The Unexpected Marriage Of Gabriel Stone. Louise Allen

like Tamsyn when he got to know her. But the change to that close foursome only made his dissatisfaction with life worse.

      He had been aware of being unsettled for months. He was bored with his life, no longer content with an existence in which winning was all that counted. Jaded, that was the word. He had a title, lands, money far beyond his needs or wants. What was he doing it for? Damn it, he had toyed with the idea of ruining a respectable young lady just for the novelty. He didn’t much like the man who could do that. Perhaps it was time to change. But if he didn’t spend his time gambling, socialising, drinking, what was the point to his life?

      His three friends had been closer than his family, closer than he had ever dared allow his brothers to be. Cris, Alex and Grant had come into his life when he had been at his most desperate and vulnerable, at a time when they all needed the help that only others who had been wounded could understand. They knew his secrets, all but one of them—he could not burden them with the lies he had told the day his father died. That burden was his to carry, ever since he had made a promise to his mother, a woman so desperately unhappy she had taken her own life.

      If he loved anyone, it was his friends and he knew they returned the sentiment, even if they would have died rather than admit it. From the hell that had been his childhood he had met them and learned that friendship gave what family never could, an equal give and take.

      ‘Good morning, my lord.’ Corbridge came in with hot water. Obviously he judged Gabriel to be back amongst the living,

      ‘Is it?’ Gabriel got out of bed and strode, naked, into the dressing room. ‘What’s the point of it all, Corbridge? Life, I mean, because I’m beginning to wonder.’

      ‘My lord...is anything amiss?’

      Gabriel was aware of the valet laying one hand protectively over the razors and, despite himself, grinned. ‘It is all right, I’m not about to cut my throat, blow my brains out or otherwise put a period to my existence. I am simply wondering what I am doing with my life.’

      ‘My lord, you are an earl,’ Corbridge said repressively.

      ‘That is a title, not a job description.’ Although perhaps it was.

      Manage the estates, look after the dependents, take my seat in the House, marry well, have heirs, teach the next generation to do it all over again... Focus on the title and not myself. Give up taking lovers? Step back and pray I can manage not to make a disaster of heading a family? But who would listen to my prayers?

      He grimaced at his reflection and reached for the soap and sponge. He did everything he needed to do to keep the wheels of the earldom turning, but he did it at a mental distance that felt as though he had preserved it in ice. When the frost melted would he find something fresh and new to engage with or find only the rotted carcase of the past?

      A disgusting image. He shook off the ghoulish thought with an effort. ‘I’m getting old, Corbridge.’ Is that why it was so hard to accept how his life was changing?

      ‘My lord, you are not even in your prime yet, if I may be so bold.’ The valet began to work up a lather with the shaving soap.

      Gabriel grunted and scrubbed his toothbrush into the powder. What he needed was a purpose and he supposed the obvious one was his earldom and, heaven help him, his brothers, although they would probably think he’d got a brain fever if he suddenly turned up showing a keen interest in their lives and welfare. It would certainly unnerve them thoroughly.

      ‘I’m at home until this afternoon, then I’ll be riding. I may as well put on buckskins and boots now.’ There was business to finish, then he’d blow away the cobwebs with a good gallop and try to work out how to finally come to grips with his inheritance, all of it, on his own terms. His identity had been that of the care-for-nothing rakehell for so long that he wasn’t certain he knew who the man underneath that mask was.

      * * *

      It was not until the evening that he sat down and began to sort through the jottings he had made on young Mr Holm’s inheritance. He picked up Caroline’s message again, feeling the same prickle of unease as he had experienced the day before. Something was not right with it. He rummaged in the papers until he found her first note and laid them side by side. Same paper, same ink, but while the first was neat and elegantly written, the writing in the second was uneven, straggling, untidy. It looked as though it had been produced in haste and by someone who was either not themselves or who found it difficult to hold the pen. One corner of the page was distorted and he picked it up to study it more closely. A water splash. Or one fallen tear...

      I have grievously annoyed my father. Father, not Papa as she had always referred to him before. Something was wrong, very wrong. He had encouraged her to defy Knighton over the marriage and now she was exiled to the country, perhaps mistreated in some way, until she gave in. In his mind he heard the crack of the riding whip, felt the shock of the pain. He had withstood it, pride and sheer bloody-mindedness had seen to that. But a woman...

      Surely Knighton wouldn’t beat his daughter? Yet he wanted her to marry Woodruffe. Surely he realised what the man was? Or perhaps he really was so obsessional that he could ignore the man’s reputation?

      Just because his own father had been utterly ruthless in imposing his will did not mean that Caroline’s father was. Gabriel pushed away the old nightmares, studied the slip of paper for a long moment, then folded it and put it in his breast pocket. He was imagining things were worse than they were, surely. Even so, he could not rest easy. The paperwork for her brother’s estate was soon completed and he bundled it up to go to his lawyer, then got to his feet. He had a commitment to help Cris and that might take a day or so, but then he was going to find Lady Caroline Holm and undo whatever damage he had caused.

      He imagined his friends’ expressions if they knew he was contemplating involving himself in some chit’s family dramas. But Caroline was not some chit, she was intelligent, courageous and determined, and he felt guilty about the way he had teased her, he realised. That was novel enough to provoke him into action. What that action might be he had no idea, but at least he was not feeling jaded any longer.

       Chapter Four

      Hertfordshire—August 1st

      August was usually a month Caroline enjoyed, especially if she was in the country. Now Knighton Park was a hot, stuffy prison and the sunlit gardens and park outside were a bright, tantalising reminder of just how trapped she was.

      It was not my fault, she told herself for perhaps the hundredth time. It was not her lack of duty, not her wilfulness, not her foolish whims—all the faults her father had thrown at her. It is his. His tyranny, his temper. His lack of love.

      It had started mildly enough. Her father announced that they were moving to Knighton Park and, recklessly, she had chosen to make a stand, to announce that she would not marry Woodruffe, or any of the middle-aged suitors he had considered for her.

      The bruises on her right cheek had finally vanished. She studied her reflection in the mirror and clenched her teeth. There was some soreness and a molar was still rather loose, but she thought if she was careful it would grow firm again. The marks on her arms had almost faded, too. She could write long letters to Anthony without discomfort. His future, at least, was safe now.

      The image of her face faded and the scene she kept trying to forget swam up in its place.

      ‘You will do as you are told, you stupid girl!’

      ‘I am not stupid. I am not a girl. I am of age and I will not be bartered to some man for whom I have nothing but contempt for the sake of your obsessions.’ Caroline had no idea what kept her voice so steady, what kept her standing there as his face darkened with rage.

      Her father was a believer in corporal punishment for his children, although Lucas, the favoured elder son, always seemed to escape with only the lightest of canings. As a girl, her governess had been instructed to strike her once or twice on the palm with a ruler for laziness or inattention, or whenever