“Is she calling off the engagement?”
“That’s not for me to say,” Eloisa said, her voice tentative. “But I’m not sure she is thinking of that now. Sheisshaken.”
“What should I do? You know her so well, Eloisa. Do I barge into your home and demand that I speak with her? Or do I let her be for now?”
“Let her be for now. I will take care of her here.” She paused. “She does love you, Augustus. I do know that. No matter what happens.”
His stomach did an uncomfortable flip at this last statement. But he understood that there was nothing he could do. Not tonight, anyway.
“Thank you, Eloisa. Please tell her that, whenever she wants me, I will be at home. Our home.”
Eloisa nodded and he turned away. He heard the door click behind him.
He walked back to his own house slowly. He felt more dreadful than he had in a very, very long time. His fear of losing Olivia felt like a living thing inside of him, hatched from his very soul and set loose in his chest.
When he returned to the house, he poured himself a glass of whiskey and then another. It had been a long time since he had coped in this way. He knew how to control himself around drink, but there had been times, especially right after he had lost Olivia the first time, when he had chosen not to. He found it difficult to resist the impulse now. In his gut, he knew that she wasn’t coming home tonight.
After he drained his third tumbler, he heard a knock at the door. For a moment, his heart rose in his chest and he thought it might be her. But then he realized it couldn’t be. She wouldn’t knock. He rose, wary of this visitor. The scrim of alcohol furred his vision.
Montaigne opened the door.
When he saw their faces, he groaned.
He should have guessed.
Of course, it was them.
John, Trem, and his weasel-faced, idiot best friend.
“Hello, Monty,” Trem said, his voice a trifle cheerful for his taste.
“Go away,” he said, moving to close the door.
John stopped it. “Mate, come on. Did you find her?”
“Yes, but she won’t talk to me. She is at Mrs. Mapperton’s.”
“She didn’t care for the sight of you nearly strangling Leith to death in my drawing room? Curious,” John said, “I thought women loved when their fiancés transform into unhinged, violent madmen.”
“I don’t want to speak to him,” Montaigne bellowed, pointing at Leith. “You two can come in, but not him.”
“Monty, please,” Leith said. “You have to forgive me.”
“We wouldn’t have brought him here, brother,” Trem said, “if he wasn’t really sorry. We aren’t delighted with him ourselves, of course. It was a bit of bastardry, no doubt.”
“Did you two know?” Montaigne said, suddenly stumbling on that horrible possibility. “All of this time, did you know?”
“Of course we didn’t know, Monty,” John snapped. “We would have never kept that from you.”
“I know how you all see me,” he said, noticing that his voice was not slurred, exactly, but softened with drink. “I’m just an amusement to all of you. Perhaps you all thought it was a lucky idea to meddle in my affairs. Perhaps it was not just Leith.”
“John and I were away that summer,” Trem countered, “Don’t be ridiculous. Let us in. Look, you can pummel Leith all you want, if you just let us inside.”
“Excuse me,” Leith objected.
“Don’t protest, Leith,” John retorted. “Or I will pummel you myself. You do deserve it.”
Leith sighed, seeming to accept, to Montaigne’s surprise, that characterization.
