chapter 20
There was an instant of terrifying flight through the air before Laura hit the river. The water was another shock, cold despite the warmth of the day, and her momentum sent her deep enough that her feet touched the bottom. She pushed off with all her might, shooting up through the water.
Her head popped up on the downriver side of the narrow bridge. Water soaked her petticoats and skirts and filled her shoes, but fortune was still on her side, for she landed not far from the shore and the current was a lazy one.
She struck out strongly for the side. Reeds and ferns and even small trees grew along the gently sloping bank of the water, and she grabbed at them, pulling herself in until her feet finally found purchase in the mud.
She could see Littletree not far from her, nearer the shore and upriver, clinging with one hand to a slender sapling growing out of the bank. His other arm hung uselessly at his side; his face was white and contorted with pain.
Laura slogged toward him through the reedy water and mud, moving sideways and holding on to whatever plant or root was handy to help propel herself forward against the current. Littletree was obviously too dazed to realize that he could simply push his legs down and scramble up the bank.
She was only a foot from him when the slender branch he clung to finally ripped. He yelled in panic, but Laura was able to turn and reach out, blocking him. She held on to him with one hand, and with the other kept a firm hold on the root of a large tree that protruded from the dirt.
“Put your feet down. Climb.” She hadn’t the strength to hold him long against the current; her grip would soon slip from either him or the root.
But Littletree had recovered enough from his initial panic that he understood and fought for a toehold in the muddy bottom. With his good arm, he managed to grasp another of the roots, and they plowed forward onto the bank. Falling and stumbling, they dragged themselves up the muddy slope and flopped down on the ground, water streaming off them. Laura sat, gasping for air and trying to stop shaking all over.
“Biscuit . . . Binky. . .” Littletree moaned.
Laura looked at him in bewilderment, until she realized he must be talking about the horses. That would be his first concern, of course. “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” she told him bracingly, though she had her own doubts as to that. “They’ll have to stop running after a while. If nothing else, the carriage turning over should slow them down.”
“Ohhh.” He let out another groan at this statement and brought his hand up to cover his eyes.
“You’ve hurt your arm. Is it broken?”
He nodded, his face so white the smattering of freckles on it stood out. “I think so, my lady. I hit it on something when I jumped. The bridge, maybe.” He pulled his feet under him, starting to get up. “I need to find the team.”
“You need to sit right here and do nothing,” Laura corrected, putting her hand on his good shoulder to keep him down. “How do you think you’d handle them, anyway, with only one good arm?”
He nodded, seeing the sense of that. It might have helped that even starting to stand had made him look distinctly queasy. Laura rose, picking various leaves and twigs and a strand of some sort of vine from her clothes and hair. She wrung what water she could from her muddy skirts. Her legs were shaky, but at least the trembling in her fingers had nearly stopped.
“I’m going up to the road. Someone is bound to come along sooner or later.”
“It’s just a lane,” Littletree said gloomily. “Not much along it. Just the back way to the hall.”
“I’ll walk to the house to fetch help, then. It’s not that far if I take the path up through the gardens.”
“No, my lady, I should go,” he protested.
“Don’t be silly. You have had a shock, and you’re in no shape to climb a hill. Sit here and wait. I’ll send grooms back with a wagon for you. They can find the horses, too.”
Laura shivered as she walked, the pleasant breeze now cold through her wet clothes. Her hair had come loose, straggling wetly all over the place. She pulled out the remaining hairpins and squeezed out the water, thinking yearningly of a long warm bath. And a cup of hot tea. Another shudder shook her.
As she started over the bridge, she heard the sound of a vehicle and team. She swung back around, wondering if the team, running loose, had turned to head home. If so, they were still moving at a rapid clip. But it was a different team that charged around the curve, a foursome of grays pulling a two-seater barouche. The driver was Lord Montclair.
“Graeme!” Laura cried, and hurried toward the carriage, waving her arms.
He was already pulling back on the reins, and when he drew to a stop, he dropped them and leapt down from the vehicle. “Laura! My God, what happened?”
Only seconds behind him, Abby got out of the carriage. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Laura said quickly. “It’s Littletree who’s hurt.” She pointed toward the coachman sitting on the bank.
At the sight of Graeme, the man shoved himself up to his feet and reached his hand up to sweep off his hat before realizing it was long gone. Instead, he bobbed his head respectfully. “My lord.”
“Littletree!” Graeme strode over to him. “You’re injured. Sit down, man, no reason to stand on ceremony. Here’s a nice boulder.” He guided the man toward a large rock.
“What happened?” Abby asked. “We came upon the carriage overturned. Mirabelle feared it was Aunt Tessa’s.”
Mirabelle climbed down from the carriage, as well, albeit more slowly, her face creased with worry. “Is Tessa all right?”
“Tessa’s fine,” Laura reassured her. “I was the only one in the carriage. We started down the hill, but something happened to the brake, and the horses ran.”
“It was Binky, my lord; he took off,” Littletree hastened to explain. “I think a bee must have stung him. He started running, and of course Biscuit joined him. I had the brake slipper on, but the chain snapped. You know how it is on a hill like that.”
“Of course,” Graeme agreed. “Even if the brake had held, it couldn’t stop a runaway team. I’m sure you did everything you could, Littletree.” He glanced at Laura. “Were you thrown out here at the river?”
“We jumped when we reached the bridge,” Laura explained. “I thought it would be a softer landing than crashing on the curve.”
“Indeed. Quick thinking,” Graeme said approvingly. “The carriage wound up on its side and lost a wheel. You two might have been killed if you were still in it.”
A violent shiver ran through Laura, only partially from the cold.
“Here,” an imperious female voice said, and Laura turned to see that Graeme’s grandmother, the dowager Countess of Montclair, had joined them. She draped a carriage rug around Laura’s shoulders. “No need to stand about freezing.”
“Thank you,” Laura said in a heartfelt voice, and remembered to give the older woman a little curtsey in greeting. Lady Eugenia was a stickler for courtesy.
“The horses, sir,” Littletree said to Graeme, his expression pleading. “Are they all right?”
“Yes, yes,” Graeme hastened to assure him. “They looked in decent shape. In a lather of course and standing there looking quite lost, but I didn’t see any cuts, and neither seemed to be limping. I left Barrow to look after them, and I drove us on to see what had happened to the people in the vehicle. Thank heavens you were all right.”
“Barrow.” Clearly the idea of Montclair’s coachman seeing to the team lifted much of the weight from Littletree’s shoulders. “That’s good. Thank you, my lord.”
“Now,” Abigail said firmly, “I think it’s time we took these two home and got them cared for.”
“Oh, yes,” Mirabelle agreed, putting her arm around Laura’s waist and leading her toward the carriage.
The others followed. The dowager countess seemed rather taken aback when she realized that Graeme was putting the injured coachman into the carriage with the ladies—as, indeed, did Littletree himself—but Graeme quelled whatever she was about to say with a firm look. Abigail wedged herself into the seat with Laura and Littletree so that the two older women had the forward-facing seat to themselves.
“I don’t know what Sir James is going to say about this,” Littletree said mournfully.
“Nothing,” Laura said firmly. “Because he’s not going to know about it.” Laura fixed the driver with a stern look. “Do you understand? You are not to let a word of what just happened get back to Sir James.”
“But, Laura, James would want to know.” Graeme paused in the act of climbing up into the higher driver’s seat. “No man would want to be kept in the dark if his wife had been in an accident.”
“No doubt he would not,” Laura retorted crisply. “But that doesn’t mean he should. You didn’t see how ill he’s been, Graeme.”
Graeme nodded, his eyes dark with worry. “He’s no better? Abby said—”
“I hope he will improve,” Laura said carefully, mindful of the coachman’s presence and the likelihood of servant gossip. “But I won’t have James fret himself into another fever because of some silly accident that he couldn’t have done anything to prevent.”
“No, you’re right, of course.” Graeme nodded. “We’ll say nothing about it.”