The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone (Lords of Disgrace) by Louise Allen Read Free Book Online

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
    A ugust 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 her father deemed her deserving of punishment, which was often. But she had never been hit by him.
    Her father had grabbed her arm, held her as she’d pulled back against his grip, her righteous defiance turned in a second to stomach-churning nausea.
    ‘You will obey me.’ He’d jerked again as she fought against the pain in her arm. It felt as though the bones were grinding together.
    ‘No,’ she’d managed. ‘Woodruffe is—’ But she didn’t have the words for what Gabriel had told her. And then her father had hit her across the face, backhanded, knocking her to the ground to land in a painful sprawl against a wooden chair. She had no clear memory of being taken upstairs, only of coming to herself to find her maid bathing her face. There was a bandage on her arm.
    Now, with the bruises gone, she had permission to leave her rooms, go downstairs, allow herself to be seen, provided she maintained the fiction of a virulent sore throat that had laid her up for almost two weeks. She sat down in the window seat and searched for some courage. There were tales of how prisoners were afraid to leave their cells and the security of a familiar confined space and now she could understand how they felt. But she was desperate to get out, away from the tedium