William's Muse

High-Sea Hijinks

SUMMARY: It's repression and obsession on the deep blue seas when the fearless pirate queen Lady Buffy discovers an unusual treasure in the form of a shy, stuttering Englishman named William, who turns out to have a bigger backbone than even he imagined!

DISCLAIMER: Oh, and if ya'll think that I own any of the characters in this story, think again. Really, darlings, if I owned anyone remotely
resembling Spike, do you think I'd be writing right now? I may be a blonde, but I'm not that stupid!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello, talented and wonderful fellow William-lovers. *Waves* I wonder if you might take a little peek into this WIP (in-progess being the operative words there). It's called High-Sea Hijinks and it's completely AU. I'm trying to make it more historically
accurate so if anybody has any sites or remarks to make about that stuff, I'd be much obliged. Actually I'd be much obliged at anything. Please, oblige me!

AUTHOR'S NOTE2:I hope that the divine smut goddess Kantayra will not be too offended that I dared to think that writing about pirates
would be fun after reading her delicious "Skull and Dagger," especially after I added my own Buffy/William twist to it. Also I should add that while the historical accuracy of this little story is laughable it does very specifically happen earlier than 1880 in order for roaming pirates to be more popular. Assume the Queen Victoria has taken the throne now for only a very short amount of time. Also, canon-wise this is obviously all shot to hell, but most specifically Anne isn't William's mother because I started this before we found out her name and she isn't dying of tuberculosis.

Chapter One: In which the exposition gods have free reign…

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the
sea."
--Isak Dinesen

The lady pirate, Elizabeth Anne Summers, leaned over the
railing of her ship, the Slayer, and tossed her long, shimmering
blonde hair back over one bared shoulder. Bright green eyes scanned
the endless sea that stretched out before her in all directions, and
a smile pulled her lush lips up slightly. She tilted her head back
and closed her eyes, her slender neck forming a delightful curve.
It was moments like these that made her grateful for the
unconventional life that she had led for the past twenty-three
years. The first thirteen years she had spent happily running wild
on the deck of the Slayer. Its captain had been her father, making
him the king of a tiny sea-bound country and her the princess. She
had grown up with over thirty fathers and had rarely given thought
to her absent mother, long dead from a difficult pregnancy. Every
whore in the docks of Europe was her mother and she found that she
preferred their blunt practicality to the descriptions of a dreamy-
eyed duchess from England that her father had always talked about
with longing.

Her father had been a large man, and she could still
remember the smell of the gunfire and rum that had clung to his
garments. She had loved him more than anything else in her small
world. He had seemed larger than the sea itself and infinitely more
powerful: there hadn't seemed to be a danger in the world that
Henry Summers couldn't vanquish. It was a testament to his
strong personality that his crew had found it incomprehensible when his
young vain upstart of a first mate named Liam O'Connor ran him
through with his own sword. It was a testament to his crew that
when this very event occurred they took it on themselves to raise
the grief-stricken princess until she was old enough to become their
queen and make revenge her ship's main goal.

And so it had been for the past four years. The older
crewmembers, who had become real fathers to her in everything but
blood, had mostly stepped aside for the next generation of pirates.
The new group, handpicked by the lady pirate herself, was a hard
bunch, dedicated to their captain and their ship, but lacking the
qualities that would make them acceptable in mainstream society.
This didn't matter in the slightest to their captain who would
give them all the treasure that they could find as long as they
helped her track down her father's murderer, or at least bankrupt
him in the meantime. This had made the captain of the Slayer one of
the most feared pirates in all the trading corners of civilized
society. Her name struck fear into the hearts of fully-grown men.

"Buffy!"

Elizabeth Anne Summers, or Lady Buffy as she was more
often called, sighed and broke away from her nostalgic thoughts long
enough to answer the summoning of her first mate.

"Yes, Faith?" Buffy asked, her tone even and
relaxed as she pressed her back against the railing. She regarded
her childhood companion with a casual eye. Faith was taller than
the diminutive captain and possessed a far more voluptuous figure.
Indeed, growing up Buffy had often found herself making unequal
comparisons between Faith's lustrous dark curls, full lips, and
dark, mysterious eyes to her own supposedly lesser beauty. Men had
since made attempts to convince Buffy that she possessed equally
impressive charms, but there were still times when she felt like the
underdeveloped younger sister trying to live outside her more
vivacious older sister's shadow.

The two had been inseparable since they were infants, one
the captain's only daughter, the other just one daughter too many
in a poor man's home. Faith had come to the Slayer through Joyce
Summers' famously kind nature. The girls had been raised as
sisters until Joyce's death, and after that Henry was forced to
become the sole parent of one energetic little girl. He quickly
found out that he hadn't the stamina to raise two and Faith
became the former second-in-command's ward. Even so, the
children played incessantly together and shared everything, including men
when they reached the age where the opposite gender was interesting.

"We've got company, B," Faith said with an eager
smirk, her fingers curled around the handle of her sword. She handed
a spyglass to Buffy and led her over to the opposite side of the
ship where a few of her keener-eyed men were already flocking
around.

Buffy raised the glass to her eye and looked out. A small
ship was sailing lazily in their direction, its flags proclaiming it
a merchant ship from England. It was as yet too far away to
ascertain the number of passengers but Buffy estimated that her crew
probably doubled it. It was a small prize, but the captain had
learned over the years that even the most unassuming of ships could
yield worthwhile treasures.

Lady Buffy lowered the spyglass and allowed a small grin
to work its way onto her face. Her crew tensed in expectation.
"Get ready, boys," Buffy said in a low voice,
confident that her men would hear her. "We're going to
extend a dinner invitation to some of the Queen's own. You know how much
the British love surprises."

* * *

"It's just that I hate surprises, you see," William
Edward Arlington the II explained for the third time to a nearly
comatose member of his uncle's crew. "I told my mother that I
didn't have to visit my uncle and I certainly didn't want to
go on a boat all the way to the colonies with him."

"Mmm-hmm," the hapless crew member mumbled indistinctly,
wishing that William had been man enough to just say no to his
mother, if only to have given the sailor some peace and quiet.

"Not that I don't enjoy spending time with Uncle Ethan,"
William said hastily. The sailor snorted, which the young man
seemed not to hear. "He is family after all. I just wasn't
told that I would be spending quite so much time with him as all
this. How long will this trip take again?"

"Too long," the sailor muttered, wondering if Ethan Rayne
would object to his nephew being thrown overboard.

"What was that?" William asked politely, an innocent smile
on his face.

Luckily for the irritated sailor he was spared the
opportunity of further talk with his employer's nephew by a
cannonball landing in the water with a loud splash far too close to
the ship.

"Bloody hell!" the sailor shouted, pulling out his spyglass
and focusing it out in the direction that the cannonball had come
from.

"Dear Lord," William said, his eyes wide. "What on
earth was that?"

"It's a damn pirate ship!" The sailor lowered the
spyglass and glared at the young man. "You'd better get your
arse below deck unless you want to get a sword stuck in it."
"Right." William stumbled away as the ship shook from the
force of its own cannons deploying.

"Now that would be a great tragedy," the sailor grumbled as
he went back to his post.

* * *

"It's a small ship. Poorly armed from the looks of it,"
Faith informed Buffy as she looked out over the ocean with her
glass. Buffy was lounging about on the captain's deck, her
posture deceptively relaxed.

"Good, this should be an easy raid." Buffy leaned forward,
pulling her extra knife from her boot. She quickly checked its
sharpness and then put it away with a satisfied nod when it quickly
drew blood.

"Now I don't want any unnecessary killings. Just take what
looks interesting and leave the rest. There's no need to murder
the whole crew." Faith nodded, her eyes still locked on the small
ship.

Buffy flashed a sudden grin to her partner-in-crime.
"After all, if we kill everybody there won't be anyone left
to tell what bloodthirsty murderers we are."

* * *

"Uncle, we're being attacked by pirates!"

Ethan Rayne winced when the panicked voice of his nephew
assaulted his ears. Honestly, he would never have agreed to take
his deceased youngest brother's worthless son with him on his
business trip if William Senior's gorgeous widow hadn't
begged him to. Constance Arlington may have been twice widowed but
she was still young enough, and, more importantly, rich enough, to
make him interested.

"Thank you, William. I don't know that I should ever have
figured that out without your help." Ethan pulled out a pistol
from a hidden compartment in his room. He looked up to see that his
nephew was still standing around like a useless sod and let out a
deep, frustrated growl.

"Now, we're going to hide somewhere until this whole thing
is over. I want you to take this gun and watch my back." Ethan
tossed the revolver to William and was mildly surprised when the boy
caught it.

William gaped, resembling his father so much that Ethan
began to grind his teeth unconsciously. In his opinion, the only
thing his brother had ever done right was get himself killed in a
manner that was halfway interesting. Ethan thought it would be too
much to hope for that his son would follow in his footsteps.
"But-but what about the crew?" William stammered
uncertainly, his hands grasping the weapon clumsily.

"Shouldn't we help them?"

"Don't be a bloody fool, boy. I paid them good money for
this trip, I'm not going to risk my neck for them." Ethan
glared darkly at his nephew's astounding lack of business sense.
That's what came about from being raised in a house full of
women.

"Uncle!" William admonished sternly, shock making him brave.

"Oh, fine. If you want to help the ruddy crew, then you go
and get yourself killed. But don't expect me to help!"

Ethan began walking back to his bedroom where he had had a secret
room built in for just such an occasion. A bit of family loyalty
made him pause and turn back.

"You can keep the gun. I've got another."

"Thank you, Uncle." William's eyes were unfocused,
staring blankly at the pistol in his hands as he realized what he
had got himself into.

"I'll be certain to give your mother your regards,"
Ethan said, a slight leer gracing his face at the thought as he
turned back around.

As such, he missed the cold look of fury that passed through
his weak-minded nephew's blue eyes. If he had seen it, he
wouldn't have believed it. William didn't have an ounce of
strength in his entire body. Just like his father.

"And I'm certain that she'll throw you out of the house
if you even attempt to touch her, Uncle," William said softly
before turning to walk briskly in the opposite direction.

* * *

"We're almost ready to board, Captain," Buffy's
second mate, Xander Harris, told the lady pirate, his tone boyishly
excited.

"Thank you, Mr. Harris," Buffy said demurely. She extended
her hand and was pleased when the dark-haired man caught the hint in
her voice. He held out his arm for her and led her down to the main
deck. At times she loved being treated like a real lady instead of
the dangerous pirate she was.

Buffy stood on the deck of her ship and assessed her crew.
They stood tall around her, confident in their bright colors and
flashing weapons.

"Are we ready, boys?" Buffy asked coyly.

"Yes, captain!" was her enthusiastic reply.

"Well, then," Buffy caught the eye of her first mate and
winked, "let's get this raid started!"

* * *

William's blond head popped up from the stairs leading down
to the captain's quarters. The farther away he got from his
uncle the less angry he felt, leaving more room for the overwhelming
fear that was quickly taking its place.

"What the hell am I doing?" William asked himself quietly,
flinching when a shot hit a stack of crates that was only a few feet
away from his head.

The scene that greeted him above deck was a picture of pure
pandemonium – Lord, that was good alliteration... but this was
certainly not the time - and he found himself rooted to the spot in
terror.

Quite a few of the garishly-dressed pirates had already made
it aboard the ship and were waging a winning war – why, oh why,
didn't he have these thoughts when his life wasn't in danger?

- on the crew of the Chaos. His eyes widened at the sight of the
first dead body he'd encountered that wasn't neatly arranged
in a coffin. There was a bit more blood than he ever would have
imagined. His stomach rolled and he prayed that he wouldn't be
sick.

Another shot, too close to his personal space, spurred him
into motion. White-knuckled, he raised the pistol and aimed it at
the pirate that was harassing the sailor he had been chatting with
earlier. His hands were shaking as he began to pull back the
trigger.

"That's a real bad idea there, pal," a lilting voice
spoke up from behind him. William froze.

"How about you just set the gun down, and we can have a nice
long chat about how to open the safe I found downstairs?" the
feminine voice continued dangerously.

William's eyes flitted about uncomprehendingly until he
remembered the large safe that he had seen the one time he had been
allowed in his uncle's office.

"I don't know how to open that safe," William said
carefully, slowly setting the revolver down and turning around.

He was stunned to see that his assailant was indeed a woman
and not just a very unfortunate man. He swallowed thickly when he
saw that the obviously beautiful woman had thick cascades of dark
brown hair and deep brown eyes. That would be just his luck.
Another dark and gorgeous woman wanted to kill him.

"Oh, that's too bad, good-looking," the woman said, her
smile seeming more dangerous than the pistol that she had locked on
him. She gave him a frank look-over that made him want to squirm in
embarrassment. "I guess you'll just have to come with me and
the safe back to my ship until you figure it out."

William opened his mouth to protest and realized that the
ship had become much quieter than it had been a moment before. He
turned his head slightly and was stunned to see that the battle was
over. All the crewmembers that had not been killed, which was
thankfully a large number, were already being tied to various parts
of the ship. The pirates were quickly stealing back to their own
ship, their meager trappings in hand.

"What can I tell you, baby?" the pirate woman purred behind
him. "We work fast!"

He looked back to her with a wide-eyed look of
astonishment. He cleared his throat and attempted to say something
manly and defiant.

"Oh dear."

That certainly wasn't it.

* * *

"Please," William begged desperately, reaching out for
his glasses, "I need those!"

The tall male pirate whom his female captor had told to take
William to their ship laughed and threw the glasses blindly to the
side, grabbing the smaller man when he lunged for them. He was
oblivious to the sounds of the pirates around him and was too blind
without his glasses to really get a good look at the ship itself.

"Don't worry, my little friend," the pirate said with a
smirk, "You won't be needing those where you're going,
anyway."

"And where is he going exactly, Mr. Penn?" a hard, feminine
voice spoke out from the top deck. William looked up to see a fuzzy
blonde woman standing tall above them, his glasses safe under one
hooked finger.

"Wherever you want to send him, Lady Buffy, of course," Mr.
Penn said quickly, bowing his head towards the woman.
Lady Buffy threw his glasses back down to him. William
caught them, pleased that he hadn't made too big a fool out of
himself in front of these scoundrels. It would never do to let them
see how afraid he was. With barely trembling hands he put his
glasses back on and looked back up to thank the woman.

The words died in his throat as he caught his first real
glimpse of the Lady Buffy. This gave ample time for his brain to
begin composing horrific verses that featured the blonde angel in
front of him. She was a glowing, glistening nymph with the most
enchanting green eyes that he had ever seen, directed curiously at
him. He found his eyes drawn to the outline of her slender body,
showcased quite clearly under her shockingly masculine clothing. He
blushed furiously at the inappropriateness of his actions and turned
his gaze to the floor.

"Thank you, miss," he murmured softly, his thoughts of
defiance temporarily fleeing in the presence of such a wild beauty.

"I thought I said I didn't want to take prisoners,"
Buffy said, her voice irritated as his lady captor reappeared.

"Say he's my spoils from the raid," the dark-haired
woman said with a laugh. William tensed visibly at her words and
looked back up, his mouth open to protest.

"What about that safe you dragged in?" Buffy crossed her
arms and glared down at William, her expression daring him to
speak. Heart fluttering William cast his eyes back to the ground.

"I figure this guy must have been the boss - he's the only
one dressed for the part - so he must know the combination for the
safe." Faith shrugged lightly. "You can have him if I can
have whatever's in the safe. Ransom him off when we get back to
England."

"I want to see what's in the safe first," Buffy decided.

She gestured to William. "Open it up."

"I don't know how," William said quietly, trying to
absorb everything that they had said. Despite his mother's
attempts at shielding him and everyone else from the truth, he knew
that they had very little of their former wealth left. She was
barely able to pay servant's wages, much less a ransom.

"Oh, that's too bad, sweetie." Buffy gestured to the
aforementioned Mr. Penn and a much smaller man with a rather stoic
expression on his face. The men stepped forward and each grabbed an
arm of the slender Englishman.

"Take him to the brig. See if a few nights in chains will
serve to educate him." The lady pirate's voice was cool and
professional. She might as well have been ordering them to serve
him tea for all the emotion in her voice.

"Wait, I'm telling you the truth!" William yelled as
they dragged him away. "I really don't know!"

"You think he's telling the truth?" Faith asked Buffy, a
smirk gracing her lips.

"Who cares," Buffy said with a shrug. "Willow can open
the safe. I just wanted to put him somewhere until I figure out
what to do with him."

"I could think of a few things," Faith murmured happily.
"Maybe later." Buffy quickly lost interest in her new
guest. "What else did we get?"

* * *

William regarded his cramped surroundings warily. The
pirates had manacled him to the beam in the center of the room. His
examination of the lock had made him quite certain that he hadn't
the slightest idea of how he could get it to open. It looked as
though he would be forced to accept his situation for the time.

A brief flare of anger burned through him before he could
squelch it, and he sighed loudly, pressing his palms flat against
his eyes. He was damned tired of being bullied around. Throughout
his entire life it seemed he had been tormented by people who were
far stronger, smarter, and more powerful than he. First, his uncles
had made a temporary truce in order to harass him after the death of
his father, feeling that the young boy needed strong male figures in
his life. They had each attempted to teach him their trades, from
his Uncle Edward's law practice to his Uncle Philip's
blacksmithing. He had quickly discovered that he disliked all of
their professions, but he had borne the work with the same mild
obedience that he showed everyone else.

At the same time, William began to realize that he wasn't
like the other boys in his school. They were loud, boisterous, and
prone to acts of mischief. He was quiet, respectful, and almost
embarrassingly shy. Even so, his headmaster had absolutely loathed
him. While William had loved many things that he had studied, he
found that he could never keep his mind focused on one thing at a
time. The slightest thing would distract him and he was prone to
slip into his own thoughts during the most inopportune times. Where
most of the boys were caned for bad behavior, he was often punished
for breaking things, losing papers, or not paying attention during
his mathematics class. The other boys ignored him for the most
part, but could be very inventive when he did something to catch
their attention. He winced at the memory of Quentin Broxton, who
had convinced him to climb over the garden's high eastern wall.
The other boy had failed to inform him that the headmaster's prize
rose bushes were on the other side. He had been sore for weeks,
both from the fall and the beating he had received as punishment for
squashing the roses.

His mother married again when he turned twelve. His new
stepfather, Randall Arlington, was an outspoken, womanizing gambler
who wasn't quite sure what to do with his small, bookish stepson
and his strong-willed, chatty stepdaughter. He tried at first to
force the children to accept his place as their father with the
stern discipline that he remembered from his own childhood, but
their combined stubbornness and his new wife's quiet interference
made him quickly abandon the idea. The birth of his own daughter, a
tiny, dark-haired babe that was named Millicent, made him ignore the
other children altogether.

William's marks in school were good enough that he was able
to get into Oxford, the same school that his father had attended in
his youth. He had wanted to study to become a teacher and was
surprisingly encouraged by his stepfather's older brother Rupert
in this endeavor. However, his clan of biological uncles had other
ideas and their relentless suggestions as to the path he should take
in life left him utterly confused. He had been well on his way to
getting a law degree, as his Uncle Edward had insisted upon, when
his stepfather was killed. The official story was that it had been
a simple mugging that had gone terribly wrong, but William was
secretly convinced that his stepfather's gambling habits had led
him to his death. William had gone home immediately to take care of
his mother and his two sisters, in his heart pleased that he had an
excuse not to join his uncle's law practice. He had taken a job
at a local bookstore, which he enjoyed greatly, and began to help
his Uncle Philip with his blacksmithing business. He didn't enjoy
this so much but out of all of his uncles his Uncle Philip was the
least demanding and the hard work gave an outlet to all the energy
that he had always possessed in abundance.

His life had settled into a comfortable routine, with work
and family to concentrate on. He had even begun to think about
marriage and having a family of his own, despite his profound
inexperience with the fairer sex. That was when he'd met Cecily
Addams.

William frowned and forced himself to stop reminiscing.
Thinking about the past wouldn't help him in his current
situation. What he needed to do was convince the captain of the
ship to she let him go without a ransom, which his mother certainly
couldn't pay, not with the outstanding debts her second husband
had left her with.

Thinking about the captain was a dangerous distraction, to
say the least. He had met his fill of strong women, most of whom
were his own relations, but he had never before met a woman so
confident and secure in her own power. She had exuded a strength
that had made him feel insignificant and weak. And her beauty had
been overwhelming, overcoming his previous penchant for dark women.
Of course, she was an outrageously bold trollop and he was a
fool for even entertaining thoughts of her physical beauty. She was
a thief and a murderer and the sooner that he was off of her ship,
the better he would feel.

* * *

"Two days you've left him in there," Faith scolded
Buffy, running a brush through the smaller woman's long blonde
hair. They were in the captain's quarters, enjoying a quiet
night of
drinking and giggling. The ship's bookkeeper, and the only other
female on the ship, Willow, looked up from the ship's logs to
smile at the two other women.

"Who?" Buffy asked blankly, holding up one jeweled pendant
up to her neck and then exchanging it for a cross as she examined
herself critically in the mirror.

"Your little English captive!" Faith turned the brush to
her own hair, pulling it through the dark locks roughly.

"I completely forgot about him." Buffy laughed and tied the
cross around her neck, admiring it for a brief moment in the mirror
before turning around. "He certainly didn't have much in
that safe of his. It was hardly worth the raid."

"I've tried getting some information out of him," Willow
spoke up, her hand still moving swiftly over the paper, "you
know, just so I could write the ransom note, but he's not very
forthcoming."

"I hate kidnapping. It's almost always more trouble than
it's worth." Buffy sighed and eyed her first mate.

"Maybe we should just throw him overboard."

At Faith's childish pout, Buffy laughed again.

"I'm only joking." Buffy nodded her head in
Willow's direction. "How far is it to Cutthroat Haven?"

"Probably a few months if we take our time." Willow closed
the book with a relieved groan of exhaustion. "Thinking of
selling him to the ship merchants?"

"Probably make more money in the long run," Buffy
mused. "That way we won't have to go near England. The
Royal Navy has been too observant lately."

"They won't take him if there's anything wrong with
him," Faith interjected, stealing the pendant necklace from
Buffy's dresser and making a face at it before setting it back
down.

"I'll let him out of the brig. Make him do something on the
ship. Xander's always complaining that he has to do all the work
around here anyway." Buffy gave Faith a stern glare. "Now I
don't want you to get too attached to him while he's here.
There's enough men on this ship to keep you entertained."
"I won't lay a finger on him," Faith said, provoking a
snort from Willow and a giggle from Buffy.

"Now that that's settled, I've got a more important
question. Who wants to tell Xander that we're visiting his
ex's territory in a few months?" Buffy grinned at her
friends, who were both overcome with mirth.

"Anya is going to make him wish he was dead the moment he
walks through that door!" Faith said before reaching over and
grabbing Buffy's newly shined sword.

"Hey! That's mine!"

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