“Monty, I’ll do anything to make it up to you. And to Olivia.”
Montaigne was about to pronounce to his friend that no such remedy was possible. He was about to tell Leith that he was no one to him, that he was done with him, that he could enjoy a life without his oldest and best friend.
But then he had a second, better thought.
While the fear that Olivia would leave London again without even speaking to him had slithered down to live cold and hard in his gut, he knew that, strictly speaking, such an outcome was not wholly realistic. After all, last time she had left, she had thought that he hadn’t wanted her. She had thought that he had dismissed her, asked her to leave his house. Would Olivia flee the city when she knew how much he loved her, when she knew he had called at the Mappertons, and, more so, given all she had learned about him since she had come back to London?
No, he had more faith in her and their love than that. She might be upset now, she might be having doubts, but she wouldn’t flee without speaking to him.
He looked at his best friend in front of him. Leith was a fool, but he was not to be blamed forallthat had transpired between him and Olivia. What he had once concluded about Astrid was also true in Leith’s case. If Montaigne had been clearer with Olivia back then—no, even graver, if he had even been able to think further than the next time he would see her—she would have never believed that silly note. Yes, Leith had done something awful to him. He had betrayed him and then kept silent about it, letting him wonder. Perhaps, letting him wonder had been his worst crime of all. But once he had taken the step of leaving the note and Olivia had fled, the knowledge of what had happened to make her go wouldn’t have helped him find her. He would have had no way of locating her, either.
Now, he wouldn’t give himself over to despair, to drink, or to raging at Leith—it was not behavior that Olivia would admire. It was not behavior that was equal to her. And he wouldn’t throw out his longest-standing friendship just because Leith had made a foolish mistake, no matter how angry he might be with him at the moment.
“Yes,” Montaigne said to Leith, the plan beginning to unfurl in his mind, “Youwillmake it up to us. And I know exactly the way.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Montaigne spent mostof the night planning with his friends. By the time they left in the early morning, he felt better than he would have thought possible last night—and he had put away the bottle of the whiskey, having, in the end, only had those first three glasses.
He was even able to doze off on the sofa for a few hours. He didn’t dare go into their bedroom, for fear that he would somehow miss Olivia’s reentrance into the house, and also because he couldn’t bear to sleep there without her.
That is how he woke to a most welcome sight: Olivia, looking much fresher than he was sure he did, standing over him.
“Augustus?”
For a moment, he thought she was a hallucination. She had to be, he thought, because she was so beautiful. Olivia was always beautiful, but in his hazy, lovesick state and the early morning light, she looked like an angel, honey-brown eyes and smooth, buttery skin catching the rays of the rising sun.
“Olivia?” he said the word like a prayer, sure that she would disappear when he said it, but instead she stayed. It began to dawn on him that she was real.
“You’re here,” he said, reaching for her, “You came back.”
She frowned at him, the little vexing crinkle in her brow the second sign that she was very much flesh-and-blood. “Of course I came back. Where else would I go?”
“To France?” he said, with a smile that he had hoped came off as roguish, but he feared read pathetic.
She sat down next to him on the couch, clearly exasperated. “Do you think I am so disloyal as that?”
“You did it it once before.”
“Under very different circumstances.”
He found her hand once more. “I know. I was just frightened I’d somehow lose you again.”
She shook her head. “Of course not.”
“Then why did you leave Edington House without telling me?”
She shook her head. “You know why. I couldn’t stand to see what being with me does to your life—”
“Youaremy life, Olivia.”
She smiled at him. “That’s what Eloisa said to me. She said that I have to let you decide what is important to you, that I can’t determine that for you.”
“Wise woman.” He felt infinitely grateful, in this moment, for Mrs. Mapperton.
“I was upset,” she continued, “That I would be the cause of such a row between you and Leith.”
“His own actions were the cause of the row between me and Leith,” he huffed. “If you never want to speak to him again, I would understand. It is hard for me to imagine forgiving him myself, when I think of it.”
