The Trouble With Honor (The Cabot Sisters #1)

“You mustn’t allow his charming smile to fool you, Mr. Cleburne,” Miss Hargrove said jovially. “Mr. Easton is quite a scoundrel.”


Mr. Cleburne laughed. “Mr. Easton, you seem perfectly respectable to me. Please, excuse me,” he said, and walked on, his gaze scanning the crowd.

“A scoundrel, am I?” George asked.

Miss Hargrove laughed again. “Mr. Cleburne is such a dear man,” she said. “And unmarried. I think he might very well be the perfect match for our Honor.”

Her gaze was locked on him, watching him closely. How George remained placid, he didn’t know, for she might as well have sliced him open. “Perhaps,” he said with a shrug.

“He would be an excellent influence, I should think. And of course, he is beyond reproach. That can’t be said of every gentleman, can it?” She gave him a coy smile and sashayed away.

George stared after her. Beautiful, exasperating creatures, women were, the lot of them. Monica Hargrove was trifling with him, trying to arouse a reaction from him.

George ignored it, because something much darker had suddenly filled his thoughts—Miss Hargrove was right. As much as George loathed to admit it to himself, Cleburne was a good match for Honor. That slender, smiling man with no more knowledge of the physical pleasures of the flesh than a rock was better suited as a match for the most interesting woman in all of London. He would provide for Honor, and moreover, he was a man of the cloth—his charity at taking his wife’s mad mother and caring for her would be exalted. Cleburne’s collar would give him access to some of the best facilities for madness, should it come to that.

George, bastard that he was, gambler, womanizer, tradesman, could not have been less suitable for a woman like Honor Cabot. She was so far above his reach that she may as well have been a bloody star.

That truth began to corrode him, eating away at his confidence. No matter how rich, no matter how handsome, or charming, or seductive, there was no happy forevermore for him with a woman like Honor or Monica Hargrove.

And yet George had combed his hair, adjusted his neckcloth and made sure his waistcoat was properly buttoned down with the express purpose of seeing the woman he desired more than life.

If only she would come down.

The wine and whiskey were flowing freely; the musicians began a reel. Lady Vickers appeared, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright with one too many glasses of “punch,” as the ladies liked to call it.

“Where have you been, naughty boy?” she asked, leaning into him, pressing her breasts against his arm. “Dance with me, Easton? I should very much like to dance.”

He’d always been powerless to say no to a pretty woman.

He danced with Lady Vickers and then with Mrs. Reston, who spoke endlessly about her recently widowed sister, who lived in Leeds. George supposed that Leeds was far enough removed from proper society that he might be considered a suitable match for her.

He had grown weary of the ball, weary of Longmeadow, of the ton. He made his excuses to Mrs. Bristol and had started upstairs to his room when he saw his heart’s true desire. How had he missed her? She was a vision of loveliness in the crème silk gown that made her eyes all but leap from her face. She was engrossed in conversation with Mr. Jett, but when she saw him and smiled, a flash of deep warmth filled his chest. She said something to Mr. Jett and started toward him, leaving Mr. Jett behind to stare sourly at George.

“Mr. Easton, you are in the ballroom,” she said gaily. “I supposed you would be in the gaming room, winning back your fortune, which everyone seems to be nattering on about tonight.”

“And I’d assumed you’d turned in for the night. You’ve been absent from the dancing.”

“I’ve stood up once or twice,” she said with a smile. “You?”

“Oh, well, I’ve been quite occupied with ladies needing dance partners.”

“A noble endeavor, sir. None too painful, I hope?”

He grinned. “Perhaps more for my partners than for me.”

The music was beginning again, and George recognized the cadence of the waltz Honor had taught him. How was it possible that the first waltz with her could seem so long ago to him now? It seemed another lifetime. “I think I might bear one more,” he said, nodding in the direction of the dancing.

She glanced at the couples. “It’s a waltz, which I may attest is not among your best dances,” she teased him.

“Then I am doubly fortunate to have you here to lead me once again.”

She laughed and placed her hand on his arm, then glanced up at him. When she smiled like that, she looked brilliant, a brilliant star among many dull planets, circling his heart, caught in his orbit.

George led her out onto the dance floor and put his hands where she’d once instructed him. The dancing began; he stepped woodenly into the rhythm.