“It’s not your scheme any longer, love. It’s mine. I told you I would fix things for you.”

“I don’t need you to fix anything for me. I don’t want you to fix it!”

George paused and looked down at her. “Why? Is Cleburne suddenly to your liking?”

“No!” she exclaimed, and looked nervously in the direction of the young vicar. “That’s certainly not what compels me. It’s that I...” She rose up on her toes to look over his shoulder.

“You what?” he asked.

Honor sank down, bit her lip.

George frowned, imagining all manner of nonsense. “What is this sudden shyness? What is it?”

“I am not shy,” she said, as if the very notion offended her. “But I am afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of you,” she admitted.

Something toxic began to brew in George. He suspected this was the moment she would say that she had come to realize that theirs was not a relationship she could maintain, not with an urgent need to find an offer for her hand. He stepped back. “Go on, then, say it. Don’t let maidenly angst stand in your way.”

“I love you,” she said.

Stunned, George gaped at her.

“Are you shocked?” she asked, smiling at someone who passed by. “Well, I do, Easton, I love you so, with all my heart,” she said, stacking her hands and pressing them against her breast. “What am I to do? I’m not supposed to love you, but I do. I don’t want you to seduce anyone but me. I want you all for myself. I want you.”

He had never desired to hear those words more, and yet he had never wanted so desperately not to hear them. “What you think you want is impossible,” he said brusquely. “How many times must I tell you so?”

Her eyes widened with surprise. And then narrowed with anger. “Why must every blessed thing with you be so impossible?”

“Because it is,” he snapped, feeling inexplicably, inexcusably angry with her. He was feeling the same thing, had been feeling for days that rusty, unfamiliar crank of love in his chest, and it made him furious. As much as he loved her, he wouldn’t taint her with the rumors that swirled about him. Worse, he had nothing. He had less than nothing now, thanks to his missing ship. He could offer this bright star in his galaxy nothing.

“But I thought... You admitted to affection for me. You missed me.”

He could see unshed tears beginning to glisten in her eyes. It was a rare glimpse of innocence from this young woman, and for some reason it made George even angrier. She was naive in ways he could not begin to fathom, and he’d allowed it, had encouraged it, had taken innocence from her. “It is time you accepted life for what it is, Honor. You can’t recast it to meet your whims.”

She looked truly wounded by that. “A whim? Do you think I want to love you?” she asked, heedless of anyone around now. “Do you think that it eases my life in any way?”

George’s heart constricted, squeezed by so many emotions, so many things he didn’t want to feel. He gazed into the beautiful face, into the eyes of a daughter of the Quality, who had been trained to high-step into salons and advantageous matches just as surely as he was trained to not desire them. She had been trained to seek fortune and, more important, standing.

She could not love a man like him. It was impossible.

Her naive ideas of love and noble sacrifices would fade with time.

But then Honor surprised him yet again. It was almost as if she could feel the doubts raging through him. She put her hand on his arm and said, “I do love you, George. I know you don’t believe me, but I love you in a way I never believed was possible. I beg you, tell me the truth. Tell me you feel the same. Please.”

A flash of panic and an age-old ache swept through him. He peeled her fingers from his hand and stepped back. “I beg your pardon, Miss Cabot, but I cannot possibly tell you what is not true.” George did the only thing he could do—he turned away and walked. Fled, really. He looked wildly at the crowd in that hall and felt the walls closing in, pushing the air from the room. He stalked from the reception, out into the cold gray day.

He did not look back. He didn’t have to. The image of the hurt in her eyes was forever burned into his memory.

And because George left in such a fashion, a prisoner of his birth and his experiences, because he believed that the vicar was a good match for her, and that he was the worst match for her, because he took himself to Southwark and gambled and drank the remainder of the day, trying desperately to block her words from his ears, her image from his eyes, he did not hear the Earl of Beckington had died until well into the following afternoon.



CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

DEATH HAD CREPT in when the Beckington household had least expected it. The earl had been at breakfast that morning, smiling as the girls talked about their plans for the day, and reminding Augustine, when he grew impatient with Mercy, that she was a girl yet.

A congenial Augustine had agreed and had turned the talk to the reception for Lord Stapleton that afternoon, pondering who might attend. Honor had wondered aloud if Grace was still abed after an evening spent at the Chatham residence. The earl had said she must be exhausted, having endured the unending stream of words from Lady Chatham.

Prudence had recalled a silly story about Mrs. Philpot’s chickens that had gotten loose in Grosvenor Square, and dissolved into giggles as she’d related how the poor woman had run after them, her skirts lifted to her knees. It had made the earl laugh until he couldn’t catch his breath.

After breakfast, Mercy had offered to read to her stepfather—truly the only father she’d ever known—but he’d smiled fondly at her and assured her he’d had quite enough tales of wolves who ate humans.

When Honor thought of that morning, she thought of her mother, not the earl. Her mother had sat beside her husband, quite subdued, staring at her plate. Had she sensed that death was so near them? Or had she slipped into the private world she increasingly inhabited?

There was one more thing Honor remembered about the last time she would see the earl alive. When she’d stood to go, she had leaned down to kiss him goodbye. He’d caught her hand in his and said, “You’re a good girl, my love. Never let anyone convince you otherwise.” And he’d smiled.

Honor had laughed. He’d been telling her she was a good girl since the day she and Monica had slipped out of the back of the church during Sunday services to meet a pair of boys. Not just any boys, mind you, but stable boys who were charged with looking after the parishioners’ horses.

“I think you are the only one who believes it, my lord. But I shall endeavor to remember.”

The earl had patted her hand, then had let it slip from his grip.

Honor wished she was the good girl the earl had always believed her to be. She wished she’d been a better daughter to him, had spent more time with him.

His funeral had been a blur of activity. So many people had come, so many embraces and offers of condolences. So many rituals and so much black.

The day after the funeral, Grace had left for Bath. “Stay,” Honor had begged her.

“I can’t,” Grace had said grimly. “We’ve no time to lose.”

Honor had said goodbye to Grace that morning, holding her sister tightly. She’d told herself that Grace’s plan was just as fraught with opportunities for failure as hers had been, and that by all rights, Grace would be home in a matter of weeks. But Grace’s departure had felt like the final blow, the last door to shut on the life as they’d known it.

Honor had stood on the street, watching Grace’s coach disappear around a corner. And even then, she’d remained standing there, looking down the street. Waiting. Watching.

For what, Honor hadn’t known.

She’d felt great despair that morning. She’d lost the most important people in her life in a matter of days. The earl. Her dear sister Grace. Easton.

Her disappointment was devastating.

Now it had been a fortnight since the earl’s death, a fortnight of grief so deep that Honor had lost her appetite and seemed only to eat when Hardy urged her to do so. It was nonsensical—Honor had known that the earl was not long for this world, had believed herself prepared for his departure. Nothing could have prepared her, however.

His absence was felt throughout the house. Augustine seemed anxious in his new role, and the entire staff seemed to be in the doldrums. Prudence and Mercy whispered to each other, their black clothing making them look tired.

But Honor’s grief ran so much deeper than her stepfather’s death.

She mourned George just as deeply.

Lord, how she missed him. And hated him, too. At least, she tried to convince herself she hated him. With his rejection of her, he’d reopened old, deep-seated wounds. She felt as if she were reliving the nightmare of Lord Rowley all over again. Honor had been destroyed by Easton’s rejection of her, and had it not been for Mr. Cleburne’s kindness in seeing her home, she’d feared she might have collapsed at the reception.

Since that horrible afternoon, she’d not seen George and had heard nothing of him. He hadn’t come to pay his respects, and even at the funeral service, she’d scanned the dozens upon dozens of mourners gathered, certain she would see his reassuring smile. He did not attend.

At the gathering after the funeral, she happened to overhear two gentlemen speaking of the war. One of them mentioned that Easton’s ship was missing and presumed captured or sunk, and with a chuckle added that his fortune had sunk along with it. Honor wondered if he’d truly lost his fortune, if he would be reduced to mean circumstances. She hated him...but she wished she could help him, too.