Page 8 of Pride: The Rogue
Squinting hard to catch sight of anything outside and failing, Livian pressed her forehead against the chilled windowpane.
In no world where this storm existed could a person make heads or tails of where one traveled.
That included her brother-in-law Malcom’s reliable but young driver, Mr. Bennett Driver.
Suddenly, the carriage veered to a hard left.
Screaming, Livian went flying across the bench.
“Oomph.” She hit the wall with such force it sucked the gasp of pain from her lungs. Tears stung her eyes.
Heart racing, she scrambled to seat herself. Before she could catch a hold of the underside of the bench to keep herself upright, the conveyance, skidded to the right.
Livian slammed hard against the other side.
“Bloody hell,” she rasped, through the pain.
“…Bloody h…” The wind swallowed the rest of Mr. Dryver’s curse.
Livian’s heart pounded, and fear turned over in her belly.
Since the Duchess of Argyll agreed to help Livian secure a match, Livian had spent all her days pining for the love match she’d given up on and the impending, cold, unfeeling union she’d have to make. All the nights where sleep eluded her, she’d stare overhead and lamented a fate worse than death.
Perhaps death by violent carriage accident was to be the hefty price paid for Livian having ever dared make that analogy.
The carriage hit an enormous trench that knocked Livian’s grip on the bench loose. The moment the barouche came out of the cavity, it sent her flying some several inches from her seat.
When she landed, her buttocks caught not the plush, red velvet, upholstered padding, but the wood at the very edge of the bench.
Silver pinpricks of pain dotted her vision. and an anguished moan slipped out.
Livian gripped tighter for dear life.
As the coach rocked and swayed, so too did the red velvet curtains. That luxuriant fabric fluttered open and shut and gave a glimpse of nothing more than the rain which had gone sideways.
Craaaack.
Unblinking, Livian stared wide-eyed at the fissure that’d formed in the window beside her. “This is not good,” she whispered.
As though he’d heard her from atop his box outside, Mr. Dryver raised his voice lough enough to make himself heard over the raging tempest. “Hailllll, Miss Love…ce…Looking for…stop for the…”
She only picked up on every other one or two of his words.
She clutched the seat until her fingers hurt. Her sister Verity warned her not to go.
She tried to swallow but her throat apparently lost its previously reflexive ability to do so.
“You were r-right, Verity,” she said, between chattering teeth.
Even as the two carriages were being loaded and Verity prepared to climb inside one of them, Verity and her beloved husband, Malcom, looked on with worry. She’d wrung her hands together and urged Livian to remain behind. She’d warned the weather was too treacherous to set out in.
The thick, ominous storm clouds overhead portended what’d eventually come to be.
Her sister had known.
Older sistersalwaysknew.
The echo of Verity’s voice whispered around her mind.“…It can always be worse…”
