The Trouble with Honor

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

IN A CLOAK, with the hood pulled over her head, Honor used the alleyways and mews to wend her way to Audley Street. A fine mist hung over the street. She hurried up the steps and rapped on George’s door. It seemed several long, torturous minutes passed before the door swung open. Mr. Finnegan stood there, looking at her curiously. He stooped down and peered under her hood to see her face. “Miss Cabot?” he said, his voice full of surprise.

“Yes, I...”

He abruptly grabbed her arm, pulled her inside then glanced up and down the street before shutting the door.

“I beg your pardon,” Honor said breathlessly, her anxiety having the best of her now. “I know this must seem highly unusual, but it is important that I speak to Mr. Easton. Is he at home?”

“He is,” Finnegan said warily.

“Then...then could you please tell him I have called?”

Finnegan sighed. He shook his head.

Honor’s heart sank. She’d come only to be rejected again.

“I shan’t tell him you’ve called—I think it best that it come from you, madam,” Finnegan said, and put his hand to the small of her back, ushering her deeper into the foyer. He pointed to a long hallway. “Walk until you see a green door on your right. That is his study, and you will find him within.”

She looked uncertainly at Finnegan, then peered down the dimly lit hallway. “Should you not warn him?”

“If I tell him you’ve come, he might very well draw a pistol.” He smiled as if amused by that. “When you see him, you will understand. Green door,” he reminded her, turning away. “Don’t knock. It will do no good. Just enter.”

Honor clenched a fist against the swell of nerves and started down the hall. She found the green door easily enough, and when she glanced back to the foyer, Finnegan had disappeared.

Honor looked at the door. She pushed the hood off her head, smoothed her hair and considered the door handle. When she thought of all the things she’d done, of all the risks she’d taken and then laughed about, she could never recall being afraid. Not even the night she’d gone to Southwark. But tonight, her fear was almost choking her. She didn’t know how she would ever bear it if he turned her away. But she wasn’t going to marry Cleburne without hearing the truth from his lips. Either he loved her, or he had used her. The man had to tell her the truth.

She reached for the handle and slowly turned it, opening the door only partially. She put her head into the opening and looked in.

The only light in the room came from the hearth. She could see the back of George’s head over the top of a chair, his feet crossed and propped on an ottoman. One arm was draped over the side of the armchair, a snifter of brandy dangling from two fingers, the amber liquid glowing in the soft light.

She stepped in and quietly shut the door behind her.

“Damn you to bloody hell, Finnegan!” he snarled. “I’ve told you to leave me be. Do you want me to shoot you? Come round here, man, and I will happily oblige!”

Honor undid the clasp of her cloak and let it fall to the ground.

“Don’t creep about behind me,” George snapped. “Do you know that you are perhaps the worst valet in all of England? God help me to understand why I ever accepted you into this house.”

The beast in him had certainly come out to play, hadn’t it? Honor smoothed her gown and started forward.

“If I’d had half a wit, I would have turned you out as Lord Dearing did. I could have brought a goat into my house and been assured of less trouble than you give me.”

Honor cocked a brow at that. Finnegan seemed a perfectly nice man to her. She moved to stand directly behind George, debating what she would say. All of her carefully rehearsed words had flitted out of her mind.

“Get out,” George growled. “I don’t want to hear you. I don’t want to smell you. I don’t want your food or wine or whatever it is you’ve brought me now. I do well enough with my whiskey and brandy. Take a good look around this room and see what I mean. They are my friends.”

“They are not your only friends,” Honor said.

George came up so quickly at the sound of her voice that he knocked over the ottoman. He whirled around, and his eyes went wide with shock at the sight of her. His gaze scraped over her face. And then he carelessly dropped the snifter onto the carpet as he surged forward, catching Honor in his arms, burying his face in her neck, her hair. “Dear God, where have you been?” he moaned into her hair.

A tear coursed Honor’s cheek. If he hadn’t held her so tightly, she would have slapped him. “I would ask the same of you!”

He kissed her, his hands on her body, in her hair. He crushed her to him, kissing her hard and holding her tightly, as if he feared he would lose her if he let go. “My God, I have missed you.”

Honor’s fear gave way to desire. The way he was holding her, looking at her, kissing her—she’d never felt so desirable, and she would not shy away from it. She would take what she could for as long as she could.

There seemed so much to say, but it was lost in the onslaught of his passion. George sank back into the chair, carrying Honor with him. His mouth was warm and wet on hers, as tormenting as it was pleasurable. Every touch of his mouth, every caress of his hand jolted her to her marrow. She clung to him, to the strength in his arms and his torso, to the heat that radiated from him.

He groped for the hem of her gown and slid his hands up, finding her waist, lifting her and settling her on the hard ridge of his erection. A shiver of yearning shimmered down her spine, and she moved against him, gasping at the sensation of his hardness against the softest part of her. As his tongue swirled around hers, his hands caressed her sides, her torso, her breasts.

Honor forgot about everything else—she saw, she felt, she thought, of only George. Sparks of desire flared through her as she pressed against his body, riding on a crashing wave of affection and love for him, a need to make him happy, to please him. It seemed as if the sensuality washed over them both, forming a curtain between the world and her and this man.

George eagerly explored her body with his hands and his mouth, sliding over warm skin, pressing and kneading her to a peak of pleasure. He sank his fingers into her hair, pulled a tress free and brushed it against his face. He put his mouth on the hollow of her throat and sighed against the wild beat of her pulse. Honor’s heart galloped, heedless of its direction or speed.

George clawed at his trousers, lifting up, sliding them down his powerful hips and thighs, his cock standing erect and eager. He lifted her again, then guided her to slide down onto it.

White-hot sensation slammed at her ribs and her groin. Honor closed her eyes and bowed over his head as George began to move in her, pressing up and sliding down, making her pant with anticipation of her release.

He cupped her face, pressed his forehead to hers. “You cannot imagine the power you hold over me, woman.”

She pushed a lock of hair from his brow, kissed his temple. “I love you,” she said.

“No,” he said, sliding deeper into her, filling her up, shifting her about to slide even deeper.

“I love you,” she said stubbornly. He growled against her skin, dipped a hand between them, stroking her to madness. Honor matched the rhythm of his body in hers, eagerly meeting each thrust of his flesh into her. She encircled his neck with her arms, teased his lips and tongue with hers. Her craving for him was building, filling her up, reaching for more and pushing her over the edge of reason and decorum. She rode him, wanting to feel it all, to experience the fall from as high a point as she could reach.

His fingers swirled around the core of her pleasure, sliding deep inside her, moving faster. He grabbed her chin with his hand. “Open your eyes.” She did as he asked, looking into his eyes the very moment he pushed hard into her, and she fell from the mountain, tumbling down, head over heels.

She went limp, but he surrounded her with both arms, pushing harder into her, making her feel all of it, every last moment of it, riding her to an explosive climax that shattered with a guttural cry against her breast. A moment later, he sagged into the chair, still holding her, seeking his breath, his cheek against hers. His heart was beating so hard that she could feel it in her heart.

“You have destroyed me for any other,” he said. “There is only you, Honor.”

Those words meant more to her than the physical pleasure he’d just shown her. Honor sat up, cupped his face in her hands and tenderly kissed his lips, lingering there.

He kissed her cheek, her forehead, and shifted, his body falling out of her. Honor rearranged herself so that she was sitting on his lap, her head on his shoulder. Neither of them spoke; they gazed into the fire, watching the flames dance with every gust of wind down the flue.

But the blood continued to pump through Honor’s veins, flowing hot. George must have felt it, too; he put his palm to her cheek, kissed her temple.

“How did I come to love you so?” she asked with wonder.

“You mustn’t love me,” he said.

She sat up and twisted about to look at him in disbelief. “Do you think to tell me it is impossible again? If so, you must tell me that you don’t love me as I love you.”

He shifted his head, as if to look away, but she caught his face in her hand. “Say it,” she demanded. “Say you don’t love me, and I will leave and I will never bother you again. But if you do love me, then for God’s sake, stop telling me it’s impossible!”

George’s eyes rounded. And then the corners of his eyes crinkled with his smile. “Bloody hell,” he said, and gathered her to him again. “You’re far too brazen for your own good. You will have your way, for God knows I love you. I love you more than I think is possible for my heart to bear.”

Honor gasped with delight. She feathered his face with kisses. She could see his love in the way he looked at her, could feel it in the way he stroked her arm.

“But you mustn’t come here. If anyone saw you—”

“I don’t care if they do,” she said.

“I care.”

“Why? If it bothers you so, you should be offering for my hand—”

“Bite your tongue!” he said gruffly. He moved her off his lap and stood, stooping down to pick up the snifter he’d dropped. “The new Earl of Beckington would never allow a marriage, and besides, you have a perfectly good match in the vicar.” He walked onto the sideboard.

Gaping at his back, Honor gained her feet. “The vicar!” she exclaimed crossly. “Why is it that everyone believes Cleburne is best for me? How can anyone possibly know what is best for me? It is an infuriating assumption, especially coming from you.”

He seemed properly chastised for that and held up a hand. “You’re quite right. But, Honor...darling...Beckington will never allow it. Your affection, my affection does not change who or what I am. It does not change the fact that my fortune is sitting at the bottom of the sea.”

She did not like what he was saying. She wanted him to rebel with her, to believe as she did that they were meant to be together, somehow, some way. “Doesn’t love count for anything?”

“Of course it does,” he said softly, and walked across the room to clasp her face between his hands. “But it’s not enough, Honor. Not in the world you and I live.”

“Why isn’t it enough?” she demanded, and pulled his hands from her face. “What matters more than that, really?”

“You know very well. Influence matters. Money matters. You have lived a life of privilege. You are welcome in any parlor in London. Your clothing is of the best quality, you have the finest shoes—”

“They are all just things,” she exclaimed angrily. “Do you really think so little of me? That I would put gowns and shoes above love?”

“Honor...how could you possibly understand? Those are things you’ve possessed all your life, and at present, they are things that I can’t give you.”

“I’m not asking—”

“You’re not asking for any of it, I know,” he said, and stroked her cheek with his knuckle. “But I have nothing. I invested all but this house in a ship that has gone missing. You deserve better than the likes of me. The love between us was never meant to be, darling. You must accept it.”

He wasn’t listening to her, and she was sinking into a pit of anguish. “How many times must I say it? I want to be with you always, to lay with you, eat with you, tell you that your dancing is wretched—”

George shook his head.

Honor felt her heart all but explode. She reached for his lapels, grabbing them. “I’ve never felt so sure of anything in my life—”

“Dear God,” he said, wrapping her in his embrace, forcing her to be still. He tenderly kissed the top of her head. “Neither have I. But there is far more at stake than you are willing to admit. Deep down, you know what I am saying is true. Deep down, you know very well that Honor Cabot cannot marry a bastard son who dallies in trade. One day you will thank me for making you see it.”

She shoved against him. “I will thank you?” she said angrily. “I don’t care if I ever step foot in a ballroom again! I know only that I love you, George. Perhaps you don’t love me as you say. Perhaps you have made me believe it so that you could use me—”

“Don’t be foolish,” he snapped.

“Then what has you so afraid?” she exclaimed.

“Afraid!” His smile faded. His gaze roamed her face, searching, seeking...what? What was it this man needed to love her as she loved him? George suddenly grabbed her arms and yanked her to him. He kissed her, a hard, possessive kiss. And then he held her, cupping her head against his shoulder.

Honor closed her eyes and held her breath.

“I don’t deserve you,” he muttered.

“That’s not true—you deserve the best of everything. You are the son of a prince and the nephew of a king, and you deserve all the things that have been denied you.”

“No one believes that,” he scoffed.

“I do.” She looked up at him. “I believe it.”

He gazed tenderly at her. “Do you?”

“With all my heart.”

“God, but I do love you,” he said with a sigh.

Honor could feel a smile forming on her lips, could feel it light the darkness around them.

“Don’t smile at me, Cabot,” he warned her. “It’s hopeless to deny that bloody bright smile of yours.”

Her smile only deepened. He loved her. She leaned into him. “I know,” she said happily.