Page 116 of To Know Miss May

She left him on the balcony, fleeing through the rain and abandoning the tour altogether as she headed down the Mount seeking shelter, home, her books.

For only in them would she find the solace she needed to escape her pathetic existence—the existence she’d stupidly, foolishly, and mistakenly believed might have been better than a life she’d read about in her novels.

How wrong she had been. How dreadfully, disappointingly wrong.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

“Books were sweet unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it.”

The vicar of Wakefield, Oliver Goldsmith

August went through the motions of his day with a feeling of numbness. Telling Livvy had done exactly what he’d feared—broken her heart and crushed her spirit. And now that he had told her, and he had injured her, he had nothing else to live for.

His family tried speaking to him through dinner that night, but August had excused himself, leaving for bed early without explanation, though he knew they all watched him and wondered what was wrong.

He couldn’t tell them, though. They wouldn’t understand. None of them would. Because he was the one at fault. He was the one who had caused his own heartache, Livvy’s heartache. And how stupid he was to have done so.

He sat on his bed, unable to move anything but his eyes as he turned to find the book Livvy had asked him to read as a joke. Don Quixote. He hadn’t even read more than a few chapters, though he’d promised her to read the entire tale.

Yet another way he’d damaged her trust in him.

How long ago those moments now seemed, standing with her near Mother’s books, speaking of trivial matters like names and novels and reading in bushes. If only he could go back to such a time, when matters were simple, carefree. If given a second chance, he would refuse Mr. May and his pressuring, stand up for Livvy’s right to remain on the Mount, and beg her to marry him, day one.

But it was too late. Far too late. He’d failed Livvy, failed himself, and failed his future.

He’d hoped the knowledge of her father’s coercion would have softened the role that August had played in their deception, but after what she’d said—that everyone always had a choice—he’d known that the extortion would merely sound like an excuse. A valid one, but an excuse, nonetheless. Made by a man too weak to take responsibility for his own deplorable actions.

So he’d taken responsibility. And he’d paid the price for doing so.

He shook his head, turning away from the book to stop the never-ending grief within him, though he knew not even sleep would help him overcome this sorrow.

All that would help him would be Livvy’s forgiveness. Livvy’s love. But he had forfeited the right to both. And he would never see them again.

* * *

The following Monday, after remaining home from church, hulled up in his room all day, August went to work, desensitized to all around him.

Livvy would have told Mr. May about matters now, and the man would be deservedly furious. As such, August fully expected to arrive at the garden gate, only to have Mr. May remove him from his position as undergardener.

Had the man already begun spreading the news about Emma and Nicholas? Or was he saving that to threaten August one more time?

Either way, he’d come to terms with losing his job.

Though he’d not yet come to terms with losing his Livvy.

To his surprise that morning, when he arrived at the gardens, Mr. May was nowhere to be seen. As such, August went about his tasks as best he could, but not even the feel of the earth between his fingers or the sound of humming bees visiting the purple foxgloves nearby could give him the strength he needed to move on because all he could see were the sea pinks trembling on the edge of the cliffside.

Just as Livvy had trembled when he’d told her what he’d done.

“Moon!”

August started, shifting his gaze from the sea pinks to Mr. May as the man approached, his gaze dropping to the pathway he walked across so August couldn’t see his expression.

This was it. This was when August would lose the job he’d been working toward since he was a child. This was the beginning of his final days on the Mount, for he would now have to go elsewhere to seek work.

But none of it mattered any longer. None of it mattered but Livvy.

August shifted his stance in the grass, then stood to face Mr. May. “What can I do for ye, sir?”