Chapter 31
Damon had spent so many years dwelling on the unfairness of everything around him that he’d nearly allowed the most perfect thing to walk out of his life. He’d spent so many years drowning in despair that he’d almost missed the opportunity to pull himself from the turmoil.
Drawing Payton ever closer, he reveled in the feeling of her pressed against him even as a longing stirred within him that had lain dormant for so long.
With it, he expected a spike of betrayal to pierce him, the overpowering need to retreat to his solitary life, and a heartbreaking realization that he would never have anything more.
He’d loved, and he’d lost.
Loss was a natural conclusion to love.
It had always been the way of things. Or was it?
Damon breathed in deeply, pulling back slightly from their kiss. Her responding moan made him confident that even if loss one day came, this love was worth exploring, knowing, and accepting.
And sharing, with his children and all of society.
“Payton…I…” Damon kissed her parted lips, both her cheeks, and her forehead as his fingers released their hold on her.
She’d confessed to wanting the same things as he did, yet how that future would look was still indecipherable to him.
She needed to know that when he said he wanted her by his side, he wanted all of her.
Finding the words to tell her that was nearly impossible, however, as he was afraid to speak the wrong words…
feared ending this moment. “I want you in my arms from today until forever.”
“I hadn’t imagined it would be what I wanted, yet here we are,” she mused, a smile lighting her face.
“I did speak the truth earlier. You cannot return to Ashford Hall as my children’s governess,” he whispered.
He stroked her cheek and down the length of her neck as he gazed into her eyes, content to be lost in their blue depths until his last breath until he noted the light dim and her stare cloud with confusion.
She shivered under his touch, and his body naturally responded.
“When you return to my home, it will be your home, as well.”
“Damon.” She shook her head, and her gloved fingers tightened on his forearms. “Are you certain?”
“For so many years, I’ve been uncertain about every aspect of my life,” he confided, brushing a wayward curl from her cheek.
“My days have passed without consequence, my nights indistinguishable from my days, and my thoughts as unpredictable as the rains across town. I neither knew where I was going or from whence I came. I’ve been adrift, with no land in sight”—he pulled back, needing to say his piece yet fearful she wouldn’t understand—“and you were the beacon sent to rescue us all.
So, when you ask if I am sure, I can say that, without hesitation, I have never been so very certain of anything in my life.
“You have not only blessed me with a second chance at life, but you have also brought it to Joy and Abram. No longer will they live a trivial existence shut in this townhouse with a reclusive, unworthy father. Even if I do not deserve better, my children do.”
Her eyes watered as her fingers fisted in his shirtsleeves. “Damon, you deserve happiness as much as any person. Life, like luck, is a fickle thing, or so I’ve learned. Despite your misfortunes, that does not mean you are unworthy of contentment and peace.”
He searched her stare. “Perhaps. However, I want far more for myself. I want love.”
“And I want to be the one loving you.” There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation, she did not avert her gaze nor wilt in his embrace.
“Damon, though I hadn’t realized it, I have spent my life in search of something.
Every day looking to the next…until I found you.
I tried to focus on what came next. but it always led back to you and the children.
” It was then that she looked away, her stare moving to the floor.
“I must admit, there have been times I longed to end my attraction to you.”
“I have resisted, as well.” There would be no more lies between them, no more half-truths, no more hiding. “I would do things differently if I had it to do all over again.”
“How so?” she asked.
“I would have spoken to you at my gaming parties long before you came to work in my home.” He’d noticed her on many occasions, though always kept his distance. Not only from her but from everyone.
“I likely would have rebuffed your advances, my lord.”
His brow raised in surprise. “Why ever would you do that?”
“It is not the brooding lord sulking about the edges of his ballroom I have found myself longing for, but the man—the father—you truly are.”
“Just as I did not know I could come to love a lady, a gambler in masquerade. However, I most certainly cannot live without a woman who can comfort my daughter when her night terrors threaten to overtake her. A woman who challenges my son and cares deeply for his studies.” It was more than all this.
Their love could not be all because of the children.
“I found myself falling in love with a woman whose temper got the best of her on more than one occasion, a woman who wasn’t afraid to stand up to me, a lady who could soothe my own lost soul. ”
“You were never lost, Damon, just as my searching was useless.”
He shook his head, unable to believe her.
“We were both exactly where fate meant us to be…”
Payton pushed to her tiptoes, her arms twining around his neck as she pressed against him.
Another truth he’d come to realize was that there was nothing more natural than having Payton in his arms and he, without a doubt, would do all in his power to keep her there.
“Miss Payton Samuels.” He tilted his head back, needing to gaze into the dark blue pools of her eyes when next he spoke. “Would you do me the great honor of becoming my baroness, my wife, and my children’s mother?”
She fell back a step, her hands coming to cover her mouth before dropping to her sides.
Damon smiled, his heart surging when his happiness was mirrored in her.
This woman, this lady he’d chosen to love, was everything he’d waited for all these years: strong, confident, and willing to wager everything for what she believed in.
“Do say yes, Miss Samuels.” Joy’s tiny voice squeaked from behind them.
When they both turned, they were greeted by three bright smiles: Joy, Abram, and Payton’s brother.
“What say you?” Garrett asked. “Unconventional, indeed. However…”
Payton glanced between Damon’s beaming face and the expectant looks of her brother and the children. There was not a thing about her day that had gone as planned, and Payton was overjoyed by that.
She’d returned to Ashford Hall to see the children safely home.
She hadn’t planned to seek out Damon nor be confronted by Catherton. The last thing she’d wanted was for Garrett to be entangled in the mess she’d created for herself. But, suddenly, his presence meant everything.
The last vestiges of her planned future fell away as images of a new course settled around her, mirrored in the shining faces of those who she’d come to care so deeply for.
Damon, his children, as well as the entire Ashford household.
She’d misguidedly thought she could walk away from it all and move on—move forward.
The truth was, there would be no moving anywhere if Damon weren’t by her side.
Damon placed his hand on the small of her back. “Children, Miss Samuels is likely overwhelmed. I think it is best you both return to your chambers and give us a moment of privacy. Lord Garrett, would you be so kind as to see them to their rooms?”
Garrett nodded and proceeded to usher the children from the study, despite their pleas to remain.
Did Damon think she was opposed to being his wife? Did he bid Joy and Abram leave because he did not want them to remain and hear her turn down his offer of marriage?
Her pulse quickened. “Children. Wait, do not leave.”
Garret, Joy, and Abram halted, turning back to the room.
“Come inside,” she bid. “My answer affects you as much as your father.”
Payton steered the children toward the lounge while Garrett remained close to the door as if debating if he should stay, as well.
“Lord Garrett?” Joy called, holding her hand out to him. “Are you coming?”
How had it taken weeks for her to win the girl’s heart and only an hour for Garrett?
Payton lowered herself to the lounge, the children settling on each side of her with Garrett and Damon taking the chairs across from them.
This discussion was not solely hers, nor would this be the last time she’d need to consult others because, despite her longing to select her own future, with her answer, she would be affecting the lives of each person sitting around her.
Her life would no longer be her own.
Her life was to become their life.
“Joy”—she took the girl’s hand and turned to her brother—“Abram. How would you feel if I was to wed your father?”
Their opinion carried an equal weight to Damon’s. Their future would never be solely based on her and Damon, but the four of them. Wasn’t that what family was about?
“Will you still study ancient history with me?” Abram asked.
“Of course.”
“Will you continue to put us to bed?” Joy’s rounded, green eyes stared up at her.
“I would want no one else charged with the task.” Payton kept her tone gravely serious. Her own decision, while made up in her mind, could be easily swayed if either Joy or Abram objected to the marriage.
“You wouldn’t have a day off any longer?” Abram’s question came out in a rush.
Payton couldn’t help but chuckle at Abram’s question. “No, I would not.”
She risked a glance at Damon, whose eyes were locked on her. Her breath hitched in her throat, and she silently pleaded for the children to have no objection to her wedding their father.
“Would you buy me a pony?” Joy’s voice was as serious as Payton’s.
“That is a decision for your father, not me,” Payton answered.
The little girl shook her head. “If you wed Father”—she paused, tapping at her chin—“then you would be my mother. And mothers can decide to purchase ponies for their daughters, correct?”
“Very true,” Garrett chortled. “Mothers can do anything fathers can do—most times, better.”
“And while Father is busy,” Abram cut in, “a mother can take her children to Spires Reading Room without permission.”
Payton could only nod. Never in all her years had she ever envisioned herself a mother. However, being Joy and Abram’s mother would be a gift far beyond anything she’d ever imagined.
“If Father takes us to the museum again, you will always come?” Joy squeezed her hand.
“If Payton agrees to be a permanent part of this family,” Damon said, “she will always be close.
“Also, you will have three aunts—and an uncle.” Garrett fiddled with his cravat, puffing his chest. “If either your father or my sister refuses you anything, we shall step in and make everything right.”
Joy leaned forward and exchanged a silent look with her brother before turning back to Garrett. “We have an aunt already, and she makes nothing better.”
“Well, I can assure you both that anything that will irritate my youngest sister will bring me and my other sisters great joy.”
“Garrett,” Payton chastised. “Do stop. Next, they will be asking for trips to the New World and ancient artifacts.”
“Samantha is wed to an explorer, and Jude to an antiquities collector,” he mused. “Neither would prove impossible. Actually, I’d very much enjoy being an uncle. Do I appear an uncle to either of you?”
Garrett made a spectacle of turning his head from side to side, showing off his angular profile.
“With a haircut, I do believe so,” Joy replied with a giggle.
“Whatever is wrong with my hair?”
“It hangs over your collar,” the girl snorted as if his need for a haircut was evident to everyone.
“If you do not mind,” Damon said, “I have yet to hear Payton’s answer.”
“Damon.” She glanced between everyone in the room, her eyes not lingering on anyone until they met Damon’s. “I could think of no better fate than being your wife—and the children’s mother.”
Payton couldn’t take her eyes off Damon as her answer sank in, and his last lingering doubts disappeared.
The many burdens he’d born for so long dissipated, and his eyes lit with happiness.
The shadows that always lingered around him dissolved, leaving behind not a broken man but a lord capable of loving once more despite the heartbreak of his past.
“Father,” Joy said, clapping her hands in excitement. “I think you should kiss Miss Samuels now.”
Payton barely noticed her brother standing and taking both Joy and Abram’s hands and leading them from the room.
The door shut almost noiselessly in their wake, leaving Payton and Damon alone.
As if she’d done it a thousand times before, Payton stood and walked into Damon’s waiting embrace. Lifting her chin, she accepted his kiss.
All this time, Payton had believed she could gamble her way to a happy, content life with some sleight of hand but it was only by putting all her cards on the table before Damon, the man she loved, that she could truly win.