Page 13 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

“I said things last night,” Elizabeth began. She stopped, then started again. It was unusual; she typically committed to her sentences the way she committed to her opinions. “I said things I had been carrying for some time. The weight made them heavier than I intended, and I may have delivered them with more force than was⁠—”

“You delivered them with exactly the force they required,” Darcy said. “I needed to hear them. My own versions allowed me to be honestly mistaken, my judgement sound even if my conclusion was wrong. I needed the specific details. The collarbones. The letter.” He paused. “I rewrote my letter to Bingley last night.”

She looked at him. Her face in the morning light was extraordinary, and he was aware that thinking so was not useful and could not stop. “You rewrote it.”

“The first version was insufficient. It explained what I had done without adequately describing what it had cost. The second version is — more honest.”

“More honest how?”

“It tells him that I used his trust against a woman who loved him, and that the responsibility is mine entirely, and that he should return to Hertfordshire and apologise to your sister in person.”

Elizabeth was quiet. The wind caught a loose strand of her hair. He noticed it was the same strand that had escaped two nights ago. He was paying too much attention, and he did not care.

“That is a significant letter,” she said.

“It is a necessary one.”

“Bingley will be hurt.”

“Bingley should be hurt. I hurt him. The least I can do is let him know about it.”

She looked at him with a new expression. He knew it lacked forgiveness; her features remained managed, held under the careful control of someone who did not trust easily. But it was something approaching forgiveness. It was a beginning.

“You are different,” she said.

“I am the same man. I am attempting to behave differently.”

“Is there a distinction?”

“I believe so. A significant one.” He looked from the sea to her face, and then quickly back. “Character does not change. Behaviour can. I remain capable of the arrogance I displayed towards your sister—the presumption that my judgement justified another person's unhappiness. That capability has not vanished. I have merely chosen not to exercise it.”

“That is the most unflattering self-assessment I have ever heard a man deliver voluntarily.”

“I was recently given cause to reassess my approach to flattery.”

She laughed. The sound was short and startled, extracted against her better judgement. It was the most beautiful thing he had heard since April.

The laugh stopped. She pressed her lips together to fight the smile. The struggle was visible, itself a kind of gift. She was amused against her will, and her reluctance meant it mattered.

“We should not be friends,” she said.

“I was not under the impression that we were.”

“We should not become friends. You separated my sister from the person she loved. I accused you of being the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed on to marry. A civil conversation at a railing erases neither of those things.”

“It does not.”

“Good. Then we understand each other.”

“I believe we do.”

She nodded, turning away. She took three steps and stopped. It was becoming a pattern, the pause where she decided whether to say what she had been holding back. He could see the decision in the set of her shoulders.

“Mr Darcy.”

“Miss Bennet.”

“The letter to Bingley. Send it the moment we reach port.”