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“So then, tell me, Miss Cabot, if I were to agree to your outlandishly reprehensible and ill-advised request to save your poor sisters and ailing mother—”
She gasped with surprised delight. “You will?”
“I said if,” he cautioned her. “But if I were to agree, what will I have in return?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come now, lass, I’ve seen you with cards in your hand. You are far too astute to believe I’d not want something in return for this favor.”
Apparently she was not as astute as he thought, for that had not crossed her mind.
He abruptly shifted forward again and deliberately allowed his gaze to wander the full length of her body, then up again. He touched her jaw with his knuckle, tracing a slow, deliberate line, sending Honor’s heart into another wave of wild beating. “What are you willing to trade?” he asked, his voice low and silky.
She leaned away from him. “How dare you—”
Easton took her by the arm and pulled her back. “How dare I?” he asked, admiring her mouth. He reminded her of a cat with a mouse, determining just how much to play before making the kill. “How dare I ask for recompense for a wretched deed?” He abruptly cupped her breast as if it were the most natural thing to do. Honor caught her breath; he smiled a little and began to massage it. “How dare I ask for a favor in return?” he asked silkily as tiny fires of desire erupted and sluiced down Honor’s spine.
“You ask too much,” she said, and pressed away from him. “How can you call yourself a gentleman?”
“I’ve not called myself anything, love.” He brushed his knuckles across her breast, sending another shaft of fire down her spine, then cupped her face, his thumb stroking her cheek.
Honor’s heart was beating so quickly she wondered how it did not leap from her chest. She understood how he would seduce and claim a woman. She understood why so many women had taken him as a lover. She was drawn to him, to his intense gaze, admiring and ravenous at once. To his touch, unyielding and yet soft. “Allow me to suggest a suitable trade,” she said quickly, before this cat devoured its prey. “I will pay you,” she said, alarmed that her voice shook ever so slightly. “There is the one hundred pounds I won from your purse. I could return that in exchange for your help.”
“You would return one hundred pounds, fairly won, for this?” he asked silkily, and flicked his finger across the tip of her breast.
“Actually,” she said, her gaze on his mouth, “I would return ninety-two pounds.” She did not think it necessary to tell him that she’d bought a bonnet, some shoes and some underthings with the money.
“Enticing. But money is not what I have in mind.” He slipped his hand to her nape and pulled her closer. “I have in mind something just for you.” He put his mouth to her ear and said low, “Something that will make your timid heart shatter and bring a glow to your fair cheeks.” His hand was in her lap, his palm pressing against her abdomen. “Do you know what will bring a glow to a woman’s cheek, Miss Cabot?”
She tried to turn her head, but she couldn’t seem to force herself to do it. “I am not a girl, Mr. Easton.”
“Aren’t you?” he whispered, and drew her earlobe in between a pair of soft, moist lips, nibbling it.
Dear Lord, she would expire. She closed her eyes, taking in his scent—spicy and warm—the feel of his hands on her. She could imagine his hands on all of her, and feared that her heart would give in, and she would die here on this bench. And yet, somehow, she managed to keep calm. “I can offer you ninety-two pounds, nothing else. There is nothing else I will trade, sir.”
He shifted closer, his lips against her cheek now, and Honor thought he intended to kiss her. Her mind screamed for her to bang on the ceiling to cry out to Jonas to save her. But another, wanton part of her was whispering kiss me. Kiss me, kiss me....
He slid his hand up her rib cage, to the side of her breast. “I will think on your ninety-two pounds,” he murmured, his breath warm and moist on her skin, tantalizing her almost to the point of madness.
“You mean to do it,” she said softly, surprised, and opened her eyes. “You will grant me this favor.”
“Now you are reprehensible and presumptuous. I haven’t said I would.”
“But I can see that you will,” she said, and twisted about to face him, beaming. “Thank you, Mr. Easton!”
He wrapped his fingers around hers.
“Call on me tomorrow, at Beckington House, please. I can explain more openly there.”
“I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how much more open you could possibly be, Miss Cabot.”
“I knew you would agree,” she said, suddenly full of delight.
“I have not agreed to anything.”
“I shall be waiting for you at half past two. The girls will be at their studies and Augustine at his club. Thank you, sir,” she said again, her voice full of the gratitude she felt. “I am in your debt.” She moved to knock on the ceiling to signal Jonas that this ride was over.
Only then did she realize that Mr. Easton was still holding her hand.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_761c5300-953d-55e2-b4c7-9cc56136a568)
HONOR RETURNED TO Beckington House breathless from her dangerous rendezvous, her heart still beating wildly, and floated into the foyer where she found Prudence and Mercy quarreling loudly.
“Honor!” Prudence cried the moment she saw her older sister. “Please do tell Mercy she is to return my slippers at once!”
“Mercy, please return Pru’s slippers at once,” Honor said without looking at Mercy’s feet.
“But why must she have them always?” Mercy countered. “I can’t see what harm there is in borrowing them on occasion.”
“You don’t see the harm?” Prudence demanded. “Honor, you really must do something. She’s completely without scruples! If you don’t insist she hand them over, I shall remove them from her feet myself!”
“Mercy, really,” Honor said absently as she untied her bonnet, her fingers running over the same velvet fabric Easton’s fingers had stroked. The fingers that had stroked the skin of her arm, her face; she shivered lightly at the recollection. “They belong to Pru, and you have a wardrobe full of slippers.”
“What’s this about slippers?” The girls’ mother, Joan Devereaux, Lady Beckington, appeared from the corridor. “There will be no forceful removing of slippers, my dears.” Her blue eyes were bright; there was no sign of the distant fog Honor noticed in her mother’s eyes when she wasn’t entirely present. Joan Devereaux was a regal woman, the epitome of elegance and grace, and had once been considered one of the more handsome women of the ton. She smiled warmly at her daughters, looking between them. “What are you girls about?”
“Only the usual sort of thing, Mamma,” Prudence said imperiously, and began striding for the grand staircase. “Mercy has a wretched habit of borrowing things without permission, and with no consequence!”
“That’s a bit dramatic, my darling Pru,” Lady Beckington said as she watched her daughter flounce up the stairs.
“Of course you would say that—you’re not the injured party!” Prudence tossed over her shoulder, and disappeared into the corridor at the top of the stairs.
Lady Beckington sighed and looked askance at her youngest daughter. “Mercy, darling, you really must learn to ask to borrow things instead of taking them. I suggest you go and apologize to your sister and return the slippers. Now go and dress for supper.”
“But we’ve only just had tea,” Mercy complained.
“Go on, darling,” her mother said, giving her a gentle push in the direction of the stairs. To Honor, she offered her arm, which Honor was happy to take. She let the ribbons of her bonnet flutter behind them as they walked. She noticed that the embroidery on her mother’s sleeve was damaged—the threading was coming loose. “What’s happened here?” she asked, bending over it to have a look.
“What?” Her mother scarcely glanced down at her sleeve. “Never mind it. Where have you been this afternoon?” she asked as they began to make their ascent.
“Nowhere, really.” She gave her mother a sheepish smile.
“I know you better than that, Honor. I would guess that your absence from tea involved a gentleman.”
Honor could feel herself flush. “Mamma—”
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said, squeezing her hand fondly. “But your poor mother hopes that you are at least considering the idea that the time has come for you to settle on a single suitor and think of marrying as you ought.”
“Why ought I marry now?” Honor asked. The thought of marrying now was unnerving. She felt too...unfinished.
“Because you should,” her mother said. “There is a whole new world awaiting your entry. You needn’t be timid about it.”
“Timid! They call me a swashbuckler, Mamma.”
“Yes, well, perhaps you are a swashbuckler in the ballroom. But I know my girl, and I think your heart is yet bruised.”
In moments like this, it was difficult to believe that her mother was slipping. In moments like this, Honor believed she wasn’t, that she and Grace had imagined it all. Her mother seemed at ease, very present in the moment and quite motherly. “What shall I wear to supper?” Honor asked, blatantly changing the subject before her mother could question her further.
Her mother laughed. “Very well, have it your way. The blue silk,” she said. “It complements your coloring so very well.”
“The blue, then,” Honor said.
She accompanied her mother to her suite of rooms and rang for Hannah to attend her. She moved on to her suite of rooms. She was not surprised to find Grace within, standing on the new Aubusson rug, her arms folded tightly across her body. Light streamed in from windows opened to late afternoon sun, casting shadows across the silk-covered walls of Honor’s rooms and Grace’s face.
But the shadows did not hide Grace’s ire. “Where have you been?” she demanded.
“Out.”
“Yes, yes, quite obviously you have been out. Hardy said you took the coach to Gunter’s.”
“What of it?” Honor asked with a shrug.
“I can’t imagine why you would venture out alone to Gunter’s, alone. One does not enjoy an ice alone. I can’t help but wonder if there was someone there waiting for you. Was there? Perhaps a certain unclaimed son of a duke who might have been taking his tea?”
Honor blinked. “How could you possibly know that?” she exclaimed.
“Mercy saw you speaking to a gentleman in the park, silly bird. She described him perfectly.”
“It would seem those spectacles are improving her sight better than we’d hoped,” Honor drawled, and carelessly tossed her bonnet onto her bed.
“Then you don’t deny it?”
“No,” Honor said.
“Lord in heaven!” Grace exclaimed to the papier-mȃché ropes and cherubs that adorned the ceiling. “You promised me!”
“I know.”
“Think of the scandal you invite!”
“Grace! There is no scandal. I am sorry if—”
“Spare me your apologies, please,” Grace said, and dropped dramatically onto the chaise longue before the hearth. “You never mean to do it, you are always sorry. When you suggested this ridiculous plan, I laughed. I was naive to think that even you wouldn’t go through with it, that even you wouldn’t risk so much for a lark.”
Honor frowned, miffed that Grace knew her so well. “It’s not a lark, at least not to me. And really, Grace, you bear some responsibility, do you not?”
“Me!”
“Wasn’t it you who insisted that I accompany you and Mamma and the girls riding in Hyde Park? If I hadn’t seen Easton there, I should have carried on without giving the matter another thought.”
Grace gaped at her. And then she burst out with wild laughter and fell back against the cushions of the chaise. “That is the most absurd reasoning I have ever heard!”
Honor couldn’t disagree with that, either. “All right,” Honor acquiesced, sinking onto the end of the chaise next to Grace. “I will allow that I was a bit impetuous. But, Grace, the idea was so fresh on my mind, and there he was, escorting the Rivers twins, of all people. It occurred to me that if he would squire those two magpies, he would most certainly think Monica an improvement.”
“Of course he would think Monica an improvement over those two, but that is hardly the point, is it? The point is that you went to meet the man quite alone, a man you scarcely know, and you proposed something absurd and reckless and full of ruin.”
“That’s one view,” she said wearily. “If a woman is to make her way in this man’s world without a husband, she must risk quite a lot to succeed. It’s not as if I have a solicitor to call upon his solicitor. It’s not as if I can offer Monica money to find another suitor. I am a female, and as such, I have nothing available to me to change anything about my life but my hand in marriage. I find it altogether infuriating if I allow myself to dwell—”
“Honor—”
“Yes, well, to put your mind somewhat at ease, I met him in front of Gunter’s Tea Shop. No one saw me but Jonas. Easton stepped into the coach, and we talked.”
Grace seemed genuinely distressed by that revelation, judging by how she buried her face in her hands. Honor tried to soothe her by stroking her hair. “I don’t see another option for us, dearest.”
“You must have a care for your reputation, which, I might point out, has already been suspect on several occasions.” Grace lifted her head to arch a golden brow high above the other, daring Honor to challenge that.
“I’ve not been that bad,” Honor muttered.
“Can you imagine the talk that would gust like winter winds around this square if anyone were to see you?”
“I am acutely aware.” Honor knew she was too impetuous for her own good. She had no desire to see her reputation ruined, and she understood Grace’s concern.
“Never mind all that, then, you’ve gone and done it.” Grace suddenly twisted around to face her “Well? What did he say?”
Honor smiled slyly at her sister. “He said that I was reprehensible.”
Grace gasped.
“But that he would consider it.”
Her sister didn’t breathe for a moment. “What? He will?”
“I will know on the morrow.” Honor stood up and began to unbutton her spencer. “If he agrees, he shall call here.”
“Here! That’s all well and good for outsiders, but what will Augustine think?”
“Grace, calm yourself. Augustine can think of nothing but his nuptials. I asked Mr. Easton to call at half past two, when the girls are in their studies and Augustine is out at his club for the day.”
Grace looked set to argue, but the sound of a painful racking cough drifted down the hallway to them; they both paused. A moment later, they heard their mother’s steps hurrying in that direction.
Grace sank back onto the chaise. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” she asked morosely, referring to the deteriorating health of the earl.
“I think so,” Honor agreed.
“Your plan is utter madness, you know.”
“That is the kindest thing you might say for it,” Honor said, and squeezed in next to her sister, nudging her with her shoulder. “But at least it’s diverting madness.”
Grace smiled ruefully. “I fear you are far beyond hope.”
