Page 17 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

She went up.

The deck was unrecognisable. One mast had gone; the remaining sail was tearing itself apart. The sea made one wonder whether the people who wrote admiringly of the Mediterranean had ever encountered it in a storm.

The deck was entirely abandoned. Elizabeth did not look too carefully at the sea alongside.

“Can you swim?” Darcy said.

The question was so direct and so practical that it cut through everything else. “After a fashion,” she said, which was the honest answer and presumably not what he wanted to hear.

His expression confirmed this with the resignation she deserved.

The ship sank slowly. The stern settled first, pulling the rest of the hull down with it. The bow where they stood became the last point above the waterline. And then it vanished.

She was in the water.

Mediterranean water in summer was warm enough even in a storm. But it was enormous, dark, and directionless, with no bottom she could feel and no horizon she could trust. She fought it with everything she had. It was not going to be sufficient.

He found her.

His arm came around her chest from behind, firm and conclusive. She stopped fighting the sea, locking her hand over his forearm. She drew a deliberate breath. Wreckage floated around them. He moved them towards a section of hull broad enough to keep their heads above the surface. She gripped the edge. He held beside her, shoulder to shoulder. The water was loud and required nothing of them except survival.

She concentrated on survival. It was her best quality.

“I have you,” he said, close to her ear.

She did not tell him she was fine. The plank was real, and she intended to hold on until her capacity expired. She refused to let it expire. The storm drove waves at them with impersonal force. They held.

The night was very long.

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.”