Page 32 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

“The current runs east. I would have drifted past them.”

“Yes.”

“You knew this.”

“I suspected it.”

“And you did not say.”

She looked at the sea, then at him. “You needed to try. I was not going to take that from you.”

His face changed again. It was not amusement this time. The expression was quieter and harder to read. She did not try to read it; doing so would require acknowledging its meaning, and she was not ready. This uncertainty was becoming a settled condition she would have to live with, like the sand in her shoes, the salt in her hair, and the sound of his breathing four feet from hers in the dark.

He walked past her up the beach, and she followed. They did not speak again until they were by the fire. They spoke of fish, figs, and the angle of the wind. Underneath those words was the conversation they were not having, and its volume was increasing.

Chapter Fourteen

Darcy had finally given up pretending. Maintaining the facade had been hopeless, as it demanded him to overlook Elizabeth Bennet constantly—eighteen hours a day—and to ignore her presence even when sleeping just four feet away. He had to coexist in the same space, share meals, and work on repairs without acknowledging her. It felt as if he was stranded on an island with the woman he had desired since Hertfordshire, with social norms that usually dictated such feelings no longer relevant.

His self-control, which he had considered robust, lasted approximately twelve days. On the thirteenth day, he watched her emerge from the sea in a wet chemise, and his self-control vanished entirely.

He was watching her now. She was on the hillside above the tower, cutting rosemary. He was at the cistern checking the morning's rainwater collection. There was no practical reason for his gaze to linger on the hillside, yet it did. He was no longer going to pretend otherwise.

She navigated the scrubland with a level of efficiency that was unthinkable just two weeks earlier. Her physique had transformed during her time on the island. She was leaner and darker-skinned, the gentle contours of an English lady replaced by the more athletic build of someone who carried water and scaled rocks from sunrise to sunset. Her arms were more toned than before, now visible where sleeves once hid them. She moved with a fresh sense of physical confidence, and he observed every step.

He did not look away when she turned. She caught his gaze, held it for a beat, and went back to cutting rosemary. She did not tell him to stop.

She had not told him to stop for three days. Her silence was communication enough; the implication was dangerous, but the danger did not make him look away.

Decency was a word that had been losing weight since they arrived.

In England, propriety was enforced by drawing rooms, chaperones, and the understood distance between an unmarried man and woman. It relied upon the presence of witnesses and the shared agreement that certain boundaries were not crossed. Such propriety required an audience.

On this island, there was no audience. There was no Mrs Gardiner to glance with quiet approval at the correct distance between them. There was no Mr Bennet assessing them from behind a newspaper, nor Bingley to politely feign obliviousness.

There was only Darcy, Elizabeth, and the isolated stone tower.

He had maintained the distance because it was correct. He was a man who adhered to correctness even when it cost him sleep. The cost had been considerable, and it was mounting beyond what he could endure.

He watched her hands when she cooked, and her face when she looked at the sea. He watched her in the mornings when she returned from the spring with wet hair, and in the evenings when the firelight turned her skin gold. At night, when she lay on her pallet—her eyes closed, her breathing still measured, still clearly aware that he was awake four feet away—he watched her too.

His observation was no longer covert. He had abandoned discretion, along with the self-deception that he was merely monitoring a companion's welfare. In truth, he was memorising the shape of her mouth.

He knew he ought to stop, but he would not. The argument had been settled days ago.

The rain came in the afternoon.

Unlike the gentle rain of English summers, the Mediterranean rain came with sudden violence. The sky darkened in ten minutes, the air grew heavy, and fat drops began striking the stone tower.

Darcy was on the upper level checking the signal fire when the storm broke. He came down the stairs rapidly, ducking through the archway as the rain turned to sheets. Elizabeth was already inside. She had sprinted from the hillside; she was breathing hard, her shoulders and collarbones damp where the rain had caught her.

The lower room of the tower was barely twelve feet across. Between the two pallets, the salvaged supplies, and the stacked firewood, space was severely limited. It diminished further when rain began leaking through the sailcloth patches on the ceiling.

Water found the gaps in the patchwork, coming through in steady drips that landed on the pallets, the firewood, and the dry section of floor where Elizabeth had been sitting.

They both moved towards the same dry corner, seeking refuge beneath the intact stone roof. The corner was large enough for one person comfortably, but not two.

“The firewood,” she said.