Chapter 8
Damon rubbed at his temples as he faced the sideboard in his study. His private domain. The place he was free to allow himself to dwell on the past without prying eyes scrutinizing his every move, his every word, his every expression.
And he’d invited the bloody governess in.
For a damned drink. At nearly midnight.
He wasn’t sure which was worse: his offer, or her acceptance.
Stalling time for him to reassess his bearings, Damon lowered his head and inspected the crystal decanters on his sideboard. Scotch whiskey, gin, cognac, arrack, rum. No wine or sherry. Why did his servants not stock his sideboard with an appropriate drink for female company?
The answer was glaringly obvious. After Sarah’s death, there hadn’t been another woman in his study.
After several months, Damon had noticed that his space no longer had his wife’s favorite drink, a honeyed wine that he’d imported from France.
It had been a relief at the time. He wasn’t reminded of her absence every time he sought out his study.
She would never curl up on the lounge close to the fire while he worked late into the night, nor would she join him early in the morning before the household woke for pastries pilfered from Mrs. Eleanor’s kitchen pantry.
He’d lied to the bloody governess, too.
There hadn’t been any reason for the deception except that he longed to hold the memory to himself…a secret that only he knew about.
The book, Love in Excess, was not, in fact, the favorite of a past relation but Sarah’s cherished novel.
How many nights had they lain in bed or secluded themselves in this very room as she read aloud from the book?
Of all the thousands of titles precisely arranged in the library, why had Miss Samuels selected the one novel he never wanted to set eyes on again?
His fingers shook, causing two decanters to clink together.
He listened as the rustle of the governess’s skirts revealed her position across the room. She seemed as hesitant to enter the study as he’d been to invite her.
Closing his eyes and steadying his rapidly beating heart, Damon gripped the edge of the sideboard.
There had been no reason for his invitation, except Miss Samuels had appeared so alone and lost in the library, dwarfed by the massive shelves that reached all the way to the ceiling with the impressive Italian chandelier hanging unlit overhead.
He’d watched her as she ran her fingertips along the spines of the books closest to the hearth, but then she’d spied the low row of books that had belonged to Sarah. Only Sarah.
He’d needed to be away from that shelf, out of the room entirely; yet here they were, in another room the governess had no place in.
His children’s rooms, yes. The breakfast hall, of course. The schoolroom, absolutely. But in the library, and his study, no. One thousand times no.
There was no need to learn anything about the woman—her history, her intentions, her dreams. They belonged to her, not him.
After discovering her last night, adorned in gold and red, sitting at his gaming tables, Damon couldn’t help but wonder about the woman. He couldn’t so much as remember her given name. Something starting with a P. Prudence. Penelope. Pricilla. Pearl.
None of them fit the dark-haired, confident woman who’d escaped his townhouse the night before without settling her debt. Neither did the names fit the quick-tongued, reserved beauty he’d hired to look after Joy and Abram.
Just that afternoon, he’d requested Mrs. Brown collect the governess’s paperwork—including her references; however, she’d yet to deliver them to his study.
He cleared his throat as his eyes focused on the wall behind the sideboard. “I must apologize, my selections are not what I thought. I have everything from cognac to gin, but nothing suitable beyond that.”
“I will have scotch.” Though spoken quietly, her words were not hesitant in any way.
The drink was entirely unsuitable for a governess, but did it fit the masked woman who’d been attending his gaming evenings? When had he seen her for the first time? He could not recall a party she hadn’t attended, not that he allowed himself the freedom of noticing her or any woman.
He poured scotch into two tumblers and turned, freezing where he stood.
Miss Samuels had taken a seat on the very chaise Sarah had favored.
Damon needn’t even close his eyes to imagine the way she’d cast her slender body across the lounge, her blond waves cascading over the edge of the backrest and almost touching the rug below.
Even heavy with Joy, she’d taken her place on the low-slung seat, and he’d had to assist her to stand.
But this woman, Sarah’s children’s bloody governess, sat upright, her single long, rich brown curl hanging over her shoulder, her hands relaxed in her lap as her gaze traveled about the room—landing on everything but him.
Miss Samuels and Sarah were like night and day.
Bright light and midnight darkness.
Sarah had been easily read and even simpler to love.
This woman had secrets that teased at far deeper things.
However, Miss Samuels could not hold even a portion of the depth her exterior hinted at.
She was a governess, a servant in his home.
He had no knowledge of her background besides her letters of recommendation that she’d brought with her when they first met.
Damon had no reason to know anything beyond her qualifications to care for and teach his children.
She wasn’t a mystery to be solved or a woman who should hold any amount of his attention.
“Your drink.” He stepped forward, and she took the tumbler from him.
Settling in the chair across from the lounge, he brought his own glass to his lips but did not drink as he watched her over the rim, the firelight bringing out the red in her dark brown hair.
She brought the tumbler to her mouth, taking a small sip. No expression crossed her face as the liquid slipped down her throat.
Damon would have expected a grimace—or at least a widening of the eyes as the scotch burned its way down.
Yet, she remained passive and disinterested.
He knew insouciance when he saw it, for it was the mask he donned to keep others from seeing what lay beneath. What did Miss Samuels hide?
The opportunity to voice his questions about her activities the evening before was upon him.
However, he said nothing, asked nothing, demanded nothing.
He was hesitant to give up this private moment—a spot of intimacy, no matter how forbidden it was, he hadn’t experienced in many years.
He felt an uncanny kinship with Miss Samuels he couldn’t begin to explain, let alone understand.
“I am pleased to see you were able to remove the dye from your skin.”
When her glare snapped to meet his, Damon feared he’d misspoken.
Damon glanced down into this glass, swirling the liquid before taking his first sip. “I have spoken with the children.” Why did his use of the children make him think of Flora? “They have been duly chastised for their antics.”
The last thing he wanted was to have another conversation with Joy and Abram.
Even this discussion, alone in his study with Miss Samuels, was preferable to seeing the unease and betrayal in his offspring’s matching green eyes.
Their angry accusations had barely left his thoughts since the night before, and he had no urge to repeat the exchange.
It went so far as to overshadow his confrontation with the duke after his gaming party.
“I appreciate that, my lord.” He glanced down at her elbow, where the dye had given her away the evening before, but it was gone. In its place, her skin was red, likely from her scrubbing.
She appeared an unrecognizable woman from the lady adorned in red and gold.
Returned to the simple, reserved attire of a governess, her finely beaded, satin evening gown had been replaced by one of muslin with a high waist and a modest neckline.
The muted gray was nothing like the vibrant red from the evening before, yet the unassuming dress did little to detract from her beauty.
For the first time, Damon found himself longing to ask why she’d taken a position as a governess and not sought to wed and have her own family.
She was certainly alluring enough to catch any man’s eye, and her demeanor, though a bit forthright, was not displeasing.
His thoughts did nothing but bring back his many other questions regarding the previous night; where had she fled to, why had she sought to make a fool of such an important man, and why had she kept her secret from him?
A cry broke the silence in the room, penetrating the walls from above. The quiet of the night was shattered, forever gone as reality invaded.
Damon’s heartbeat thrashed in his ears, nearly drowning out the all too familiar bellow at the same time his fingers dug into the arms of his chair.
“Joy,” they both said at the same time.
“She has nightmares,” Miss Samuels said, setting her tumbler on the table beside the lounge. “I will see to her.”
Damon clamped his mouth shut to prevent the remark that hung on his tongue.
He knew damn well that Joy found it difficult to fall asleep—and remain asleep—without awakening on a scream.
Just as he knew he should change, be there for his daughter when she needed him.
Yet, he still cultivated the distance between them, and it grew nearly as quickly as his regret.
“No, I should go.” Damon stood quickly, but Miss Samuels was already making her way to the door. “I can see to her—"
“I will care for Joy.” She gestured toward his desk. “You have work to finish.”
Work? Yes, he’d used his responsibilities to the Ashford title as his excuse for being below stairs at such an hour.
Unwanted relief flooded him at the woman’s insistence on seeing to Joy. Damon wanted to care for his daughter, soothe her pain; however, he could not make things better for her when he was helpless to do it for himself.
Damon was grateful for the governess’s assistance, despite his own remorse for not doing more for Joy.
How many nights had he listened to Joy’s cries when they woke him from sleep?
How many times had he stilled himself from going to her, stopped himself from wrapping his little girl in his arms and whispering that everything would be well?
How many times had he kept to his own room, knowing that any promises he made to his children would go unfulfilled?
If he went to Joy, if he gave her and Abram all the love and adoration they deserved, it would only lead to their heartbreak when he ceased to exist. That day would come as it had for Sarah, though he prayed it was several decades away.
Nothing would be all right again.
And Damon would be damned if he ever pledged any such thing to Joy and Abram when he knew, without a doubt, that with Sarah gone, nothing would ever be as it should be.
He’d let his children down once, and he would not allow himself to do so again.
They deserved far more than a father who could not keep his promises.
Instead, he would allow his never-ending succession of governesses to placate his children, whisper sweet murmurings of a bright future to come in their ears, while he alone knew the real cruelty of the world.
The unfairness of life.
The follies of fate.
“Thank you,” he called to Miss Samuels as she slipped from the room, closing the door behind her.
The echo of his daughter’s quieting sobs continued to punctuate the air around him.
His entire body shook along with Joy’s continued cries, his eyes clenched tightly shut as he sent a silent prayer into the night. If only he could absorb his daughter’s pain, her suffering, and return them all to the happy family they’d once been.
If anything even remotely resembling a normal, happy life presented itself to Damon, he would grasp hold of it, if only for his children.
Damon was willing to give anything to gain the satisfaction of letting his hurt, his sorrow, and his despair go. Though it was only in the dead of night he allowed the overwhelming emotions to overtake him.
But in the morning, when he awoke, they remained—haunting him yet again.