The Trouble With Honor (The Cabot Sisters #1)

Honor sighed as if she carried a great weight. “My mother,” she said simply. “She’s getting worse. Soon, I think everyone shall know about her.” She looked down at something she held in her hand. “I realize now I should have been more inclined to accept the attentions of gentlemen after I came out. If I had, I’d be married by now and I’d have the means to care for her.”


George didn’t like the reminder that Honor was a privileged debutante, or that she would marry one day, probably to someone here in this house this very weekend. It made him feel strangely adrift, as if he was being cast out into the stream while she remained anchored behind.

“I wonder,” he said, taking in a face that seemed almost perfectly sculpted, “on whom you might have set your cap had you accepted their attentions? Perhaps he is stumbling about in his cups now, just beyond that door.”

She smiled. “No. There is no one.”

He didn’t believe that for a moment. “No one,” he repeated dubiously, and very casually brushed her earlobe with his thumb. The little black jewel that dangled there bounced a bit. “The most desirable bachelors among the Quality are gathered here this weekend and Miss Honor Cabot sees no one who might serve as a suitable husband? A father to her children? A companion in her dotage?”

She lifted her face a little. “Not in there.”

“Washburn,” George suggested.

Honor instantly burst out laughing. “Washburn! Do you think I would subject myself to simpering poetry readings every night of my life?”

“Ah, he is a poet,” George said. “How appalling for you. Then you must at least find young Lord Desbrook appealing. I have it on good authority that he is one of the most sought-after young men in all of London.”

“Well, of course he is—he will one day be a duke. But in the strictest confidence I may tell you that as a man, Desbrook is exceedingly dull. I once spent an entire supper party seated next to him, and all he could speak about was the stag he had shot.”

“He’s a hunter? The bounder,” he teased her. “There is always Lord Merryton, who has, as far as I know, resisted the many attempts to lay a dainty finger or two on his fortune.”

“Lord Merryton is not here. And if he was, I assure you, he’d be quite imperious. He’s too proud, if you ask me.”

“All right then, we have a poet, a hunter and a proud man who are all wholly unsuitable for the fair Honor Cabot.”

“Precisely.”

“Then who?” George traced a path down her neck, his finger sliding into the indention of her throat at the base of her neck. Yes, who, Honor Cabot? Who would you take to your bed? Who would you allow to father your children, to love you every day of your life? “You are a beautiful young woman with the best of connections. Surely there is some one you might imagine joining you in conjugal bliss? Or are the rumors perhaps true that Lord Rowley has ruined you for any other man?”

Honor looked up at him with surprise. “Is it truly said?”

“Not by everyone, but a few, yes.”

She sighed. “I grant you that my unpleasant experience with Lord Rowley did not persuade me to other courtships...but it is not entirely true, Easton.”

He couldn’t imagine a greater fool than Rowley, and moved his hand to her décolletage, his fingers sliding across her soft skin. “Poor Honor. It must have been painful for you.”

“At first,” she admitted, and looked away. “It was really more surprising. Until then, I didn’t know that life could be so terribly cruel.”

How he hated that she’d discovered that sad truth. He wished that he could keep her from discovering other cruel truths about life, but that was beyond his capacity. The most he could offer was some advice. “Not every man is unkind, love.”

She looked up at him, her eyes swimming in an emotion he could not name but could feel reverberating in his chest. “I know,” she said softly. “You’re not unkind. I can trust you.”

George’s heart hitched painfully. The words were erotic to the bastard child in him. They meant acceptance, respect. “Don’t trust me, love,” he warned her. As much as it meant to him to hear those words from her lips, he knew that he could never be what she expected him to be. He was too much of an outsider, a man with no home.

Honor seemed to understand; she averted her gaze, swallowing hard.

George admired her slender neck and gentle jaw. A moment passed as the two of them gazed out into the night. Honor said, “I’ve not wanted to marry these past two years.” She peeked at him again and smiled sheepishly. “I have valued my freedom and have believed that until Augustine shoved me out into the cold world so that his new wife might turn my favorite green salon into another breakfast room, I would enjoy the privileges I have somehow been fortunate enough to enjoy.”

“But won’t you still be a free woman if you are married?”