Page 19 of Shipwrecked with 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.

Chapter Nine

Elizabeth had been tending wounds for most of her adult life. She had never before tended a man who was not her father, nor had she used strips torn from her own petticoat. It was precisely the sort of morning the Mediterranean had been building towards.