The Trouble With Honor (The Cabot Sisters #1)

But Miss Cabot gaped at him. “You are rather cheerfully assured of yourself!”


“Why shouldn’t I be?” he asked cavalierly, and took a seat on the settee, crossing one leg over the other. “It’s not as if I am new to games of courtship, Miss Cabot.” He chuckled at the idea. “Miss Monica Hargrove was not only stunned by my approach, but dare I say, delighted.”

“Delighted, was she? Then how would you explain her response when I asked after her evening? She said she’d met no one new, and suggested there was no one new but the usual crowd in attendance.”

George shrugged. “And so?”

“And so, clearly you did not make any sort of impression at all!”

George bristled at the insinuation and coolly narrowed his gaze on Miss Cabot. “I made an impression,” he said clearly. “Your friend was suitably flummoxed. Naturally she would not admit it, for it’s none of your concern.” He articulated every word for the foolish chit and tried not to ogle her figure.

“Yes, well, you don’t know Monica Hargrove as I do,” she retorted. “She would not miss an opportunity to tell me that a gentleman of your reputation had shown her the slightest regard.”

George was about to argue, but he was pulled up short by the words a gentleman of your reputation.

“Meaning,” she said hastily when she saw his expression, “that you are... Well, you are, ah...”

“Pray tell, Miss Cabot, I am what?” he drawled. Bastard. Pretender. He knew what he was, and if she thought differently, she was even more foolish than he believed.

“Ahem.” Her cheeks began to color. “Appealing. As it were,” she said, gesturing vaguely.

Appealing? That took George back. That was his reputation? Her awkward admission could not have pleased him more. He grinned. “Why, Miss Cabot, I had no idea the true depth of your esteem.”

“Don’t tease me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, spreading his arm casually across the back of the settee. It was his gift, he thought with a deepening smile, the ability to bring a bloom to the cheeks of young women...as well as to the cheeks of women who didn’t bloom quite as brightly as they once had. He was a man with a calling, and that calling was to pamper and pleasure women across London.

Miss Cabot’s bloom, however, was fading quickly underneath her scowl. “You promised, Easton.”

“I did as I said I would, Cabot.”

“Then you must have done it wrong,” she said pertly.

“Wrong!” he sputtered. He had the sudden urge to turn her over his knee, lift her skirts and strike her bare bottom like a child. “By the saints, you are incurably impudent!”

“And you are positively bursting with conceit!” she exclaimed, and began to pace, her brow furrowed, her lips pursed. She suddenly stopped her pacing and faced him. “You must do it again.”

“I beg your pardon, I will do no such thing. I did it. And to my way of thinking, you owe me one hundred pounds.”

“Ninety-two pounds,” she said. “We agreed.”

“Ninety-two, then,” he snapped, and came to his feet. “You may send it to my agent, Mr. Sweeney—”

“The Prescott Ball will be held this Friday evening,” she interjected, as if he hadn’t spoken, and began to pace again. “I can secure you an invitation.”

Indignation soared in him. She spoke as if he were some underling, a charitable endeavor, and no amount of imagining her naked body writhing beneath his would ease it. “No.”

“You must dance with her,” she said, and suddenly stopped her pacing, eyeing him up and down critically.

“What are you looking at?” he demanded, glancing down his body. “Listen to me, Honor Cabot, you may send to me the ninety-two pounds as per our agreement—”

“No,” she said, lifting her chin. “Not until you have done as you promised.”

George gaped at her lovely face, her glistening blue eyes. Was she mad? Afflicted? He could not recall having ever been quite so affronted. “I find it ironic that a woman with the name of Honor would fail to do just that with her word. Or that she would toy with the happiness of two people who have done her no harm, just so that she won’t have to give this up,” he said, gesturing to the well-appointed room in which they stood.

“Is that what you think?” she asked, looking almost surprised by it.

He snorted. “I know it, Miss Cabot. Your motives are quite obvious.”