Page 49 of The Gambler Wagers Her Baron

His heart pulled in his chest, and he fought against the tears that blurred his vision. “After Sarah died, I retreated. My grief was all-consuming. It still consumes me. Every day. Every hour. And my guilt over it all is far more severe. I let Sarah down, and I let my children down.” He sighed. “However, today, for just a few minutes, I forgot my hurt, my pain, my loss. We visited the menagerie, we stopped on Piccadilly, and we rested at the park. For once, my children and I were away from Ashford Hall and the constant reminders of everything we’ve suffered.

“I think they forgot, as well. Yet with a blink of an eye, we were all reminded of how fragile life can be. I’ve spent so many years wallowing in my own shattered dreams, burdened with my own regrets and guilt, that I’ve neglected to realize my children still have a future ahead of them—even if mine was ripped from me. It took you, a most unlikely woman, to come into my household and begin to mend the damage Joy and Abram have lived with since Sarah’s death.”

Damon lifted his gaze back to Miss Samuels when she remained silent. Unease and trepidation flooded him. He shouldn’t be telling her any of this. If she hadn’t been frightened off by the disaster at the pond, his candid confession would surely send her running for new employment.

“How did you manage to break through their anger and change their troublesome ways?”

The hint of a smile touched her mouth, and he noticed the plumpness of her bottom lip. “I have my own siblings, and we are a very quarrelsome bunch. Fortunately for you, they want to love you. They want to forgive and forget the past—although they are too young to express it.”

He zeroed in on her initial statement regarding her family. It was the first she’d shared about herself with him. “You’ve mentioned your siblings before. Do they often give you trouble?”

His question was meant to distract them both from the colossal mistakes he’d made with Joy and Abram.

“No,” she said, her eyes darting to her hand that rested on the side of the bed. “I have always given them trouble. You see, I was an unruly child my whole life. Heeding another’s rules has never been a strong suit of mine, and that has never sat well with my sisters and brother. I was the youngest, I was the baby, and they knew what was best for me—or so they told me over and over.”

Joy’s head lolled to the side, and she sighed in her sleep. Damon hoped she found herself in a beautiful dreamland and not amidst the terrors that had awoken her the other night.

Damon watched Miss Samuels look upon Joy with a degree of tenderness he hadn’t seen before.

“You will make a wonderful mother one day,” he muttered.

She shook her head. “No, I do not think that is in my future, my lord.”

“Why ever not?” He should have ended the conversation long before this point. What she had planned for her future was none of his concern, only that she remained in his employ for the foreseeable future, at least until Joy and Abram reached an age suitable for going away to school. However, he did know that becoming a mother had undeniably changed everything about Sarah, similar to how it had altered him as a man. “My apologies. You needn’t answer that.”

Damon shoved to his feet, attempting to push from his thoughts the way the governess had changed in the short time she’d been in his life as a part of Joy’s and Abram’s lives.

“My siblings and I—five of us in all—have three different fathers,” she confessed. “My mother was never one to settle or remain in a situation if it no longer benefited her. In turn, none of us had any relationship with our sires. I never met mine before I was told he passed away.”

“Again, I am sorry—”

She waved away his words, also pushing to her feet. She glanced over her shoulder at the door. “Do not fret about my upbringing. My mother taught me strength and perseverance. I am, and always have been, steadfast in my resolve: that a woman can live a life of her own choosing…on her own terms. She can run a business, raise children, and still find contentment and happiness.”

She’d shared more than she planned, he could see it written on her face: remorse, regret, and no small amount of annoyance. But if that final emotion were aimed at herself or him, Damon did not know. Her openness had him thinking of all the things he hadn’t shared with her during her stay at Ashford Hall.

He moved around Joy’s bed to where the governess stood. “As I would tell my daughter,” he whispered with a small grin, “yes, a woman can do anything she sets her mind to. And that is no different for you, Payton.” He started inside at how natural it felt to use her given name. “However, having children and a family is not an inferior path in life. Some days, I do not know what I would do without Joy and Abram…they are all I have.”

“What happened with your wife? If you don’t mind me asking,” she whispered, glancing at Joy, sound asleep in her bed. “I—I know she passed when the children were very young, but nothing beyond that.”

No one spoke of Sarah; not him, not the servants, and rarely Joy and Abram.

Damon squeezed his eyes shut, begging the tears to remain at bay and not fall as they commonly did when he thought back to that night. “I convinced Sarah that an early evening sleigh ride to a neighboring town would be a grand adventure. It was nearly the new year, and the children were safely nestled in their beds, their nurse close by. And so, Sarah and I started out, unwittily oblivious to the storm pushing toward Falconcrest, my country seat. Our horse took a misstep, and our sleigh was caught in a rut with the snowfall increasing.”

Damon opened his eyes to find Payton intently watching him, her focus on the set of his jaw before moving to his eyes. He couldn’t go on, couldn’t admit his failures aloud. Not here, and not to the woman standing before him. Their recently established relationship would dissipate and disappear before he even had the chance to finish telling his story—Sarah’s story…his family’s story.

The resolve in Payton’s stare pushed Damon on. “We walked in the storm for hours with no shelter and only the warmth of our coats and huddled bodies. Until first light crested, breaking through the storm. By the time we found our way home, the chills had already begun to wrack Sarah’s body. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably. And then the fever set in. The doctor was summoned, but it took nearly a day for him to make his way through the snowfall to reach the estate. By that time, it was...”

Damon swallowed the final words—too late.

He’d thrown himself into the pond because he refused for it to be too late for Joy. And in the depths of his mind, he knew he’d followed Payton the other night for the same reason.

He reached out and took hold of Payton’s hand—her bare hand—when she looked away, her brow knitted. The feel of her skin against his warm palm was unlike anything he’d experienced in years. It felt right, yet so very wrong. Why was it so important to him that she understand the magnitude of his past failures, his damage?

He pulled her toward the door and the safety of the hallway beyond.

“My lord—”

“Damon,” he corrected, halting only when they stood outside Joy’s chambers, the child blocked from view. “I think here—with just the two of us—you can call me Damon.”