Read The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone (Lords of Disgrace) for Free Online Page B

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