Page 58 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

He laughed. The sudden movement hurt his side terribly, but the pain was worth it. Laughing was the first thing that had felt like his true self since the fever broke. Feeling like himself was a gift she gave him with every dry observation and every badly pronounced Italian word. Her wit was a medicine no physician could have prescribed.

On the fourth day he was strong enough to walk.

She permitted it, though the permission was highly conditional. It involved particular instructions about distance, pace, and the exact circumstances under which he was to sit down immediately and not argue. The rules were delivered with the firm authority of a woman who had spent three days in sole command of a household, and had no intention of relinquishing it simply because the other occupant could now stand.

They walked slowly to the cove. His legs were far weaker than he wanted them to be. It was a humiliation he bore with enforced patience; Elizabeth had ordered him not to be stupid about his limitations. She watched him constantly, with the particular, devoted attention of someone who had almost lost him, and refused to look away again.

The cove was fundamentally changed. The storm had rearranged the sand, piling it higher on the south side and scooping it away from the north. There was new debris on the waterline: wood, rope, and pieces of what might have been a barrel. The sea had delivered wreckage once again. Elizabeth was already assessing the debris with the acquisitive eye of a woman who wasted nothing whatsoever.

“Planks,” she said. “Good ones. And rope. The tower's upper level needs a new framework before we can re-lay the stones. These will do.”

“You are planning repairs.”

“I am planning repairs.”

“The repairs will require lifting,” Darcy pointed out. “The lifting will require two people.”

“The lifting will require two people when both are capable of it, which you are currently not. The lifting will wait. The planning, however, does not need to wait. I can plan while you convalesce, and the scheme will be ready when you are.”

He sat heavily on the sand. She had directed him to sit, and he obeyed. Over the past three days, her preferences had acquired the full force of natural law.

He watched her sort the debris. She was efficient and systematic, grouping pieces by material, size, and potential use. She placed planks in one pile, rope in another, and scraps of canvas in a third. She worked with a focused, purposeful energy. She was visibly thinner than she had been five weeks ago, but she was stronger than she had ever been.

“Elizabeth.”

She looked up from a length of rope she was coiling. Her intent, absorbed expression softened the moment her eyes found his.

“You kept me alive,” he said.

“You kept yourself alive. The fever broke on its own. I merely provided commentary.”

“You provided twelve hours of commentary about a bench in Hertfordshire while holding my head in your lap in the rain. That is not merely commentary. That is a sustained act of care that I am not certain I could have matched.”

“You would have matched it. You would have talked about Pemberley, which has considerably more material than Longbourn. You could have talked for days about the grounds alone.”

“I would have talked about you.”

She went completely still, pausing her work on the rope. Her dark, steady eyes rested on his face. He had spent five weeks learning the precise geography of her expressions.

“That would have been a poor approach,” she said. “You would have run out of material in an hour.”

“I would not have run out of material in a lifetime.”

“Fitzwilliam.”

“It is true. I would have talked about the way you hum while you work. I would have detailed the way you sleep with your fist tucked under your chin. I would have recounted how you stood in a stone tower, a mere two months after refusing me, and bravely kissed me. I would not have run out.”

She looked at the rope in her hands, and then back at him. She set the rope down with deliberate care. She was entirely finished with sorting debris, and finished pretending that it was what she wanted to be doing.

She crossed the sand and sat beside him, pressing her shoulder firmly against his.

“I was terribly afraid during the fever,” she confessed quietly. “I was afraid in a way I have not been since the shipwreck. The shipwreck was rapid chaos, but the fever was so agonisingly slow. I sat with you for twelve hours, terrified for every one of them. I talked because it was the only weapon I had against the silence. Giving into the silence felt like giving up, and I will never give up on you.”

He put his arm around her. The sudden movement pulled painfully at his side, but he dismissed the agony. He needed to hold her. The great need wholly overrode the wound, his weakness, and her strict instructions to avoid unnecessary movement.

She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest. The afternoon sun was warm on the sand, and the sea washed quietly against the shore. The island held them exactly as it had since the beginning—indifferent, wild, and quite present.

“I heard you,” he said softly. “During the fever, I heard your voice. I did not always understand the words, but your voice was a thread in the dark. I followed that thread back.”