Page 36 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

“I was lying to myself at an assembly in Hertfordshire, and I continued lying to myself for months. The deception required more effort than any truth I have ever told, and I am finished lying.”

She looked at him. Her eyes were bright, and her face was serious. The fire crackled behind them as she said, “Good.”

She kissed him. She rose on her toes and kissed him with the deliberate intention of a woman who had decided what she wanted. The deliberate act of choosing him undid his remaining composure.

They sat by the fire, shoulders touching. The argument about the roof remained unresolved, but neither cared to mention it. The fire was low, casting moving shadows on the stone walls. It felt like a place outside the ordinary rules—a place where she could kiss the man she had refused four months ago, and both the refusal and the kiss could be true.

“We should repair the roof,” he said.

“Yes.”

“With stones.”

She smiled faintly. “With stones.”

“You were right.”

“I was right about several things this evening, Mr Darcy. You will need to be more specific.”

He turned his head, and she turned hers. Their firelit faces were close. The intimacy was different now, charged with the certainty of what had just occurred, and what would occur again.

“Elizabeth,” he said.

Her breath caught. He saw the held moment, then the release. It was the first time he had used her given name.

“Fitzwilliam,” she said softly. The fire crackled. Neither of them moved; the spoken names were enough. The night was long, and the roof still leaked, but the island was no longer a trap.

It was starting to feel like a choice.

Chapter Sixteen

The day after the kiss, Darcy discovered that kissing Elizabeth Bennet did not, as he had privately hoped, diminish his awareness of her. It magnified it. Every sense he possessed had been sharpened overnight, to a degree that was, practically speaking, disabling.

Her hand, passing him a fig at breakfast: the brush of her fingers against his palm. He felt it in his teeth.

Her shoulder, bumping his as they walked to the spring: accidental, possibly. He was not able to treat it as accidental.

Her mouth, shaping words he did not hear because he was looking at her mouth and remembering the precise pressure of it against his, the taste of salt and warmth, the sound she had made against his lips when he kissed her throat.

He was in trouble. The trouble was not new; it had been developing since Hertfordshire and intensifying on the island. With the kiss, it had reached a critical stage. He refused to describe it as such, for doing so would require admitting the extent of its hold. The depth of his feeling was embarrassing for a man of his education and self-discipline. Yet that self-discipline had availed him nothing since the moment she had accused him of fear, and been right.

Touches accumulated through the day. His steadying hand on her back when they climbed the hill. Her fingers on his arm when she pointed at a bird. His hand taking hers to help her over a rocky stretch of path, the hold lasting three steps longer than the terrain required, neither of them pulling away. Her hand on his side, checking his wound, tracing the scar through his shirt with an attention that was far from clinical. His breath stuttered under her touch. Her eyes lifted to his, asking a silent question that remained unanswered.

They did not kiss again. Their restraint was a deliberate choice. They were two people who had crossed a line and were now carefully considering what came next. The suspense of this mutual consideration was driving him comprehensively out of his mind.

Evening fell over the fire. Warm air came through the archway, carrying the scent of the sea and dry herbs. Elizabeth was sitting on her pallet with her back against the wall, her legs extended, her feet bare. She had abandoned her ruined shoes three days ago. Her feet were brown and calloused. She flexed her toes in the firelight with unselfconscious ease. Her complete disregard for convention was, Darcy was forced to acknowledge, devastating.

He sat across the fire. The distance between them was the usual four feet, but the distance was now a lie. It was a polite fiction maintained by two people who had kissed in the dark the night before, and were now pretending the act had not entirely altered their relationship.

“You are staring,” she said.

“Yes.”

“You do not deny it.”

“I have given up denying it. The denial was unconvincing and the effort was considerable. I am reserving my strength for more productive endeavours.”

“Such as staring.”