Read Online The Trouble with Honor by Julia London - Free Book Online

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
    H ONOR 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