The Trouble with Honour. Julia London

was lured away by a bigger fortune?”

      “What?” Grace eyed Honor warily. “How? Why?”

      “Just suppose she was lured away. It would give us a bit of time to settle things. Look here, Grace, if the earl dies, Augustine will take her to the altar as soon as he is able, and then what? But if they don’t marry as soon—”

      “Are you forgetting that Augustine loves her?” Grace asked, clearly struggling to remain calm.

      “I’ve not forgotten. But he is a man, isn’t he? He will soon forget her and find another.”

      “Our Augustine!” Grace cried with disbelief. “Monica Hargrove is the first woman he’s ever so much as looked at, and even so, it took him several years to do it!”

      “I know,” Honor said, wincing a little. “I’m only trying to think of a way to put off their marriage for a time.”

      “Until what?”

      “I haven’t worked that out completely,” Honor admitted.

      Grace studied her sister for a moment, then shook her head. “It’s ridiculous. Folly! Monica won’t turn loose a bird in the hand—Augustine could turn mute and blind and she’d not care. And besides, I have a better plan.”

      “What?” Honor asked skeptically.

      Grace sat up now. “We marry first. Quickly. If we marry, our husbands will have no choice but to take in our sisters and our mother when the earl dies.”

      “Now who is being ridiculous?” Honor said. “What do you think, that we may summon up a husband with the snap of our fingers? Who would we marry?”

      “Mr. Jett—”

      “No!” Honor all but shouted. “That’s a wretched plan, Grace. First, neither of us has an offer. Second, I don’t want to marry now. I don’t want to tend to a man and do his bidding, and be shunted off to the country where there is no society, all because he desires it.”

      “What are you talking about? Who do you know that has been shunted to the country?” Grace asked with some surprise. “Really, Honor, don’t you want to marry? To have love and companionship and children?”

      “Of course,” Honor said uncertainly. She rather enjoyed her freedom. She didn’t pine for marriage and children the way other women her age seemed to do. “But at present, I don’t love anyone and I don’t want to marry merely because it is expected. It vexes me terribly that we are expected to do as we are told and marry this man, or seek that offer,” she said, gesturing irritably. “Why? We’re free women. We ought to choose and do as we please, just like every man is allowed.”

      “But we have others who must rely on us,” Grace said, referring to Prudence and Mercy.

      The reminder put a temporary damper on Honor’s enthusiasm for women’s equality.

      “And besides, your perception is clouded by Rowley’s rejection—”

      “It was not precisely a rejection,” Honor began to argue, but Grace threw up a hand to stop her.

      “I didn’t say it to be unkind. But your judgment has been impaired, Honor. You won’t allow anyone to come close.”

      Before Honor could argue against such a ridiculous notion, Grace said, “So we are agreed, we must do something.”

      “Yes, of course, we are agreed. Which is why I want to seduce Monica away from Augustine. And I know just the man to do it.”

      “Who?” Grace asked skeptically.

      Honor smiled at her own brilliance. “George Easton!”

      Grace’s eyes widened. Her mouth gaped. It took her a few swift moments to find her tongue. “Have you gone completely round the bend?”

      “I have not,” Honor said firmly. “He is the perfect man for it.”

      “Are we speaking of the same George Easton from whom you managed to divest one hundred pounds in that scandalous little game in Southwark?”

      “Yes,” Honor said, shifting a little self-consciously in her seat.

      Grace made a sound of despair or shock, Honor wasn’t certain, but her sister suddenly stood and walked in a complete circle behind her chair, one hand on her back, the train of her muslin gown trailing behind her. When she faced Honor again, she folded her arms across her chest and stared down at her. “To be perfectly clear, are you speaking of the self-proclaimed by-blow of the late Duke of Gloucester? The man who loses a fortune as easily as he makes one?”

      “Yes,” Honor said, confident in her idea. “He is handsome, he is the nephew of the king and currently, he is quite flush in the pockets, as we know.”

      “But he is a man with no real name. Or connections! We may all very well believe he is the true son of the late duke, but the duke never acknowledged it. And I’ve not even mentioned that the current duke—Easton’s half brother, if he is to be believed—utterly detests him and forbids anyone from even mentioning his name! For heaven’s sake, Honor, he does not enjoy the privileges of his supposed paternity! Monica Hargrove will not give up the Beckington title for him, not if all of Hades freezes over.”

      “She might,” Honor stubbornly insisted. “If she were properly seduced.”

      Grace blinked. She sank down onto her chair, her hands on her knees, gaping at her sister. “What a dangerous, ridiculous idea. You must promise me you won’t do anything so entirely wretched.”

      “Wretched!” Honor was miffed that Grace didn’t see the brilliance in her plan. “I mean him only to lure her, not compromise her! He need only make her believe there are other interests in her, and then perhaps she will want to explore an option or two before marrying Augustine. It seems quite simple and brilliant to me. Your idea is superior to that?”

      “Much,” Grace said emphatically. “If you won’t marry, then I will.”

      “Oh, and have you any offers you’ve not told me about?”

      “No,” Grace said with a sniff. “But I have some thoughts on how I might gain one.”

      “Such as?”

      “Never you mind,” Grace said. “Just promise me you won’t do anything so foolish.”

      “Very well, very well,” Honor said with an impatient flick of her hand. “I promise,” she said dramatically, and picked up her plate again. “I’m famished.”

      In fairness, Honor had every intention of keeping her promise. In fairness, she always meant to keep her promises.

      But then she unexpectedly encountered George Easton that very afternoon.

       CHAPTER THREE

      FINNEGAN, GEORGE EASTON’S butler-cum-footman-cum-valet, had pressed George’s dark brown superfine coat, his gold-and-brown waistcoat and his dark brown neckcloth. He had hung them where George would see them: directly before the basin, blocking his sight of the mirror, of the razors and brushes and cuff links he kept there.

      Until Finnegan, George had been perfectly happy to live his life with a pair of footmen, a cook and a housekeeper, but his lover, Lady Dearing, had implored George to take Finnegan after her husband had cast the valet out. Lady Dearing had said his dismissal was an issue of austerity. George was quite familiar with austerity, as he’d been forced to befriend it on more than one occasion in his thirty-one years on this earth.

      It hadn’t been until several weeks after he’d taken him on that George learned the real reason for Finnegan’s abrupt departure: he, too, had been invited to share Lady Dearing’s bed. George had known the fair-haired vixen was a wanton, obviously, but the valet? That went beyond the pale.