Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Darcy was clutching a plank, a woman, and the hope that the sea might someday turn away.
The plank floated steadily, displaying the resigned buoyancy of wood that had once been part of a ship.
Elizabeth was less cooperative, her back pressed against his chest as his arm wrapped around her.
Her fingers clutched his forearm with enough force to leave bruises, which he planned to admire later—if later ever came.
The storm had opinions about later.
A wave struck them broadside. The plank creaked, wavered, then stabilized.
Elizabeth's grip grew firmer. His legs, which had been kicking relentlessly for what seemed like forever—likely two hours—kept moving.
Sinking was the only other option, and he was not willing to sink while Elizabeth Bennet depended on his legs.
His legs had never been relied upon in this manner. They had walked Pemberley's grounds, ridden across Derbyshire, and maintained appropriate posture in ballrooms. None of this prepared them for kicking through the Mediterranean at night while Elizabeth Bennet used his ribcage as a headrest.
“Stop thinking,” Elizabeth said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are thinking. I can feel it. Your arm gets rigid when you think.”
“My arm is rigid because I am preventing us from drowning.”
“Your arm is rigid because you are calculating something. Our chances, I expect. Or the distance to the nearest port. Whatever you are calculating, stop. The answer will not improve the situation.”
She was correct. The answer would not improve the situation. He stopped calculating and returned to the more productive business of kicking.
The storm threw water at them with impersonal malice.
His side was bleeding; the gash acquired during the scramble off the deck felt sharp and hot against the salt water.
He supposed the salt was cleaning the wound.
He did not normally entertain such optimism, but all normality had ended four hours ago when the mast snapped.
Elizabeth coughed. Salt water. She spat it out with practical efficiency and returned to gripping his arm.
“Darcy.”
“Yes.”
“If we survive this, I am going to require an explanation of why the soup on that ship was so terrible.”
“The soup was the least of the ship's failings.”
“The soup was a confession. Any vessel serving broth that offensive admits in advance that it cannot be relied upon. I should have taken the confession seriously.”
He almost laughed. The impulse fought to surface beneath the exhaustion and terror. The sea kept hitting them in the face, making laughter impossible. He saved it for later.
They held on. The storm raged, diminished, and raged again. His arms burned. His legs burned. The gash had progressed from sharp to dull. He chose to interpret this as an improvement.
Elizabeth stopped talking, conserving energy. It was the most intelligent response to their situation. He should have expected it; her responses were generally more intelligent than his own. She breathed steadily against his chest.
He held on. The plank held. The night continued.
Dawn arrived gradually, peering grey and tentative around the edge of the horizon.
The sky cleared in patches. The sea calmed by degrees, a progression Darcy would have appreciated more if his arms had retained sensation. Elizabeth stirred against his chest. She had not slept. She had been still and silent, mustering endurance.
“Land,” she said.
Her voice was raw, scraped thin by salt. But the word was steady. Land.
He raised his head. An island. Small, rocky, rising from the water with the scrubby green-grey of Mediterranean brush. A cove on the near side, where cliffs dropped to a narrow beach and the water calmed behind the island's shelter.
They paddled. His arms were numb. His hands bled from the hatch bolt and the wreckage.
Elizabeth paddled beside him on her stomach.
They moved with the wordless coordination of two people who had survived the same night.
The cove came closer. Sand, rocks, the dark shapes of tidal pools.
The surf was audible. Land was close enough to smell.
The wreckage ground on sand. Elizabeth rolled off into the shallows. Darcy fell beside her. They crawled up the narrow beach, stopping when the sand was dry beneath them.
They lay on their backs. The sky was clearing. They breathed.
“We are alive,” Elizabeth said. Her voice was flat, offering the observation as mere fact rather than celebration.
“We are alive,” Darcy confirmed.
“I am going to lie here for some time.”
“I have no objections.”
The sun came up. Warmth touched their faces, their soaked clothing, their raw and ruined hands.
Elizabeth turned her head and looked at him.
He turned his head and looked at her. Six inches apart on a beach on an island neither of them could name.
Her face was salt-caked and bruised, her hair a catastrophe, her dress torn at the shoulder.
She was magnificent.
“Your lip is bleeding again,” she said.
“I am aware.”
“And you have a cut on your side. I can see it through your shirt.”
“It is not serious.”
“You are the worst judge of your own injuries I have ever encountered.”
“I have little experience for comparison.”
She made a short, airless sound — almost a laugh. Three days ago, the worst thing on her horizon had been a too-small trunk.
“Mr Darcy.”
“Miss Bennet.”
“We are on a deserted island.”
“So it would appear.”
“We lack a ship, a crew, supplies, and any immediate prospect of rescue.”
“That is a comprehensive summary.”
“I embarked on this voyage hoping for antiquities and Sicilian wine. The Mediterranean has been a very great disappointment.”
He laughed. The sound surprised him. He hardly recognised it. His laugh was typically rare and controlled, a social instrument deployed at dinner parties. This sound was raw and helpless, produced while lying on sand, bleeding from his side, as Elizabeth complained about the voyage.
She looked at him. Her expression shifted into something akin to surprise. She had made him laugh. She was visibly revising her Hertfordshire opinion of his character.
“You laughed,” she said.
“You were funny.”
“I am frequently funny. You have never laughed before.”
“I have never been shipwrecked before. Perhaps it reduces one's requirements.”
She looked at the sky. She looked at him. The smile came slowly, then all at once — tired, salt-stained, entirely real.
The smile gave way to purpose.
Elizabeth sat up first. She examined the island directly. She saw low hills, dense scrub, and resilient green-grey vegetation. Above the crest of the nearest hill stood a stone structure. A tower, or its remains.
“There is a building on the hill,” she said.
“I see it.”
“We should find fresh water before we investigate.”
“Yes.”
“And I am going to need to look at that cut.”
He glanced down at his side. The gash was long, the blood dark against his ruined shirt. He had genuinely forgotten about it; his exhausted body had found other complaints more pressing.
“It is nothing,” he said.
“It is bleeding quite conclusively for nothing.”
She stood. Her legs held. She held out her hand to him. He took it, and she pulled him up. She withdrew her hand immediately; the assistance was entirely practical.
She turned inland. The scrub was dense and fragrant. Rosemary — the warming air released the scent. It grew wild and abundant across the hillside.
Elizabeth picked a path up the slope. She walked three miles most mornings at home and did not consider rough terrain a reason to slow down. He followed. His legs had spent the night performing heroics they had not trained for, but he intended to ignore their ache until they failed completely.
The rosemary smell grew stronger. The sky was that brilliant, unreasonable blue. The island had nearly killed them, but it was now presenting its best face.
Elizabeth climbed. He climbed. The tower grew larger against the sky.