Page 68 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

His hand slid between them. Her hips rose against his touch, and her teeth closed hard over her lower lip to bite back a cry. The required silence forced an agonising, exquisite tension into her every nerve.

She came with a silent, violent shudder that rolled through her entire body. Her back arched off the mattress, and she breathed his name against his neck. As she clenched tightly around him, his own control shattered. He followed her instantly, driving deep as his release shook through him in the utter quiet of the cabin.

Afterward, they lay tightly fitted together on the narrow bunk. Her back was pressed against his chest, and his arm rested across her waist. The porthole admitted a stream of pale moonlight and the faint sound of the sea.

“The door is locked,” she said.

“It is.”

“On the island, we did not need a door.”

“On the island, we did not have an audience.”

“We have an audience now.”

“We do.”

She was quiet. The ship rocked gently, sending the moonlight across the cabin wall like a slow, silver pendulum.

“I am not ashamed,” she said softly. “I want you to know that. Whatever the world says when we reach it, I chose you on that island with my eyes wholly open. I will not pretend to be ashamed of what we did for anyone's comfort.”

“I know,” he said.

“You do not need to protect me from society's judgement.”

“I know that as well.”

“But you will try.”

“I will,” he admitted. “You will tell me it is unnecessary, and I will agree, and yet I will continue to offer it. I suspect this argument will recur at regular intervals for the next fifty years.”

She turned in his arms, her face close to his in the dark cabin.

“Fifty years,” she said.

“At minimum.”

“That is a great many arguments.”

“I am prepared.”

Her mouth found his in a steady, certain kiss. It was a settled promise.

The ship moved westward through the dark. The island was gone behind them, existing now only in the objects they carried: a shell in Elizabeth's pocket, a scar on Darcy's side, and the memory of fire and salt and a happiness that had cost them everything and been worth it.

The locked door held firm against the world. Behind it, two people who had learnt to live wildly without walls finally slept within them. They had fifty years to learn the balance between freedom and shelter.

He was looking forward to the arguments.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Elizabeth Bennet had not seen her own face in six weeks, and the face that looked back at her from the captain's shaving mirror was not wholly recognisable.

The small mirror was spotted with age and salt air, propped upon a shelf in her assigned cabin. She had not asked for it, nor had she missed it. Mirrors belonged to a world that cared deeply about appearances. For six weeks, the only person who had looked at her was a man who appeared to find her increasingly attractive as she became progressively more ruined by the sun.

The face in the mirror was deeply brown. It was not the delicate complexion Hertfordshire considered proper, nor even the mild tan produced by country walks. It was the even, deep brown of a woman who had spent six weeks under a Mediterranean sun without a bonnet, caring only for her survival.

Her hair was much lighter. The dark brown she had inherited from her mother had been bleached by salt and sun into a warm copper at the temples. Darcy had clearly noticed it, but he had tactfully said nothing.