Page 62 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

Darcy surfaced closely beside her, treading water as the current gently pushed them together.

“I have finished the signal fire,” he said.

“I gathered.”

“It is the best we can build with available materials. The stone pit will hold coals for eight hours. The green wood will produce a smoke column visible from three miles in clear weather. We can maintain it in shifts.”

“You are reporting to me as though I am your governess,” she teased.

“You have governed my every action for the past week,” he replied. “I am merely accustomed to following your orders.”

She laughed, splashing backward into the water. She came up coughing and laughing simultaneously, wholly abandoning her dignity. He watched her with an expression that was exceedingly warm, and dangerously close to desire.

She swam to him, closing the distance between them. She rested her hands on his shoulders, her legs brushing against his beneath the water.

“We are engaged,” she said.

“We are.”

“And you have built me a signal fire.”

“I have.”

“Is the signal fire my engagement present?” she asked. “Because in England, the convention is a ring. The ring is typically made of gold, rather than whatever coarse mineral you have been stacking on the tower.”

“I will get you a ring in England.”

“I do not want a ring in England. I want a ring on this island. This is where you asked, and this is where I accepted. We should mark the occasion with whatever is available.”

He looked at her. There was water on his face and in his eyelashes, the drops catching the gold light. His unguarded expression made her chest tight, and her resolve to be witty completely faltered.

He suddenly dove beneath the surface. She treaded water and waited. He quickly surfaced with his hand closed, water streaming from his hair. He looked quite serious.

He opened his hand to reveal a small, spiralled shell. Its pale pink interior caught the light. It was not a ring, and it was not gold; it was merely a shell from the bottom of the cove.

“It is a shell from the floor of an unmapped cove,” he said softly. “It is not valuable, it is not gold, and it does not satisfy the conventions of any society we belong to.”

“It is perfect,” she said.

She took it. It was small in her palm, and warm from his hand. She closed her fingers tightly around it. There was no clergyman, no church, and no witnesses except the sea.

She kissed him. His hands found her waist under the water, drawing her firmly against him.

The kiss deepened. His hands slid to her hips as her legs wrapped around him. She could feel his immediate response against her through the wet fabric. For the first time on the island, their desire was neither desperate nor frantic; it was wholly joyful.

“Here,” she whispered against his mouth. “In the water.”

“The water is highly impractical,” he murmured.

“I am not interested in being practical.”

“The mechanics of it will be difficult.”

“Fitzwilliam, I have survived a pirate attack, a shipwreck, and your terrible fever. I am not intimidated by the water.”

He laughed against her mouth. She felt it vibrate through his chest and into her ribs.

They moved to the shallows where the water was waist-deep, and the sand was firm beneath his feet. She kept her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. The water held her weight, freeing her to press fully against him.