Adorned

by Melusina

Fandom: PoTC    Rating: G    Pairing: none    Full Header

As Weatherby Swann watched his daughter moving through the crowd, he was struck again by how much she looked like her mother, in her wedding finery and beaming with happiness.  He was reminded of that bright summer day in the garden, when he'd asked Sophia to marry him.  There were all sorts of showy flowers in the Caribbean, he thought with a touch of nostalgia, but nothing like those English roses. 

Weatherby was a prosaic man, not given to flights of fancy or romantic notions (unlike his late wife, who'd shared Elizabeth's love of novels and excitement), but on that day, it had seemed to him that the air around Sophia shimmered with the strong scent of roses, giving her an ethereal glow.  He hadn't intended to propose; he'd meant to ask her father first - everything aboveboard and proper, as it should be - but her lovely smile and that dizzying smell had overwhelmed him, and, for once acting without a thought of the consequences, he'd taken her hand and asked her to be his bride. 

"Yes," she had said, "Oh, yes!"

It all seemed so long ago, and so far away.  Sophia had been dead all of Elizabeth's life, and Weatherby could no longer recall if the resemblance he saw was real or imagined, if Elizabeth truly looked like her mother, or if his memories had been corrupted so that he saw Elizabeth's face in place of Sophia's true guise.

He could no longer call to mind the fetching way she'd smiled at him, but when he thought of the perfume that had hung heavily in the air that day, he could still feel the way his heart had lurched at her words.  "I can still smell the roses," he said to himself, "Just like it was yesterday."