares in her eyes, purses pretty on her lips - he knows now, where Belle gets it from - but before she can respond, a not entirely unexpected shout for a doctor comes from the corridor. Unexpected is the soldier standing behind the door, chest heaving from exertion.
“Lady Belle sent me.” He gasps, drawing in deep breaths between each word. “For a doctor. For the prison. Someone has taken ill, sir.”