The Trouble With Honor (The Cabot Sisters #1)

Horses? George looked at Miss Cabot for help. “I beg your pardon, I think there is some confusion—”

“The earl has all but sold them, hasn’t he, Honor? I think the sorrel is left.”

“Mamma,” Miss Cabot said gently, “the horses... We sold them ages ago.”

“What?” Lady Beckington gave her a nervous laugh. “We haven’t! We have the sorrel. Please, do wait here, sir. My husband will be along shortly to settle the terms with you.”

George didn’t understand what was happening, but he could see a slight tremor in Miss Cabot. “I shall wait with Mr. Easton until the earl arrives, then,” she said. “Shall I ring for Hannah?” she asked, moving to her mother’s side.

“Who? Oh, no, that’s not necessary,” Lady Beckington said, and turned around to the door. “Good day, sir.” She walked out of the room without looking back.

Miss Cabot did not speak; she lowered her head a long moment, closed her eyes then slowly opened them and lifted her gaze to George.

“I don’t understand,” he said simply. How could a mother see her daughter in such an obviously compromising position and merely walk out the door?

“Perhaps if I tell you that two summers ago, my stepfather sold some horses at Longmeadow. But not the sorrel,” Miss Cabot said. “And even if he were so inclined to sell more today, he could not walk down here to settle terms with you without assistance.”

Understanding dawned. When Miss Cabot had said her mother was not well that afternoon outside of Gunter’s Tea Shop, George had vaguely thought of pleurisy. “How long has she been like this?”

“This?” Honor said, looking at the door. “Moments? Weeks? Months? Sometimes she is perfectly fine. And sometimes not at all....” Her voice trailed away and she looked at the carpet.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” George asked. “When you first came to me, why didn’t you tell me?”

“And have half of London know it?”

She was speaking to a man who had protected his mother all his life. “Miss Cabot, on my honor, I’d not tell a soul. You have my word.”

She flushed, her fists curled at her sides. “You can see, then, my dilemma, Mr. Easton. I do not think Miss Hargrove will be keen to have four sisters and a madwoman under her roof. No one will want a madwoman under their roof, will they? I need...I need time until Grace and I can marry or...something,” she said, her eyes blindly searching the ceiling. “If I could take up a sword and fight for it, I would. If I had a vast fortune at my disposal, I would use it. But I am a woman, and the only options I have are to connive as I promise myself to the highest bidder before all is discovered.” She lowered her gaze to him again. “That may seem as if I am lacking in honor to you, but on my word, it is all I have. I don’t want to hurt Augustine or Monica. I truly want only to divert her until I can think of something. What else can I do?”

George’s heart went out to her. He’d loved his mother dearly, a lowly chambermaid with the duke’s bastard son to raise by herself. She’d never been accepted anywhere. The other servants judged her to be without morals. The duke had used her and left her to her own devices.

But Lucy Easton had been determined, and when she’d learned the duke was ill, she’d somehow managed to convince him to give George a stipend. He didn’t know how she’d done it—he didn’t want to know. He knew only that his mother had sacrificed everything for him, and that the stipend had enabled George to attend school, to meet young men who would become his peers, even if they did view his claims of having been fathered by a royal prince with great skepticism. Had it not been for George’s mother, he would be mucking stalls in the Royal Mews yet.

“Please, help me,” Miss Cabot said, her voice meek. “Please, come to the ball.”

God in heaven, how could he look upon the worry and sadness in those eyes and refuse her? “Even if I come, even if I might divert her as you wish, there are any number of things that might happen afterward. What will keep her from telling everyone what you’ve done when she discovers it? What will keep her from taking her suspicions to Sommerfield? Don’t you see? It could be even worse for you then.”

“I know. But I have to try. So I will take that risk.”

George gazed at her beguiling face. He supposed he’d done some things that would be considered mad by most when he’d seen no other option.

“Will you?” she asked softly.

“I will do it once more, Honor,” he conceded. “Only once.”

She smiled in a way that began to burn in the soft part of his gut. “Thank you, George.”