Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom

son, Bartholomew, served as Director of Shipping for the Beckett
Trading Company. These days, the Beckett company, while no threat
to the EITC in wealth and power, was one of the top five shipping
companies in England.
The Beckett family was very wealthy—they owned a town house in
London, a huge estate—Springhaven, in Somersetshire—their own
private yacht, plus many tenant farms, mills, mines, and other
properties scattered over southern England and into nearby Wales.
Ironically, the Becketts were far wealthier than most noble families. The
one thing no Beckett had ever managed to acquire, and it wasn’t for
lack of trying, was a title.
I’ll do something notable, Cutler Beckett thought, gazing
unseeingly at the Aeneid in the small schoolroom. Perhaps I’ll grow
tall, and become a soldier. I’ll be an officer…a general! Or maybe an
admiral. Admiral Sir Cutler Beckett. If I could do that, my father would
be proud of me. He’d make my brothers stop saying he should have
drowned me when I was born, the way you’d drown a runt pup.…
Cutler’s elder brothers had been in their teens when he was
born…a small, sickly baby that no one expected to survive. Young
Cutler had surprised them all by living—and by being different. From
his earliest years, he’d been fascinated by books and learning. Instead
of struggling to master enough mathematics to handle accounting, and
enough reading and writing to be able to write confidential business
letters in a clear hand, as his older brothers had done, the youngest
Beckett soon evidenced significant aptitude as a scholar. Only his
sister, Jane, five years his senior, shared his love of books, and
reading—though of course, being female, she hadn’t been taught the
other subjects that fascinated her little brother: history, geography, and
studies of the classics written in their original Greek and Latin. Proper
young ladies learned French and Italian, as well as embroidery,
deportment, music, and drawing.
Young Cutler only came out of his reverie when his stomach
rumbled loudly. Surely enough time had passed! Glancing up at the
front of the schoolroom, he saw that MacFarlin was gone. He hadn’t
heard him leave.
The boy began gathering up his schoolbooks and slate, moving