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“Not at all, dearest—I am absolutely bursting with hope,” Honor said. A movement caught Honor’s eye; she sat up and turned toward the door. Her mother was standing in the opening, staring into the room.
“Mamma?” Honor said, coming to her feet. “Is something wrong?”
Lady Beckington frowned slightly.
“Mamma,” Honor said again, moving to her mother’s side. “Did you mean to see to the earl?”
“Oh, Honor,” her mother said, her relief clearly evident. “You’re home! Yes, the earl is unwell. I should see to him,” she said, and squeezed Honor’s hand affectionately as she turned and hurried down the hall to the earl’s rooms.
Honor looked back at Grace. “I don’t understand it. Not a quarter of an hour ago she was perfectly all right.”
“We should have Dr. Cardigan come,” Grace suggested.
“And risk the ton knowing before the earl is even gone? Dr. Cardigan sees every old biddy in Mayfair! We can’t, Grace. Not until we absolutely must.”
It was heartbreaking to watch a beloved mother slide ever so softly into senility. Joan Devereaux, so charmingly clever—Honor could not think of a single person who had a poor opinion of her. She’d been amazingly resourceful, too—she’d known how to navigate a ballroom better than anyone, and had managed to keep her daughters well after her husband had died. Honor had been only eleven years old, but she could recall her mother taking two old gowns to a friend, and together, they’d created a stunning ball gown. Her mother had donned it and gone off to a grand ball and the next morning had gathered her four daughters in her bed and told them about the Earl of Beckington.
It was necessity that had driven her mother to seek the earl’s attentions, but Honor truly believed that her mother had come to care very much for the older earl. Certainly no one in Mayfair would blame Lady Beckington if she left the earl’s care to a nurse, but she’d refused to do so. She saw to him every day.
The sound of the earl’s racking coughs reached them again. “I’ll go and help her,” Grace said, and stood from the chaise to go. At the door, however, she glanced back at her sister. “Do have a care, Honor. You are playing a very dangerous game.”
“I will,” Honor promised.
Later, Honor would recall that moment with Grace and her easy promise. She hadn’t believed George Easton would really come to Beckington House.
But he did.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_8341d0ab-7b22-5489-9538-36b35f1a735c)
IT TOOK QUITE a lot to astonish George, but Honor Cabot had done just that. From her bold invitation to meet, to her ridiculous, preposterous, cake-headed suggestion, George could not have been more astonished than if the king were to recognize him as his legitimate nephew.
Yesterday, he’d left Berkeley Square stewing in his own juices, aroused as he always was by prettiness, and as disgusted with Miss Cabot as he was with himself for somehow softening to her charm again. He couldn’t fathom what it was about this debutante that could so keenly capture him with a smile, but he’d been determined to never see her again. She was trouble. In fact, he’d even been of half a mind to ride directly to Beckington House and explain to the dimwitted Sommerfield exactly what his stepsister was about. She deserved no less.
But George hadn’t gone to Beckington House. He’d gone home, riding hard from a pair of dark-lashed blue eyes shimmering in his mind’s eye.
Bloody, bloody hell.
Still, he thought that after a good night’s sleep, that would be the end of it, that he’d not give as much as a passing thought to the young woman again. He’d gone out last night as was his custom, had dined with several gentlemen at the Coventry House Club. But he’d had no interest in cards or prattling, and had returned home before midnight.
Finnegan had not said a word when George had stalked into his house far earlier than was his custom. He’d merely arched one dark brow high above the other as he’d taken George’s hat. “Don’t look so smug,” George had snapped as he’d strode past.
George had gone to bed quite early, but then had tossed and turned. He’d finally settled on his back, one arm draped above his head, the other on his bare abdomen, and had glared at the canopy above him, his jaw clenched, mulling over that absurd meeting.
Honor Cabot’s suggestion was the most fatuous thing he’d ever heard in his life. Furthermore, it was the very thing that made him cringe when he saw squads of young debutantes milling about Mayfair—silly girls in pretty colors playing silly courtship games.
But worse, the game Honor Cabot played was harmful.
The problem, George had mused, was that he was the sort of man who was intrigued by dangerous women. He had no illusions—Honor Cabot was a dangerous woman by nature, and she was made all the more dangerous because of her beauty and her incandescent smile. Regrettably, cunning and beauty were his primary weaknesses when it came to women.
Why was it, he’d wondered in the dark, that he could not be the sort of man who was pleased with a woman of virtue? The sort of chaste woman who would make him a fine wife and bear him beautiful children, someone who would make him attend church services on Sunday and give alms to the poor and dutifully open her legs to him? He supposed that one day, he would settle on a woman for that reason, for her goodness and purity, and he would have his slippers and his spectacles, and he would while away his evenings with a book while his wife attended her needlework.
Someday.
But he had no patience for it now, not with a ship late to port and buyers awaiting his cotton.
So how was it, then, that George found himself the next afternoon at half past two at Grosvenor Square, staring up at the impressive Beckington House with its row of windows that looked black in the afternoon sun? Utter, indefensible folly.
No one answered straightaway when George rapped three times, and he had all but turned about, prepared to make his escape when the door suddenly swung open and a man with thinning hair stood imperiously before him.
George fished a calling card from his interior coat pocket. “Mr. Easton for Miss Honor Cabot, if you please.”
The man nodded and disappeared for a moment, reappearing again with a silver tray, which he held out to George. When George had deposited the card onto the tray, the door opened wider. The man stepped aside and inclined his head, indicating George should step inside, which he did. Just over the threshold. He tentatively removed his hat.
“If you will kindly wait here, Mr. Easton, I shall inform Miss Cabot that you have called,” the butler said, and marched briskly away, the silver tray held high.
George looked up at the soaring entry and the elaborate chandelier hanging high above him. There were paintings on the walls, portraits of people, of landscapes. The marble floor was polished to a sheen, and gold candelabras with new beeswax candles stood in neat rows on a table nearby.
He heard the butler again before he saw him, his brisk walk echoing down the corridor he’d disappeared into. The man bowed. “If you will allow me to show you to a receiving room, sir,” he said, and carefully put aside the silver tray—empty now—and moved in the opposite direction from where he’d come, walking into the west corridor.
George followed. They moved down a carpeted hallway past polished wood doors and wall sconces and more beeswax candles. George was reminded of how pleased his mother had been when she could afford to buy one or two beeswax candles and rid their rooms of the smell of tallow for a time.
The butler entered the last room on the right. He opened the pair of doors wide, pushed them back and nudged a doorstop into place with his foot. He strode across the small room to the windows, opened the drapes, tied them back then faced George. “Is the comfort in the room to your liking, sir, or shall I send a footman to light a fire?”
“That won’t be necessary,” George said stiffly. “I do not intend to be long.”
“Very well, sir. If you require any assistance at all, the bellpull is just there,” the butler said, nodding toward a thick velvet braid of rope near the door. “Miss Cabot will join you shortly.” He quit the room.
George put his hat aside and examined a painting on the wall as he waited, staring up at the puffy face of a Beckington forefather. He always looked at the portraits in homes like these, looking for any similarity to himself, any hint that he might somehow be related. This man looked nothing like the late Gloucester, except perhaps for the slightly aquiline shape of his nose. George was so intent on that feature that he did not hear the advance of Miss Cabot until she swept into the room on a cloud of pale yellow, her train swirling out behind her as she twirled around to peek out the corridor and then draw the doors quietly closed.
She twirled back around, her smile luminescent, her hands clasped just below her breast, reminiscent of a choirboy preparing to sing. But all similarity to anything remotely angelic ended abruptly when he noticed that the gown she was wearing did not conceal her up to her chin like the one she’d worn yesterday. This gown was cut fashionably low, and creamy mounds of her breast appeared to almost burst from her bodice...a mishap George would delight in seeing.
She was oblivious to his fascination with her décolletage. “You came,” she said breathlessly.
Bloody fool that he was, yes. George inclined his head in acknowledgment of that.
“I scarcely believe it! I was so certain you’d not come, and I had no good idea of what I might do if you didn’t. But here you are!” she exclaimed, casting her arms wide. “You will help me!”
“Before you take flight with joy, Miss Cabot, understand that I came here not to help you in your lunacy, but to dissuade you from it.”
She blinked her lovely blue eyes. “Dissuade me,” she repeated, as if that were a foreign concept to her, which George suspected was highly probable. “But that’s not possible, Mr. Easton. My mind is quite made up. When I am fixed on something, I am very dedicated to it. Now then—will you help me?”
George couldn’t help but chuckle at her dogged determination. “No.”
“No?”
“It is madness, complete and utter madness,” he said. “It is a loathsome thing to do to a brother and a friend, and I feel it is my duty as a gentleman to direct you away from it—not abet it.”
Now her bright smile faded. She folded her arms. “Very well, Mr. Easton. You have done your gentlemanly duty,” she said, sounding irreverent. “Now will you help me?”
George stared at her. And then he couldn’t seem to help himself—he laughed. “You may very well be the most obstinate woman I have ever met.”
“Then perhaps you have not met as many women as I’ve heard tell,” she said pertly. “Do you think I make this request to you lightly? That this is a girlish whim? Not at all, sir. Monica Hargrove intends to turn my family out when she marries my brother. She has said as much to me. Further, I don’t believe for a moment that you came all the way here to tell me you won’t help me. You might have sent a note or ignored me altogether, is that not so?”
That was so, and it made George a bit uncomfortable for her to point it out so bluntly. He shrugged.
“That you did not suggests to me that you must have at least considered my request. Have you?”
He felt as if he were a naughty boy, caught in the act of mischief. She had him, this shrewd and wily young miss, just as she had that night in Southwark. And she knew it, too, for a smile appeared on her lush lips, ending in little dimples in either cheek. That smile was a small gust of air to smoldering ashes, and George felt a tiny flame ignite.
“It would seem we are agreed,” she said silkily.
“Not so fast.” He let his gaze slide slowly down her curves and up again. He would like to sink his fingers and his tongue into that flesh, to smell her hair. “If I cannot dissuade you—”
“You cannot—”
“Then it is now my duty as a gentleman to ensure you do no harm to Miss Hargrove.”
Miss Cabot beamed, knowing she had won. “How kind of you.”
“I am not the least bit kind, Miss Cabot. But I do have some principles. I’m not sure the same can be said for you.”
“I am touched by your concern for Monica,” she said sweetly. “My desire is only that she is made aware that there are other, perhaps more attractive possibilities for her so that she will not rush to the altar as she seems to want to do. No harm.”
“Debatable,” he said, his body caught in the snare of feminine mystique as he moved closer to her. “There is still the matter of what I will have in return for this...abominable favor.”
“Of course,” she said demurely, and folded her arms across her body tightly.
“Let’s begin with the agreement that you will return to me the one hundred pounds won in Southwark.”
“Ninety-two pounds,” she corrected him.
“Ninety-two pounds, then,” he said, his gaze falling to her mouth, “will earn you one round of rakish behavior designed to turn Miss Hargrove’s head. That ought to suffice.”
“Ah...” One of Miss Cabot’s finely tweezed brows rose high above the other.
“What?” he demanded.
“Nothing, really,” she said lightly, and shrugged. “Only that you seem rather confident of that.”
George stared at her. He wished to high heaven that such bloody impertinence from a pampered, privileged woman didn’t fascinate him quite as much as it did. “Of course I am confident, Miss Cabot.”
“Oh, dear, I didn’t mean to insult you,” she said, and her tender smile shot through him. “I have no doubt that you would turn the head of most debutantes—”
“You are not improving the situation.”
She bit her lip.
He very much wanted to bite that lip, too. George frowned—he didn’t like that, not at all. When he began to want things like that, he did very foolish things. One could inquire of several women in this town and find it was so. “Well, then? I will agree to speak to Miss Hargrove and pay her a...foppish compliment or two,” he said, with a flick of his wrist, “in exchange for ninety-two pounds.” He extended his hand, offering to shake on it.
But Miss Cabot gazed reluctantly at his hand.
George sighed. “For heaven’s sake, what now?”
“I will agree on one condition,” she said, holding up a finger.
“You are in no position to impose conditions—”
“Agreed,” she said quickly. “Nevertheless...you must allow me to instruct you.”
It took a moment for those words to sink into George’s brain. “I beg your pardon, but I am most certainly not in need of your instruction,” he said irritably. “You have come to me for my experience, is that not so? I think I am a fair judge of what effort is involved in chatting up a young debutante,” he added with an indignant snort.
“Yes...but I know her better than anyone,” she said, tilting her head back to look him directly in the eye.
“Good God, you speak as if I come to this in short pants—”
“That is not what I—”
George suddenly grabbed her by the waist, yanking her into his body.
“Mr. Easton!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t know what he was doing, honestly. Reacting to some primal drumbeat in his veins. “I don’t need your instruction,” he said in a low voice, and brushed his knuckles against her temple.
“You are too familiar,” she objected crossly, but her hands curled around his upper arms, and she made no move to escape him.
“I am aware.” His gaze moved over her face. “And yet you enjoy it. That is my point.”
“Are you always so assured, sir?”
“Are you?” he retorted.
“You mistake my offense for misunderstanding,” she said to his mouth, and the drum beat louder in George. “But make no mistake—I am offended.”
“If you were offended,” he said, mimicking her, “you would kick and claw like any prim little lass to be set free.” He cocked a brow, daring her to disagree.
She frowned darkly at him.
“Aha,” he said, brushing his fingers against her collarbone. It felt small and fragile to him. “It would appear that I know women far better than you.”
Honor Cabot responded to that with a firm kick to his shin.
George instantly let go and reached for his leg. “Ouch,” he said with a wince.
Miss Cabot put her hands on her waist and glared at him as he rubbed his shin. “I grant that you are acquainted with women, Mr. Easton. Everyone in Mayfair is aware of just how well you are acquainted. But I am acquainted with Monica Hargrove. I know what will entice her and what will turn her away, and I must insist that you allow me to at least prepare you!”
He was acquainted with women, all right, but he’d yet to meet one like Honor Cabot. And it didn’t help matters when she sensed a crack in his facade, for a smile slowly began to light her face. Bloody hell, but those smiles were his undoing! They fairly sang through him, made his blood rush, his body tense. How was it possible this wisp of a young woman could affect him so? He straightened up with a sigh of resignation.
“I happen to know she will be attending the Garfield Assembly this Friday,” Miss Cabot said.
