The Trouble With Honor (The Cabot Sisters #1)

“Oh!” she said, her eyes lighting with delight. “You’re much improved!” He promptly missed a step.

Honor laughed as she righted the ship for him. But then her smile faded somewhat. “Thank you for finding my mother,” she said as he moved them along in a straight line.

“It was nothing.”

“Don’t say that, George,” she admonished him. “It was everything. At least to me.”

Her gaze was intent and seemed to be searching his. God, how he wanted to touch her, to be touched by her. He abruptly twirled her, if only to move those eyes from his. She was peering too deeply, and he feared what she might see in the depths of his eyes. He feared his foolish heart was floating on the surface.

“I’ve seen our friend,” he said, and twirled her once more for good measure.

“Ah. And how did you find her this evening?” Honor said lightly. Too lightly. As if she didn’t particularly care.

“Animated,” he said. “She seemed in good spirits.” Honor gasped with surprise when he suddenly twirled her and fell quickly back into step.

“I suppose you charmed her with declarations of your esteem, and she swooned.” She smiled lopsidedly; a dimple appeared in one cheek. “Did you look directly in her eyes and say something quite sweet?”

He snorted. “Such as how no one compares, so on and so forth?”

“That would be too obvious, wouldn’t it? You probably said something quite poignant, didn’t you? And yet vague. Something like...”

Was it his imagination, or did the light in her eyes soften?

“Something like, ‘I have waited a lifetime for someone like you to walk into my life and possess my heart.’ With your own particular style, naturally.”

The way she was looking at him pulled even harder at George. He understood her, understood what she was saying. He drew a shallow breath, tried to find his footing on that wretched dance floor. “I couldn’t possibly say such a thing to her, Honor. Those are words I could say to only one person. And I could only say them if they were true.”

Honor’s gaze did not waver from his. Perhaps it was the music, or the crowded dance floor, but he could feel a current between them unlike anything he’d ever felt in his life, mysteriously warm, amazingly omnipotent. He could feel what she wanted, how her heart beat, how her blood flowed. He could feel her waiting for him to say those words to her.

But he couldn’t say them. How could he say them? How could he say something like that just to soothe her, and at the same time expose them both to untold grief?

When he did not speak, he could see the disappointment cloud her eyes. She shifted her gaze away. “No, you mustn’t say such things,” she said casually. “You mustn’t say anything at all.”

God damn him—he’d let this go too far, had allowed his desires to rule him, and he hated himself for it in that moment.

He suddenly twirled her one way and then the other. Honor’s smile slowly returned to her. Good girl. She understood as well as he that the thing between them could never come to life, must remain buried for all eternity.

“You are a wretched dancer, Easton. And you are holding me too close. No doubt all of Longmeadow has already noticed, for these might very well be the most attentive people in all of England.”

George pulled her closer, twirled her around. “I don’t care, Cabot.”

She smiled up at him. “Neither do I.”

They danced in silence a few moments.

“We are to London on the morrow,” she said.

“As am I.”

George could see the indelible sadness in her eyes, and although she tried to smile, it did not come to her easily. He wanted to kiss her, to kiss the sadness from her eyes, the forced smile from her lips. But he couldn’t, and to make the moment even more frustrating for him, the song had come to an end. George did not want to let her go. Ever.

When he did, a strange sensation of emptiness spiraled up in him.

“Well, then,” she said. “I suppose I should say good-night.”

She stood, waiting for him to respond, to tell her that he would see her in London, which of course he hoped for, madly hoped for....

But George couldn’t bring himself to speak. He felt as helpless as a baby, unable to find the words to say. He merely gave her a curt nod and clasped his hands tightly at his back. So tightly. To keep from putting them on Honor and drawing her back. “Good night, Miss Cabot.”

Her gaze flicked over him, and she lowered her head, stealing one last sidelong look at him before walking on.

George kept his hands clasped until he could no longer see her in the crowd.