Chapter 5 #2
“No sequence,” Catherton divulged, his stare trained on his cards.
Miss Samuels spread her cards before her. “Quint.” Her eyes narrowed behind her mask as she tallied her score. “Fifteen.”
One hundred and twenty-three, to one hundred and thirty-five.
“Declare.”
“Quatorze,” Catherton proclaimed.
Damon’s guests exhaled. It would be a difficult declaration to best.
“How much?” Miss Samuels called, sending several women into fits of laughter behind their raised fans. A woman besting the Duke of Catherton at the piquet table would certainly cause a fair amount of gossip among the ton.
Could she have it?
The conviction in her tone clearly made the entire gathering think the mystery woman behind the gold mask had vanquished the vile duke.
“Aces.” Catherton laid his card face-up before him and pushed from his chair, issuing a curt bow to the many guests watching the players. “Even with adding the play phase points, I am the victor.”
Damon quickly tallied the final phase points in his head.
Six hands with three tricks per round equaled eighteen points.
Neither Catherton nor Miss Samuels had won all eighteen tricks.
No bonus points for rounds seven through eleven as neither had won all the rounds.
One point for Catherton for winning the final trick.
The duke was the victor with one hundred and fifty-seven points scored.
He double and triple checked his addition, somewhere deep he was unwilling to acquiesce that she’d lost to the duke.
Damon’s stomach twisted, and he turned to Miss Samuels, thinking to see dejection and dread, but her shoulders remained squared, her chin high, and her mask in place. His stomach roiled yet she remained composed. Did Miss Samuels utterly lack any hint of self-preservation?
“If you will both join me in my study to settle your debts.” Damon stood. His only hope was that he could see the debt paid without Miss Samuels’ identity being discovered. “This way please—”
When Damon started for the open double doors, two blond heads peeked around the frame. Matching sets of green eyes widened before disappearing from sight as two pairs of feet could be heard scurrying down the hall. Blessedly, the musicians launched into a new piece, covering the sound.
Joy and Abram should be asleep in their beds, above stairs, and at the opposite side of the townhouse.
He’d even glanced into both rooms before going downstairs to greet his guests.
They’d been tucked in bed and fast asleep—a book lying open on Abram’s chest as if he’d fallen into slumber while reading.
Joy had been curled into a tight ball on her side, facing away from the door.
Damon increased his pace and exited the ballroom, but his children were out of sight.
Behind him, the duke collected his winnings, and Miss Samuels stood from her seat, glancing about the room.
His heart pounded in his chest when she watched the duke tuck a stack of notes into his coat pocket.
A mere governess did not have the funds to pay such a steep wager, and neither was a woman of her ilk suited to care for his children.
Without her position at Ashford Hall and the meager wages he paid, there was no possibility she’d ever repay her debt to the duke.
He should have requested a private word with her as soon as he discovered her identity. It would have saved her from the fate awaiting her in his study. His throat tightened at the thought of what Catherton would do if he learned the woman could not make good on her wager.
“My lord?” Mr. Brown cleared his throat at his elbow. “Can I be of assistance?”
Damon had never been more relieved to see his butler.
“Yes, yes,” he said, glancing down the hall towards the main stairs.
“Can you see the Duke of Catherton and the golden-masked woman”—he’d nearly divulged her ruse to his servant—“to my study? Ask them to await my arrival.” He needs must see to his misbehaving children before taking up the matter of the large sum owed the duke. “Do not leave the pair alone together.”
Despite Miss Samuels’ provocative words and the duke’s accusations, Damon would not tolerate any woman within his home being the recipient of Catherton’s wrath.
If only he could have a few moments to speak with the governess and assess her capability—and willingness—to fulfill her debt, Damon would be able to dispel his unease.
But first, his children were in need of proper discipline.
He should have seen to their unruly behavior earlier in the day after they’d ruined Miss Samuels’ dress.
As the years passed, he found it easier and easier to keep his distance from the pair.
It was as if he resided in a completely different house.
Damon took his meals in his room or after the children had gone to bed.
He locked himself in his study during the day or remained at his club in the evenings to avoid Joy and Abram.
It was the simplest way to assuage his guilt. His children had lost their mother because of his carelessness—his previous tendency for moments of impulsivity.
Impatience coursed through him. He should be focused on the matter between his guests; instead, he was distracted by his offspring. His backwards thinking was not lost on him—he knew he focused on the trivial in hopes it would distract him from the important.
Damon took the stairs two at a time and started down the hall that housed the children’s rooms—along with Miss Samuels’—just as the pair disappeared into Joy’s chamber. The door slammed in their wake.
The sound echoed in his head as he stalked down the hall.
Damon rubbed the back of his neck to dull the ache before pushing the door open.
It took him only a moment to spot Joy and Abram in the dim light where they ducked behind the unmade bed.
“Come out, now!” His command boomed in the larger room.
The pair stood behind the bed and crawled over the unkempt bedcoverings and then eased themselves to the floor several feet in front of Damon.
Abram’s mussed hair stood in every direction, and his long nightshirt hung open at his throat, his stare solidly leveled on Damon, while Joy kept hers trained on her feet.
“Have I not told you to remain upstairs when I am hosting guests?” he demanded, keeping his voice low, but stern.
“Yes, Father,” they chimed in unison.
“Than what, may I ask, were you doing below, sneaking about the ballroom?”
“We wanted to see—” Joy halted her explanation when Abram poked at her.
Abram’s stare hardened, barely noticeable in the light given off from the dying fire and the candelabra next to the bed. “We wanted to see what occupied so much of your time, if it is not us.”
“Pardon?” Damon wondered where the steel in his son’s tone came from at the same time his every decision over the last four years flooded him.
Both children remained silent, but hostility fairly filled the room.
After a few moments, Joy’s lip trembled, and Damon’s breath hitched at the sight of her hands clenched tightly before her.
For possibility the first time, Damon realized his children were hurting as much as he was.
They felt his pain despite the distance he’d created between them.
“Do you not miss her, Father?” Her strangled cry dispelled his irritation. “Do you not think about her at all?”
Damon searched their matching green eyes, at a loss for what to say, how to react, and utterly devoid of ideas for how to flee the room. While Abram’s glare held only reproach and scorn, Joy’s were filled with hurt.
Why now?
Of all nights, why had the pair brought up Sarah tonight?
“Did you love our mother?” Abram set his fisted hands on his slender hips. “Huh? We deserve an answer.”
A million moments spent with Sarah—many including his two small babes—floated through Damon’s mind.
Days spent on the expansive lawns at his country seat, Falconcrest, with the sun shining brightly overhead.
Nights spent with his arms wrapped securely and comfortably around Sarah.
Afternoons attending dreadful and boring London musicales at Flora’s behest—but having his wife by his side had made the long hours bearable.
The time their carriage had broken a wheel an hour outside of London proper when Sarah was heavy with child.
Every moment had held one thing above all else…love.
After a childhood shrouded by a lack of love and affection, Sarah had come into his life and changed it all. She’d made the impossible possible.
How could his children question his feelings for their mother? She was all he thought about, all he dreamed of at night, and the only person he longed to see again.
He fell into fitful sleep every night, only to wake suddenly and reach out for something—someone—to hold close. But Sarah’s side of their marriage bed would forever be empty.
And they dared ask him if he loved their mother?
Yet, they knew nothing of his struggles, his nights spent in dark musings, or his days barricaded in his study. They were not privy to his innermost thoughts, his great regrets—or his immense guilt.
His throat tightened, but he refused to allow his children to see the weakness that afflicted him every time he thought of Sarah, remembered their many years together…and how unexpectedly she’d been taken from him.
Damon swallowed past the lump that had formed in his throat and pinned Abram with his hard stare.
“You will both find your beds and not leave them again until you are called down for breakfast.” He turned to Joy, her stare once again on her tiny, bare feet poking out from under her long, white nightgown.
Her twin golden plaits hung over her shoulders. “Am I understood?”
Reluctantly, Abram nodded.
“Miss Samuels has tomorrow off,” Damon continued. “I expect the pair of you to look after yourselves and not cause another scene like this morning.”
Without another word, he pivoted and strode for the door.
He needed to be away from his children and locked in his study before the waves of anguish, hurt, and loss overtook him. Only alone would he give in to the memories, relive the moments, and cry until there were no tears left.
As he closed the door, Abram shouted after him, “You act as if she never existed. That you are better without her!”
Damon’s steps faltered. Better without her?
No one was better without Sarah. There was no more joy to be had now that she was gone from his side. Damon had simply adjusted to a life that didn’t require him to live within it.