Leith was making horrible gagging noises, his eyes bulging. Trem and John, who had seemed paralyzed by the sight at first, jumped up and began attempting to haul Augustus off Leith.
Their movement allowed her to find her own voice.
“Please, Augustus, no,” she pleaded. She understood his fury, but the color Leith was turning was awful. “Please, stop.”
Henrietta and Catherine remained frozen in seeming horror.
“Monty, let go, you’ll kill him,” John panted.
“What in the devil are you on about,” Trem screamed, when Augustus landed an elbow in his sternum. “Christ, Monty.”
Finally, John and Trem managed to pry Augustus off of Leith. Leith bent over, gagging and coughing.
“Would you care to explain?” Trem shouted, letting go of Augustus’s arm, but standing so that he could intercept him if he lunged back at Leith.
Augustus panted. Olivia wanted to go to him, but she found she couldn’t move. It was too awful. All she could think was thatshehad caused this problem. They were all such great friends, as they had just so well displayed, and she was ruining it—she always had and she always would.
“It was him,” Augustus shouted, pointing at Leith. “When Olivia disappeared, it was because she found a note. She thought it was from me. Itwasfrom me, it was in my hand, except I never wrote it. It gave her ten guineas and told her to leave. She believed that I didn’t want her anymore. We couldn’t figure out who had written it. We thought it may have been a maid servant or my father’s old secretary, Mr. Brownlow. But I should have known. Of course. It washim.”
“Leith, is this true?” John asked, his voice very grave.
Leith had straightened now, but his hand was still at his throat.
“I don’t know what he means.”
“You fucking liar. I know it was you. It all makes sense now. You knew about the ten guineas.”
Augustus turned to Olivia. “I told him—about our joke. I shouldn’t have. But I was young and in love and wanted to share my joy with my best friend. He knew what those ten guineas would have meant.”
Olivia looked at Leith. He was extraordinarily pale. She would have felt sorry for him—if she had been someone else.
“Why did you do it?” she asked. Her voice came out smaller and weaker than she would have liked.
“Fine,” Leith spat, “It was me. Alright? And I’ve regretted it ever since. I didn’t realize how overset you’d be, Monty—I didn’t. I thought it was just a liaison and that you were getting in over your head. That you’d be glad when she was gone. I am sorry, Olivia. It’s no excuse. I was young and foolish. I thought I was protecting my friend.”
Augustus lunged at him again, but John and Trem held him back. Without being able to pummel his best friend, Augustus began to yell instead—and Leith yelled back. Their voices bounced off the walls as everyone else stood rapt, in horror, as these two best friends said horrific things to each other.
So lost were they all to this unfolding madness that no one noticed when she, Olivia, slipped from the room. She had merely intended to give herself a break from the shouting, to think through this revelation, but, instead, she found herself in the street, walking the path back to Bloomsbury.
Olivia didn’t realize, at first, that she was crying, or why she felt so heartbroken. But by the time she reached Eloisa, she realized that tears were running down her face and that she felt gutted for a very specific reason.
Her worst fear, it turned out, was true.
Society, his world, would always come between her and Augustus.
She and Augustus Carrington were doomed.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Monty!”
He was dimly aware, as he heaved invectives at Leith, that someone else was calling his name. But he ignored them, so lost was he to rage, and so desperately did he want to pummel his best friend.
But the voice cried his name again. And he couldn’t help but look over.
It was Henrietta. “Monty,” she repeated, “Olivia is gone. She left.”
Montaigne looked around the drawing room and realized that Henrietta was right. Olivia had vanished. He had been so caught up in his anger at Leith that he hadn’t even realized it.
