The Trouble With Honor (The Cabot Sisters #1)

“Or loved someone with every bit of yourself, and convinced yourself there is no point in carrying on without them?”


Again, Augustine nodded adamantly.

“Truly, Honor?” Mercy asked. “You wanted to die?”

“Not die, precisely,” Honor said. “But I can’t explain how I feel for Mr. Easton, darling. It seemed so...important,” she said with a weary shake of her head. “I went to tell him how I felt. To prove it. But the only thing I accomplished was my complete humiliation and ruin.”

Augustine leaned forward. “But...but might you have told him somewhere besides Southwark?” he asked carefully. “Perhaps without a lot of gaming and such? Perhaps a more private venue.”

Honor smiled for the first time in days. “No,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “That’s the peculiar thing. Southwark was a perfectly natural place for George and me. That’s the sort of people we are—swashbucklers.”

“Oh, dear,” Augustine said, looking truly distressed.

“But—” Mercy leaned forward, pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose “—doesn’t he want to marry you?”

Honor ran her hand over her sister’s head. “No,” she said, her voice so low she scarcely heard it herself. Tears filled her eyes at the admission.

“Oh, dear,” Augustine said again. “It’s the Rowley business all over again.”

“This is nothing like the Rowley business,” Honor corrected him. “Lord Rowley didn’t love me. The worst thing about this tragedy is that George Easton truly loves me.”

“That makes no sense,” Mercy said, squinting up at her through her spectacles. “If he loves you, why will he not marry you?”

“Mercy, leave her be,” Prudence said gently.

They didn’t ask her more, all of them falling into contemplative silence.

Honor took the bath Mercy had recommended. She donned her mourning garb, left her hair loose, having no energy or desire to put it up. She padded aimlessly and barefoot about the house, staring solemnly at portraits, wondering after their wretched romances. She picked up books and put them down again.

She had no idea what to do, where to go after such colossal ignominy. There seemed no place for her life to go.

Honor wandered up to her mother’s suite to read to her. Lady Beckington stood at the window, staring out as Honor read listlessly from a book.

“He’s come,” her mother said as Honor read.

Honor looked up. “Who, Mamma?”

“That man. The earl!” she said, and smiled brightly. “He’s come. Oh, dear, have you any shoes?”

“I’ll put them on later,” Honor said, and returned to her reading.

Her mother was not listening, however. She leaned forward, her hands on the window, her nose pressed against it. “He’s coming, Juliette!” she said excitedly, calling Honor by her deceased sister’s name. “The earl is coming here.”

Honor sighed and put aside the book. “Come and rest, Mamma.”

Her mother hurried to her vanity. She opened a drawer and rummaged through it, and turned around, her smile bright, and held out an emerald drop necklace to Honor. “Here, then. It will go very well with your gown.”

Honor looked down at her black gown.

Her mother was quickly at her side, turning her about, pushing her hair away to fasten the heart-shaped emerald at her throat. She turned Honor around again and stood back, nodding her head with approval. “You want to look your best for the earl!” her mother exclaimed. “Who stole your shoes?”

“No one stole my shoes—”

“Honor!”

It was Prudence, calling to Honor from down the hallway. “Honor, where are you?” She burst into her mother’s room, her eyes wide. “It’s him!” she exclaimed in a loud whisper, and for a moment, Honor almost believed the earl had come back from the dead.

“Who?”

“Easton!”

Honor gasped. She unthinkingly stepped back, bumping into her mother. “No! No, Prudence, you must send him away! I don’t want to see him!”

“You must!” her mother said, pushing her forward. “You can’t deny the earl!”

Prudence looked confused by that, but said, “Augustine told him you’d not see him, and Easton said, very well, he would stand in the foyer until he was forcibly removed.”

“What?” Honor’s heart began to pound painfully in her chest. She frantically looked down. “I can’t see him!” she said. “I can’t endure it!”

“Honor,” Prudence said, and grabbed her hand. “I must tell you, he was very stern with Augustine. He insisted that he see you, that he owed you this, that you deserved this call.”

Something snapped in Honor. She would never be entirely certain what it was Prudence had said that put the steel in her spine, but she was struck by a rare moment of clarity when all of the knowledge she possessed about the world and people came into sharp focus. The pieces of her life, of her heart, rearranged themselves into a crystal understanding.