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Elizabeth would never admit it to him, but she was relieved and grateful for Darcy’s presence.

It was obvious to her that he was aboard ship on his way to America, just as Lady Catherine had thrown in her face not that long ago.

Why he was present at Lydia’s wedding and how such a wedding came to be in the first place remained unanswered.

She knew for a fact that Mr Wickham intended to enjoy Lydia until they came to New York and then abandon her.

None of that mattered now. With their life belts securely fastened, they followed Mr Darcy up to the boat deck.

Many people milled about now, some still half in nightclothes.

The ship felt solid as a rock. She peeked over the side and the sea remained as still as a pond, black as obsidian.

A great roar blasted steam from the funnels above them, and Lizzy flinched. The noise stopped all conversation. Some passengers laughed nervously; others, along with Lizzy, silently looked up.

“ What are they doing?” she shouted at Mr Darcy eventually. He stood, gazing up at the funnels, his expression implacable.

“ Relieving steam from the engine, I believe.” He frowned. “Why it’s making so much noise, I am at a loss.” He looked at her. “I don’t believe it is anything alarming.”

As Lizzy looked about the deck, few seemed the least bit alarmed. The ship stood perfectly still in the ocean as solid and reassuring as could be. She tried to calm her own unease. The staff surely would let them know if it was anything more alarming.

“ It’s very noisy up here.” Lydia covered her ears. “I think I need to go and wait for George in our cabin. Come on, Lizzy. Follow me.” She slipped away without looking back and disappeared in the crowd.

Elizabeth glanced at Darcy, and for the first time, apprehension was apparent in his expression.

“We can’t get separated. We must go after her.

” He took Elizabeth by the hand. A thought crossed her mind that she should resist this gesture, but she had to admit that it felt comforting.

Darcy pulled her through the crowd to the stairwell, and she caught occasional glimpses of Lydia trying to step forward but countered at every turn by the crowd streaming onto the deck.

“ Lydia. Lydia .” Elizabeth knew she would soon be hoarse if this noise were to continue. Luckily, Lydia heard her before she was swept back to her by the swelling crowd.

“ Oh, never mind,” she said breathlessly. “Georgie will have to find me here.”

Lydia was safely by her side, that was all that mattered, and Lizzy glanced around. The crew calmly but steadily unwrapped the lifeboats, arranged the oars, coiled the ropes that would soon be run through the divets and pulleys to lower those boats into the glassy sea.

Lifeboats? She looked at Lydia, nervously biting her lip while searching the crowd, no doubt, for George.

Lizzy’s heart sank. She couldn’t see them separated.

She’d remain here with her sister and Mr Darcy until George came.

Although the crew got the boats ready, there was no indication that anything was wrong with the ship: no wind, no churning of the sea, and certainly no icebergs.

A bit of snow was kicked about on the deck, but how much harm could that have done to a great ship such as this one?

Darcy still had Elizabeth’s hand in his, not such a tight grip as before, but not tenuous either. She left it there as an officer began walking the deck.

“ All women and children get down to the deck below and all men stand back from the boats,” he shouted above the screaming steam escaping from the funnels.

“ This is where I leave you, ladies.” Darcy let go of her hand, and Lizzy suddenly felt very vulnerable. Despite the assurance of the crew, the atmosphere had turned suddenly frightful, and perhaps deadly.

When the crew began to fill the lifeboats, some women resisted, some wailed over being forced to leave their husbands. Officers separated them, forcefully pulling the women down the staircase to the deck below. Most of the crowd did as they were told. Mr Darcy had the most placid look on his face.

“ I don’t think we should be separated,” Elizabeth said at last.

“ Those are the orders, Miss Bennet. I am sure that it is just a precaution. They will row you all out a bit, and once whatever problem they are having is solved, they will row you back again. Never fear.”

“ I am not frightened in the least bit.” Of course, she was, though she would certainly never betray it to him.

She could barely admit it to herself. Lydia’s change from biting her lip to dancing from foot to foot did betray her anxiety, and Lizzy knew that she had to be strong for her sake.

Lizzy looked around for George. Could he be behaving contrary to his nature and attending to his duties?

In any case, perhaps Mr Darcy was right, and all these life belts and boats were only a precaution.

Just then, a hiss and a roar assailed them, and Lizzy’s gaze turned skyward. A rocket sped up, up, upwards towards the stars and then exploded into a thousand shining fragments.

“ Rockets,” he said. Mr Darcy reached for Elizabeth’s hand once again.

She took it. Then another rocket, and then another.

Rockets exploded the stillness of the cloudless night and the stillness of the sea.

Rockets at sea meant only one thing: they were calling desperately for help from any ship nearby that could see them.

They were calling into the still night because they were sinking.

“ There’s nothing more to be said. Go down to the B deck at once.” Darcy pointed at the boats as he found Lizzy’s gaze. The crew let the ropes slip through the cleats that allowed them to be lowered down to the deck below.

“ Come with us.” Elizabeth gripped his hand tightly. He was going to be noble and let others go before him into the lifeboats. At that moment, she knew that she loved him. She had to tell him. It might be her last chance.

Her expression betrayed her because he touched her cheek ever so gently. “I’ll accompany you as far as I can, but the boats are for the women and children.” The officer overheard his remark, for as they reached the stairwell, he shouted, “Men are being taken off the port side, sir. Upper deck.”

Leading the way down the stairwell, Darcy pulled Elizabeth by the hand and she, in turn, led Lydia through the crowd of passengers. When they reached the deck, boat 13 swung level with the railing.

“ Lydia— Lydia .” Out of the crowd, George appeared still dressed in his white waiter’s jacket and gloves. His hair was dishevelled, and his coat soiled. Glancing from Elizabeth to Darcy to his wife, he suddenly pulled Lydia to him. “Darling.”

“ Oh, Georgie. I’m so glad you’re here.” Lydia threw her arms around his neck and clung to him. “Come along with us. We’re leaving.”

Darcy turned a cold eye towards George. “Men are boarding on the port side, up top.”

“ Any more ladies?” came the cry from lifeboat 13.

“ Yes, two more here,” Darcy shouted.

“ You there, waiter, help them aboard.” The officer watched Wickham keenly. He was shaking all over.

“ Come on, man. Help your wife.” Darcy cut through the noise. He hesitated a moment more and then said, “We’ll go and see about the men on the port side.”

Lizzy guessed he was only reassuring Wickham to get him to pry Lydia loose so that she could be saved. Wickham peeled Lydia’s hands from his neck and handed her to the officer in the boat.

“ Come along, miss. We must be off.” The officer turned to Lizzy.

How could she leave Darcy now? All became clear to her in that moment. George wouldn’t marry unless there was money involved, so Darcy must have arranged this marriage between them. He must have paid Wickham off handsomely. That first-class cabin for their honeymoon? That was his doing as well.

He still loved her.

If they died tonight, they’d die together. She couldn’t leave him.

“ Darcy—”

“ Go, go,” Darcy shouted above the din of the roaring funnels. His hands were upon her waist, pushing her toward the lifeboat.

“ No, no.” She tried to twist around. “I want to stay with you.”

His eyes met hers, and they softened for a moment.

Then determination took over. He hesitated, then smiled.

“No need for such heroics, my dear. Wickham and I will be on one of the boats leaving the port side. No need to worry at all.” He turned to indicate Wickham, but the rat was nowhere to be found.

“ Any more ladies?” The cry went up from the lifeboat crew again.

Lizzy briefly glanced at the chaos around her. “No, I won’t leave you.” She turned in his arms and kissed him hard on the mouth. He pulled back, and then he kissed her, tenderly, passionately, desperately.

“ I love you,” he said in her ear as he pulled away.

“ I love you. And I’m so sorry, I…”

“ Go, go. Look after your sister.”

Lydia screamed, tears streaming down her face. “Lizzy, Lizzy, don’t leave me.”

Darcy kissed Lizzy’s cheek. “I will be all right. You’ll see. This ship is unsinkable.” He kept his voice steady, but in the flash of the rockets she could see the truth in his eyes. He didn’t believe his words any more than she did.

She threw her arms around him, pressing her cheek to his, and then took the hand of the officer in lifeboat 13. By the time she had settled next to Lydia, Darcy was gone.

***

Elizabeth gripped the wooden seat as the crew lowered the boat, fearing they might be dumped headlong into the sea.

Sixty people packed the boat, most of whom remained oddly silent except for the occasional remark about what a lark this voyage was turning out to be.

One woman behind her, clutching her fur collar tightly around her neck, remarked that she would be glad to get aboard again and secure her jewels.

Lizzy gazed heavenward as the crew on deck handled the ropes that lowered their boat down so the great black wall of the ship slipped past them.

“ Beware of the condenser exhaust: we don’t want to stay long or we shall be swamped. Feel on the floor and be ready to pull up the pin that lets the ropes free as soon as we are afloat.”

She shot a glance back into the boat and the crewman who addressed them.

There was scarcely enough room to stand, let alone bend over and feel about on the floor of the boat, they were so tightly packed together.

Lizzy wiggled her arm free from Lydia, who stayed oddly silent as she felt along the bottom of the boat.

There was the pin. Looking up at the crew member at the stern, she nodded to him, and he nodded back.

She would pull the pin on his signal. The “condenser exhaust” was a stream of water that perpetually gushed from the ship as they made their way.

In days past, when she looked over the side, she marvelled at it.

It spewed a forceful rush of water from the side like an artificial crashing wave.

The force of it could easily topple the boat and spill all of them into the icy, black sea.

The roar of the jet got nearer and louder.

Elizabeth forced herself to watch the crewman for a signal.

Abruptly, they plopped into the water, and she pulled the pin. Her fellow passengers must have done the same for the force of the jet pushed them in a tidal wave from the side of the ship directly under boat 15, which lowered above their heads.

“ Stop lowering boat fifteen .” Panicking cries from Lizzy and everyone in the boat rent the night air. People desperately reached up, trying to stop the descending boat from crushing them.

Passengers from boat 15 joined in the shouts.

With the whistling steam escaping from the funnels and the shouting on deck, crew members lowering the boats couldn’t hear their cries.

Desperate, Elizabeth reached up and instinctively slapped the bottom of the descending boat, trying frantically to push her away.

Lydia clung to her skirts like a child and fell silent.

“ Move.” A crew member from Lizzy’s boat pulled out a knife and clambered over people to get to the ropes that still held their boat fast to the Titanic . As he started slicing, he kept looking up furiously. “Cut the ropes, cut the ropes.”

He cut his rapidly at the stern, and Elizabeth’s boat swung away from the side just as the boat above them splashed into the water.

The force of the exhaust stream washed them clear of the ship.

Some muted applause erupted from their boat, but nothing more.

Oddly, everyone seemed calm, so Lizzy patted Lydia’s hand.

“That seems to be the only excitement we will have for the evening,” she said reassuringly.

Lizzy hoped and prayed it would be, but her heart sank as she turned to look at the ship.

“ Oh, I do hope so. I wonder how Georgie is doing?”