My Fair Groom (The Sons of the Aristocracy) by Linda Rae Sande Page A

brunt of the seventh Earl of Trenton’s wrath. His fists left marks on her, his raised voice berating her very existence.
    Gabriel was still remembering the day he had walked in on his father as he held his mother’s arm behind her back, his eyes black with rage over some slight he thought of her to be guilty. Despite the haste Gabriel made in getting to her, his father’s vindictive nature prevailed. Lady Trenton was left with a twisted arm and a broken wrist that had never quite healed correctly. Gabriel, floored by the beast’s fist when it plunged into his middle, was left breathless and gasping for air. He was powerless to do anything to assist his mother – powerless to provide aid or to counter the earl’s attack.

As Gabriel lay prone, staring at the ceiling of his mother’s salon, he wished his father were dead. Who would have ever guessed that in the next minute, the seventh earl would suffer some kind of seizure that resulted in his death? A seizure that would leave him on the floor only a few feet away from Gabriel, his eyes rolled up in the back of his head and his tongue hanging out one side of his mouth.
    Although Gabriel had watched his father fall to the floor, clutching his chest as he did so, Gabriel could do nothing more than turn his head and watch with contempt. When he remembered his mother, though, he struggled to get off the floor. He found her on a settee, holding her injured arm and whimpering in pain. And before he could send for the butler and see to a physician, Lady Trenton begged him to forgive his father. “He doesn’t know what he does,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face.
    Gabriel remembered staring at his mother in disbelief. How could she forgive a man who had nearly broken her arm? Probably broken her hand? Who raised his voice and his hand against her and her son more times than he could count?
    “Never,” he replied with a shake of his head. For your sake and for mine, he thought, but didn’t put voice to the sentiment.
    Recalling that afternoon now, Gabriel shook his head and absently felt the ribs that had cracked when his father punched him. Breathing had been next to impossible for several days following that ordeal. The knowledge that he had inherited the earldom hadn’t been made clear until the day after his father’s death, when the estate manager had come to him for his signature on some document.
    That day seemed like eons ago, he considered now. Back then, his new power – and the wealth of the earldom – had gone to his head. He’d had tailors, jewelers, hat makers, carpenters and all manner of artisans at his beck and call, making it possible to erase the façades his father had erected in favor of more elegant surroundings and more flamboyant clothing.
    The clothing had been one of his mistakes, though.
    In taking the advice of a tailor who claimed personal knowledge of how gentlemen in London dressed, Gabriel began sporting bright colors and rich, shiny fabrics when he would have been better off in more conservative attire.
    Who could take a man seriously when he dressed like a molly? Especially in Parliament? Despite the black robes they wore while in chambers, every lord knew what Gabriel Wellingham wore when they were outside of the House of Lords.
    Gabriel regarded his reflection in a large looking glass in the vestibule, noting how much older, how much more mature he appeared when dressed in the worsted wool topcoat and Nankeen breeches he now wore. Although his waistcoat was red, it was more scarlet in color, and certainly not as ostentatious as an embroidered silk would have been. He thought of all the waistcoats that hung in one of the clothes presses in the master suite at the end of the upstairs hall. Most were too bright or too colorful for his tastes now; he kept them for special occasions like balls and soirées.
    Gabriel recalled the last time he had come from London to visit his mother at Trenton Manor. They had been having tea