The Trouble With Honor (The Cabot Sisters #1)

He swiped up his cards and said, “Gentlemen of standing will have second thoughts about your sisters.”


Honor’s heart stopped beating altogether for a moment. But she carefully laid her first card, a deuce.

George looked at it and sighed. “God help you, Honor Cabot. You have no idea the mistake you’ve made.”

They played on. More than one spectator pointed out Honor’s hands were shaking, just as she’d feared. George watched her closely, making her quite anxious. Just when it seemed all was lost for her, Honor hesitated before playing the last of her hand. She looked up at George and smiled. “If I may, Mr. Easton, I don’t care who your father is or is not, or the size of your fortune, big or small.”

The crowd suddenly grew quiet, leaning in to hear what she said.

“I don’t care if there are gowns or balls, and while my sisters may have a difficult road ahead, I am confident they will follow their hearts and persevere. That’s what we Cabots do. We set our sights. I have set mine, and the only thing I care about is you. Only you.” She laid her hand, a trio of queens.

The crowd erupted with cheers and jeers. George looked at her hand and sighed as if he’d expected it. “I don’t know who taught you the art of gambling, madam,” he said, and began to lay down his card. One king. Then two. “But your teacher may have neglected to explain that one should never attempt to cheat.” He laid down a third king, and then a fourth. “Unless one knows precisely how to do it.”

The crowd suddenly stilled, all of them leaning in to see his hand. Honor was stunned. She could feel the emotions and tensions begin to leech out of her body, spilling out of her, taking the last of her strength with them. She watched as George stood up, raked in his winnings, and put them in his pocket. He stared down at her, his eyes dark and unreadable, and pushed a man aside to leave the table.

Honor couldn’t draw a breath, much less move. It felt as if she’d just been snapped clean in two. There was nothing left of her. Nothing. How could he have done it? How could he refuse her, so publicly, so dreadfully?

She didn’t even realize Mr. Jett was shaking her until he said her name loudly, and she glanced up into his face. He was frowning, holding her reticule. “Come along,” he said, and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her up from her chair.

Honor stumbled along beside him, almost blindly. The only thing she could see was George’s winning hand, the way he’d stood and left the table without looking at her, without looking back. He had left her. He had rejected her public appeal, had rejected her completely. He’d broken her heart, and the pain was intolerable.

Mr. Jett put Honor in her coach. She cried all the way to Mayfair, and then cried on Augustine’s shoulder when Jonas handed her over to him. She cried into her pillow as Prudence and Mercy petted her leg, trying to help.

There was no help for her. No hope. Now Honor had truly lost everything.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

GEORGE WALKED INTO his house and went directly to the salon, poured himself a whiskey, downed that and then hit the wall with his fist again. The pain was excruciating, driving him to his knees.

It did not compare to the pain of humiliating Honor before half the ton. But what could he do? Dammit all to hell, why had she come? She thought she could publicly challenge him, force him to her will? She thought she could cheat her way into his heart? She thought she could make such an unreasonable, impossible demand and win?

On all fours, gasping at the pain, George smiled a little. That brazenness, that absurd sense of righteousness, was why he loved her. No other woman could compete with that audacity, and he found it alarmingly arousing.

But that did not change the fact that he was in no position to offer for her. He was working the gaming hells to keep food on his table—it was hardly anything to settle on a wife. There would be no servants, no gowns, no hats.... “She’ll never agree,” he whispered through his teeth.

“Agree to what?”

Finnegan had entered without George hearing him. George groaned with exasperation, fell onto his side and rolled onto his back. “She’ll not agree to marry a man with nothing, that’s what.”

Finnegan stepped over him, picked up the glass George had dropped before hitting the wall, and as George tested his fingers, Finnegan filled it. “Are you certain?” he asked as he crouched beside George. “Rather seems to me that the only thing the lass wants is you.”

George sat up, took the whiskey and downed it. “Because she is young and in love, Finnegan. After a time, she’ll want her gowns and shoes, and at present, I can’t even pay your bloody wage, much less provide for her and all the Cabots as they ought to live.”

“She has a dowry, does she not?” Finnegan asked practically.