Page 7 of Desert Island Duke

Caro let out an exasperated groan. In truth, she was uncomfortable. The steel wires in her stays were pressing into her ribs, and every inch of her was covered in scratchy sand.

“Oh, fine.”

Turning her back to him, she slipped out of her dress and stepped out of her petticoat. After a moment of indecision, comfort won out over modesty, and she unlaced the front of her stays, too. She slipped the garment from her shoulders with a sigh of relief, and draped it over a piece of driftwood in the sun.

Risking a glance over her shoulder, she found Hayworth shirtless in just his breeches, looking like a sun-kissed Robinson Crusoe. She, now in nothing but her knee-length cotton chemise, probably looked like an escapee from an asylum. Or a very bedraggled ghost.

The only way to get through this situation was obviously to ignore her embarrassment and concentrate on the task in hand, namely: survival.

“It’s still early. We should walk up the beach and try to find fresh water. There’s no point setting up a camp miles away from something drinkable.”

Hayworth nodded. “Agreed. If we can’t find a stream, then we’ll have to bash open some coconuts. Or find a puddle of rainwater. We can leave our clothes here to dry.”

The two of them set off, keeping to the shade of the trees that fringed the beach as much as possible. The sandy bay ended in a rocky headland, which they reached without finding any stream or even trickle of water running onto the beach.

“We have to see what’s around these rocks. Hopefully it’s another bay.”

Caro glanced at her bare feet. “They look too sharp to climb over. We should wade around, if it’s not too deep.”

Hayworth ventured into the shallow water, keeping to the sandy spaces between the rocks, and Caro followed in his wake. The water was astonishingly clear, and shoals of colorful fishes raced around their legs.

“Watch out for sea urchins,” she warned.

“I wish we had a fishing pole. Or even just a hook and line. I could catch us some dinner.”

“You could make a spear out of a stick,” she suggested. “That might work. Or we could try to catch some of those crabs.”

Scores of the armored little creatures crowded the rocks, scuttling into hiding holes whenever they got near.

With a final clamber over some partly-submerged rocks, they rounded the headland and discovered another perfect crescent, this one a little smaller than the one they’d been on before. Caro’s heart gave a jolt as she noticed a disrupted section of sand about a hundred yards away.

“Look! Is that a stream?”

Hayworth set off at a brisk jog, and Caro let him go, disgusted with his athleticism. It was far too hot to run.

“It could just be seawater!” she shouted after him.

Before she was even halfway there, he dropped to his knees and lifted a handful of liquid to his mouth. His whoop of triumph made her quicken her pace, and as she neared, she saw a steady trickle of clear water flowing out from the forest and down to the water’s edge.

“Is it drinkable?”

He splashed his face with a laugh of delight. “Yes. It’s wonderful! Have some.”

She crouched at his side and scooped a handful to her lips, so desperate for a drink she didn’t even care about the leaves and sticks floating about in it. She closed her eyes on a groan of pleasure. “Oh, dear God, that’s good.”

She took another long drink, then splashed her face, glad to remove the sticky salt and sand from her skin. When she glanced at Hayworth, she blushed to find his gaze fixed on her wet lips.

He coughed, as if there was something in his throat, and looked quickly away, then busied himself with washing the back of his neck.

When he finally stood, it was to inspect the foliage around them. He indicated a little clearing set back from the beach, sheltered by the trees, beyond the line of debris left by the high tide.

“We should make camp here. It’s stupid to try to carry water back around to the other beach.”

“But we’ll be out of sight of the other island. My family will think something terrible has happened to us if we disappear.”

“We’ll go back and wave twice a day, so they can see us.”

Caro sighed, accepting defeat. “Fair enough. If you go back for our clothes, I’ll gather some sticks and branches to make a shelter.”

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