Page 33 of To Know Miss May

“Will ye tell me if I guess it?” he asked.

She nodded. “’Course.”

“Be it the sunshine?”

“No, that be me fourth favorite.”

His eyebrows raised. “That does rank low.” He rubbed his jaw. “Very well. Thunderstorms?”

She shook her head. “Closer. They be me fourth.”

“Snow?”

“Fifth.”

He narrowed his eyes as if deep in thought.

“’Ave ye no further guesses?” she asked.

“No, I merely be strugglin’ to think o’ what sort o’ weather be left.”

She smiled, enjoying herself far too greatly.

After another moment, he sighed. “Very well, I give in.”

“Mist,” she finally revealed. “I love it best when the Mount be shrouded in mist.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes. “Ah, ’course. I should’ve known ye’d enjoy such weather. Ye be as enigmatic as mist can be.”

She paused. There was yet another word she wasn’t sure she could take as a compliment.

“I think I’d like to make me own lists now,” August continued. “Per’aps then we can compare and see what we ’ave in common. Though I can already say the sunshine be me favorite weather.”

“I can’t blame ye for that. But are ye certain ye can manage writin’ lists when the simple book o’ Don Quixote be gettin’ the better of ye?”

He would know she was teasing, would he not?

August paused, his lips parted in feigned surprise. Then he clicked his tongue in reprimand. “I’ll ’ave ye know, madam, that I ain’t…”

His words faded as he glanced beyond Livvy, and the color drained from his face. Instantly, the mood shifted back to what it had been before—tense, rigid, unbearable.

Livvy frowned. Following his gaze over her shoulder, she found Miss Pengelly to be at the end of it. The woman strode toward them, her eyes down as she walked swiftly through the rain.

“Emma,” August said in greeting, just before she might have collided with them.

Miss Pengelly looked up from the pathway in surprise, slowing to a halt as her eyes took in August and Livvy standing beside each other.

“Oh, evenin’,” she greeted, clearly surprised at having met with anyone else on the pathway in such rain. “I didn’t see ye both.”

Her smile was strained as it settled on August, who took a few subtle steps away from Livvy.

Her heart echoed hollowly in her ears. Of course. Now it all made sense. August’s tense shoulders, his fidgeting person, and his shifting eyes. He’d been worried about being discovered not by just anyone around the Mount, but by Miss Pengelly. There was no other explanation for his behavior.

So his sisters had been accurate in their assumptions, then. August did have an attachment to Miss Pengelly. Why else would he appear as if caught doing something he shouldn’t be doing?

A sickness rose in her stomach, though she did her best to quell it. August was honorable. She knew that. He would never encourage anything between the two of them if he was unavailable. So had she truly misread his flirtations remarks? His desire to see her more? Or was he merely wishing for friendship, and she’d been the one to take it a step too far?

Either way, Livvy was ripe with humiliation. How foolish she was to have believed that August might like her. And how horrifying she’d behaved, flirting with another woman’s intended.