Page 10 of Pride: The Rogue
He cocked his head. “Really, miss? Now doesn’t seem the best—”
“Mr. Dryver,” she gently redirected him. “I’m taking it we’ve arrived?” she ventured hopefully.
The young man shook his head. “No.”
Her stomach fell. “No?”
“As I was saying, a branch split and it’s fallen across the road. Smaller piece here,” he loudly explained, pointing a finger to some unidentifiable place outside the carriage confines. “And a bigger one, behind us. Closed off the road it has.”
Closed off the road?
Livian closed her eyes.
Bloody hell.
Squeezing past Mr. Dryver, Livian jumped down.
“Miss Lovelace!” he cried out.
The young driver caught her by the arm, the same moment her boots sank several inches deep into gluey, black, mud.
All the while she attempted to jerk her left boot free and move it forward, Mr. Dryver wailed. “His Lordship will ’ave me head ’e will. Ye cannae be out ’ere.”
With a satisfying splat, Livian managed to pull free and trudge herself right out of the ditch of racing waters the Old Roman Road had become.
Mr. Dryver followed close. “What are ye doin’, miss?” His speech dissolved more into the cockney he’d carried into the earl’s employ from the days he’d been on the street.
“I’m inspecting the situation,” she called, squinting past the rain running in rivulets down her eyes.
Ignoring the young man’s protestations, she managed to open her eyes enough.
Her heart sank.Good Christ, and hers was a prayer.
“The smaller branch?” she cried.
Mr. Dryver reached her side. “Aye.
The smallerbranchhappened to be four, nearly five meters wide and inconveniently blocked their forward path.
“The big branch is behind us, miss,” her driver informed.
As if to add further salt to already gaping wounds, a harsh gust of wind whipped Livian’s bonnet backward. She spun quick, only to watch the wicker article Verity’s son had given Livian for her recent birthday, go flying several feet down the lane, before it got tangled in the larger branch.
The larger branch.
A giggle built in her chest and climbed higher and higher until it burst from her in an enormous, snorting laugh.
Poor Mr. Dryver cast a worried eye over Livian, looking at her like she’d cracked.
And if there’d ever been a moment to crack, this was decidedly the one.
“Mr. Dryver,” she said through her panicky amusement. “That is no branch but the better part of a tree.” She measured the object in question with her eyes. “A yew tree some ten meters in height and near that in diameter.”
“Aye, an old tree, it is.” The driver angled his head, and then gave his wet brow a scratch. “I’d wager hundreds, maybe even close to a thousand years old.”
Considering their discussion over the felled yew tree, Livian suspected both sheandpoor Mr. Dryver werebothgone mad.
“It’s notallbad, miss.”
