Chapter 2
Mr. Gardiner slowedthe pace of their return through the woods considerably. His joyous exclamations at all of the possible fishing spots found their party straying from the path whenever the stream reappeared, and Elizabeth silently noted her aunt’s vigor diminishing quickly. They would have to find a spot to turn around.
Just beyond some hanging woods, a simple wooden bridge stretched over the broadening stream. After they had observed the view from the center, Mrs. Gardiner suggested they return to the carriage, and though Mr. Gardiner nearly looked ready to protest, Elizabeth consoled him with an offer of tarrying a few moments on the bank nearby.
In truth, Elizabeth thought the spot idyllic and charming, so she did not mind spending a few minutes more indulging in the distraction from her current state.
“Is that an eel?” She watched a large shape hover near the bottom of the water between some rocks and occasionally move what looked like fins.
“I cannot see from this angle, but there are eels in the streams and rivers,” Mr. Gardiner replied, hopping onto a dry rock about a foot into the water.
“Mr. Gardiner, be careful,” his wife said. “The edges are fairly calm, but the stream looks deep, and I shall not abide you falling ill from a tumble.”
“Oh, nonsense!” he huffed, stepping further out and bracing himself between two rocks. “Elizabeth is right, it is an eel! Huge one, that.”
Noting that she also could have an ideal point of observation from a cluster of rocks in front of her, Elizabeth cautiously placed one foot on a dry spot. Finding it solid beneath her, she shifted her weight fully to that leg, then looked for the next perch. One more rock closer, and she would have an unobstructed view of the whole fish. She tested the next foothold.
It was at that moment that the approaching figure behind them finally made enough noise to announce his presence by calling out her name.
Elizabeth’s head whipped around. Mr. Darcy was directly behind her on the shore.
Unfortunately, turning threw her body off-balance, and her left foot stepped back to encounter only air.
One second, she was struggling to right herself, and the next, she was underwater.
The stream was cold but not unpleasant, Elizabeth thought, as she struggled to right herself and find the surface. Her dip might have been more enjoyable, however, had she not been wearing the necessary garments that propriety demanded.
And if she knew how to swim properly.
“Elizabeth!”
Her aunt’s voice sounded farther away than it should. She wiped at her eyes with one hand while trying to stay upright. Mr. Darcy was running ahead of her on the shore, but he would soon reach a point where the wild overgrowth would prevent fast access to the water. He looked alarmed. Very alarmed.
One leg knocked against a rock underneath her, but the obstacle was gone before she could find purchase. To her horror, she realized two things simultaneously: while she was underwater for only moments, she had drifted several yards downstream, and the center of the stream bed was much deeper than the edge. What looked like a peaceful current was, in fact, much stronger beneath the surface. The hot weather had baked the roads and lawns, and the fact that it had poured the previous night and filled the waterways with runoff had evaporated from their minds with the morning sun.
This was not good.
She floated round a bend, and her aunt and uncle disappeared from sight just before her head went under again.
Elizabeth kicked and flapped her arms in an attempt to lift her head out of the water, but her skirts were tangled between her legs. She hit another rock and managed to push off of it this time, gasping in air while she could.
Her papa knew how to swim. She had seen him do it in the pond when he thought they were still shopping in Meryton. She and Mary had stumbled upon him flapping about like a frog, quite at home among the moss. His hands had been closed, and he had spread his arms as if pushing the water away from his center.
Elizabeth tried to mimic what she had seen, and it worked, in a fashion. She was moving towards the shore—though she was passing by the trees at a disturbingly swift rate.
Something large fell into the water ahead of her. A dark head of hair broke the surface. Mr. Darcy.
“Elizabeth, take my hand!” She knew he was shouting, but the sound fought against the torrent of the wayward stream and the water in her ears.
Her left leg hit another rock, and a stab of pain shot up her thigh. She paddled through the water as Mr. Darcy stretched one arm out to her.
She missed his hand.
Her panicked eyes met his. “I can’t kick my legs.”
“Hold on,” he said, and Mr. Darcy let go of the ledge he was using as an anchor and slid along the moss-covered rocks. Miraculously, he managed to grab the rocks along the way, and then Elizabeth reached for him and took his hand.
Thank God, thank God, mayhap I will not die today.
Now there was hope, a hope that gave her a sudden swell of energy. She crawled along his body, and he drew her towards the rocks behind him. There was no thought for propriety or the chance she had kicked him in the bollocks just now while dragging herself out of perdition and onto solid matter. Her hands slipped on the moss, and she was certain she had knocked him again by the sudden wince that flashed across his face. There was no hope for it. If this was what mermaids had to endure to sunbathe, she wouldn’t blame them for never leaving the sea.
Elizabeth scrambled further onto the stones until she was out of the water. It wasn’t until she had wiped her eyes that she wondered why Mr. Darcy wasn’t beside her. She looked behind her—just in time to see him disappear from the edge.
“Mr. Darcy!”
Still gasping for breath and swaddled in wet clothes, Elizabeth struggled to her feet to see if he had managed to cling to a different rock.
There was no sound beyond the rushing of the water, the stream that had transformed into a monstrous hazard, ripping its way through the woods and taking her beyond its territory. She was alone.
“Help! Aunt, Uncle! Someone, help!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth spotted movement. She looked again at the rocks several yards down from her. Was this white a flash of clothing?
It was Darcy.
He was floating in an eddy, his body shoved up against the curved edge of a boulder that had caught him. A gash ran down the side of his head, dripping blood onto his neck. His dazed expression, the ineffectual manner in which he was trying to climb to shore…
Elizabeth gathered up her dress and petticoat and crawled to shore, then climbed back upon the rocks to lie above where Mr. Darcy was trying to reach.
“Mr. Darcy, let me return the favor,” she said.
He turned at the sound of her voice, his eyes settling on hers, and he lifted his arm.
My God, he is heavy, she thought, opting to settle his second arm on the rock instead of tugging at it like a mule at a stuck plow. She had kept him from falling back into the water; he would have to do the rest on his own.
At great length, he managed to pull himself over the side, and a feeling of relief so strong washed over her that it left her light-headed.
“Well,” Elizabeth wrung out her hair, trying as inconspicuously as possible to reposition herself at an angle that didn’t leave her thighs to his perusal. She was thoroughly drenched and more than indisposed as it was. “After a rigorous perusal of your waterways, sir, I have a few suggestions for the placement of new dams.”
Lying on his back, Mr. Darcy blinked up at her. His eyes reflected the light of forest.
He laughed.
It took all of her willpower not to touch his face, to smooth back his hair, to kiss him until the end of the world.