The Gambler Wagers Her Baron

by Christina McKnight

  Climbing into the carriage, Damon found Abram reading a book as Joy rested her sleeping head on his shoulder. The only available seat was beside Miss Samuels.

  Payton couldn’t be out of the carriage fast enough after Rigby had opened the door and set down the steps. Now in the fresh air of the park, with wide-open, rolling lawns in one direction, and a small pond in the other, Payton allowed herself the first deep breath she’d taken since they departed Ashford Hall that morning.

  Anger still churned deep within her at the thought of him following her to Lord Galment’s and then waiting outside for her to depart as if she were a child in need of a nursemaid. It hadn’t mattered that she feared falling prey to a ruffian. It had only been Lord Ashford, not a cutpurse. She would have had no reason to feel uneasy had it not been for him trailing her on her walk home, despite his noble intentions.

  The baron was being too nice, too accommodating, and nothing like his usual stoic self.

  Today, he’d organized an entire morning and afternoon for his children: the menagerie, the dress shop for Joy, and the bookseller for Abram. And now the park.

  And he’d had enough foresight to arrange a fitting for her, to commission a dress to replace the one ruined by the children. In her younger years, she would have expected the gown replaced—with a dress of superior quality.

  Payton had matured in the time she’d lived at Ashford Hall. She was a grown woman in charge of herself. If her charges ruined her gown, she could very well purchase a new one without the baron’s help, despite her recent loss at the gaming tables. Very soon, if her luck at the tables held, she’d have the money to repay the duke and enough to start on a different future. On her next day off, she planned to preview a room for rent in St. James’s Square. It was farther from Craven House than she’d like, but the area was acceptable and wasn’t far from The Strand. The time to move on was approaching.

  The simple fact was that she’d actually come to enjoy Abram’s and Joy’s company. The girl’s infectious delight in the modiste’s shop had reminded Payton of her own misguided youth when she’d thought the world—and her family—perfect.

  The world was not perfect. Payton’s siblings were not close to perfect. The baron was not perfect.

  And Payton, no matter how long she stayed at Ashford Hall, would never find her path if she chose to remain.

  “Stay close, children,” Lord Ashford called from behind her.

  Joy and Abram ran past her across the lawn and along the riding path toward the pond beyond.

  Which left Payton to watch over the blanket that the Ashford footman had spread out on the grass, a basket with bread, cheese, and cold meats holding one edge down as the light wind played with the other corner.

  She’d expected Lord Ashford to follow the children, but when she turned, he lay upon the blanket, his face turned upward, and his eyes closed. His chest rose and fell as if he’d dropped into quick slumber. Seemingly at peace. A serenity, despite his stoic demeanor, that she’d never witnessed before. The only thing that betrayed him was his eyes moving behind his lids.

  Did he attempt to lull her into sitting with him?

  Surprisingly, she realized she desired to lower herself down to the blanket beside him, to recline and close her eyes to find her own brief seconds of peace. Separate, yet together. Their individual burdens and concerns were far removed from one another. However, as people, they both had their own troubles.

  Payton crossed her arms and paced toward the pond and back.

  A never-ending slow precession of carriages and gentry on horseback passed close to where their picnic sat untouched. Ladies and gentlemen promenaded at the fashionable hour, showing off their new stallions or recently adorned coaches. Ladies wore elaborate gowns and outlandish hats, while men sat tall upon their horses or in their carriages, displaying their wealth in a manner no less reserved than pinning hundred-pound notes to their lapels.

  The park was little different than parading livestock at Tattersalls.

  She sniffed. Peculiar that no one but she saw it.

  “A shilling for your thoughts, Miss Samuels?” Lord Ashford pushed from his reclined position, propping his chin on his fist and crossing one outstretched leg over the other.

  He did strike an appealing pose with his relaxed demeanor, his hair ruffled by the breeze, and his face turned up as he watched her pace.

  “The peerage baffles me, my lord.”

  His brow furrowed, and for a brief moment, she realized her statement may very well have insulted him.

  “And here I thought you belonged to the peerage,” he mused, glancing past her until his eyes focused on the children.

  “What would make you think that?” She’d been careful not to expose her lineage when she met with the baron about the governess position.

  “Your poise, your cultured tone, your education,” he paused, tapping his chin much as Joy did when she was pushed to make an important decision. “Also, the tilt of your chin.”

  “The tilt of my chin? What has that to do with anything?” Her hand immediately came to her chin, and she tilted her face from side to side.

  “You hold yourself like a woman who is used to moving about in society, and that means holding your chin a notch higher than those around you.”

  “Is that a polite way of saying I am haughty?” She’d always kept her chin high because her eldest sister said it stopped the trembling caused by nerves. “Before you answer that, I will have you know my father was a blacksmith.”

  “Hmmm.” He dropped down to his back, lacing his fingers behind his head.

  That her mother was once wedded to a marquess was of little import to this conversation. It did not make her nobility, nor did it make her lofty.

  “Do you not believe me?” She couldn’t help her eyes widening. She’d never spoken of her lineage with another, besides her siblings, and to have Lord Ashford pushing the information about the circumstances of her birth aside like it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things was…startling, to say the least.

  “I said nothing of the sort,” he said with a chuckle.

  The man seemed to enjoy angering her.

  “So, tell me, why does the peerage baffle you?” He returned to their original topic, and Payton had a difficult time remembering why, exactly, they puzzled her.

  She bit her bottom lip and sank to the blanket beside the baron. “They only leave their homes to parade themselves before others to make certain all and sundry know their status. They select gowns of the latest fashion, not because they are taken by the cut and color, but to show that they have the coin to afford extravagant things. Lords gamble away their fortunes to prove money means nothing to them because they possess far more than any man needs. All of this while so many in London and beyond go without food, without proper education, without things as simple as shoes or a warm coat.”

  Her ramblings were more akin to her sister Judith’s thoughts. However, telling the baron that being surrounded by lords and ladies satisfied to strut before their peers much like peacocks seemed a juvenile thing to say. And completely out of the ordinary for her, especially after the fine gown she’d selected at the modiste’s shop earlier that day. She was not prone to fits of hypocrisy, or at least she hadn’t thought so. The baron was certain to rebuff her jaded outlook on societal life; his position within it demanded that he defend his peers.

  He turned his head toward her. “You are very wise, Miss Samuels.”

  “Thank you. I think,” she murmured, eyes turning to him to see if his words were truth or a way to placate her churlishness.

  “If there is one thing I pray you teach my children, it is compassion.”

  They’d never, even once, spoken of his wishes for Joy’s and Abram’s education. “You can, just as easily, teach them.”

  While many nobles she’d met lacked compassion, Payton wasn’t certain Lord Ashford did.

  They both fell silent, lost in their own thoughts as the warm afternoon sun sh
one down on them. The baron’s light brown hair had golden strands weaved through it. His cheeks, pale from spending too much time indoors, were already turning a rosy pink from the sun.

  His ability to relax galled her.

  Was it his position as a baron, a wealthy one at that, which gave him the ability to look thoroughly at peace? Since they’d departed the townhouse, he’d released the tension that normally bound him at home and even appeared several years younger. Perhaps gaining distance from his burdens was a benefit.

  Payton huffed, closing her own eyes, determined to not allow the baron to distract her from enjoying her time outside Ashford Hall. The park was not the place she would pick to spend her afternoon, but at least they were not shuttered in the schoolroom.

  Anyone on the outside looking in would think them a normal family.

  A father. A mother. Two children.

  But they were not a family, normal or otherwise.

  No matter how many outings they went on, no matter how many meals they ate together, no matter how long they all resided under one roof. Longing filled her, a wholly unfamiliar longing to belong to something great, something permanent.

  Payton had never been part of a typical family unit. Her mother, after falling from grace, had become London’s famed madame of Craven House. Her sisters’ reputations, while intact now, had been similarly tarnished not long ago.

  What would it have been like if she’d followed in Sam’s and Jude’s footsteps and found a suitable man to wed? It had been easier for them; their father wasn’t a lowly blacksmith, he was a viscount. At that thought, a familiar feeling coursed through her: determination. She would rise above her circumstances, just as her mother had.

  No, Payton was on a clear path to follow in their mother’s footsteps. To live each day waiting for the chance to better her circumstances. Today, she was a mere governess; but tomorrow, she could earn enough coin at the gaming tables to afford her own townhouse and be free to explore her choices for her future, beholden to no one.

  The children’s laughter floated toward her, followed by a loud splash.

  Heaven help her if Joy had pushed her brother into the filthy pond. It would mean a swift end to their day. A day she was loath to admit reminded her of her own childhood—the ease with which they’d traversed the menagerie, their stop at the Piccadilly modiste and bookshop, and now, their time in the park.

  She squinted into the bright afternoon sun, turning her head toward the pond where she hoped to find the children playing. But all she saw was Abram, holding a stick extended over the water.

  “Abram?” she called loudly to be heard over the pedestrians on the carriage path.

  The boy turned to her, dropping the stick and waving his arms wildly.

  Payton pushed to her feet, her gaze darting from the edge of the water back to the carriage path. No sign of Joy anywhere.

  It was then that she saw Abram wade into the water.

  “Lord Ashford,” she screamed before gathering her skirts and running toward the pond’s edge. “Joy! Joy!”

  Payton didn’t hesitate before flinging herself into the cold, murky pond, rushing past Abram deeper into the water, her body threatening to freeze from the sudden, unexpected chill of the water as it enveloped her. Her head dipped below the surface, and her gloved hands clawed at the water, searching for Joy.

  The commotion beside her said that the baron had followed her into the pond. She adjusted her position, bringing her head above water to scan the area for any sight of Joy. She gulped air, polluted pond water sliding down her throat and making her cough.

  “There, there!” Abram called from the shore, but Payton didn’t take her eyes off the water as she continued to search for Joy.

  “I’ve got her.” The baron threw himself farther into the pond, swimming about ten feet toward the center before ducking under the surface.

  Payton held her breath, waiting for him to resurface, knowing she’d never again be able to draw air if Joy did not.

  Finally, Lord Ashford broke the water’s surface, Joy clinging to his chest, and waded toward the shore. Payton’s entire body trembled at the sight—the baron, as soaked as she was, clutching his child to his person as his knuckles whitened from his hold. While Joy clung to her father, shocked from the surprise of it all, Ashford gripped the girl with such fierceness and terror, it was like he hadn’t realized he’d saved her.

  Payton’s hair hung limply about her shoulders, and her gown and cloak were molded to her body as she followed them from the water. Her half boots sloshed. She shivered from the cold when the afternoon breeze assaulted her as it whipped off the pond and across the park.

  A group of onlookers had gathered during their brief time in the water, but Ashford pushed past them, stalking toward their blanket, leaving Abram and Payton to hurry behind. Rigby arrived at the picnic blanket at the same moment the baron did and pulled the cloth free before wrapping it around both the baron and Joy.

  Lord Ashford didn’t pause as he continued on to their carriage.

  Payton pushed Abram to enter the coach before her and then pulled herself up, not caring that she dripped water all over the baron’s cloth seats.

  “Is she well?” she asked in a whisper.

  “She will be.” He lowered the blanket until Payton could see the girl, her skin tinted slightly blue with cold. “She needs to warm up, but I am soaked to the skin, too.”

  The carriage surged into motion, throwing Payton forward slightly as she latched on to the handle looped above the windowpane.

  The baron didn’t so much as budge. He remained unwavering, his head tucked against Joy’s neck as he mumbled something in her ear. Payton couldn’t hear what he said, but the child’s eyes fluttered, and she turned her face into his shoulder, burrowing closer to her father.

  It had all happened so quickly: Payton realizing something was amiss, Abram standing alone, and golden hair disappearing below the water’s surface.

  Neither she nor Lord Ashford had hesitated for even a second before plunging into the frigid pond in search of the child.

  Her exterior was freezing, and her heart beat frantically.

  She squeezed her hands tightly in her lap to stop her shivering, though her wet hair hung over her shoulder, droplets of water hitting her fists. Her knuckles turned white before she released her hands and wiped them down her skirts, pushing her soaked, discolored gloves to the floor.

  Joy was safe. She was alive. They were headed home.

  Not her home, their home. Ashford Hall.

  “Thank you.”

  She glanced up to find the baron staring at her, his eyes meeting hers without reservation. The intensity there was something she’d never witnessed before.

  Payton shrugged, attempting to hide the trembling that wracked her entire body. “I am her governess, I should have been watching her more closely. If I had, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “We could not have foreseen this.” He shook his head. “And it is I who should have been paying closer mind. They are my children…my responsibility. I should have kept her safe.”

  He spoke the truth, but it did nothing to assuage Payton’s guilt.

  Payton watched as he gently rocked Joy, much as she had after the child woke from her night terror. With his other arm, the baron pulled Abram close to his other side.

  Part of her wished he hadn’t accompanied them today, that he’d kept this side of himself hidden from her.

  However, all of her wished she hadn’t allowed herself to become invested in the baron and his children. If her mother’s past had taught her anything, it was to remain level-headed with her thoughts trained on what was to come. Focused on what came next for her. Something better. Moving on. Thriving.

  It wasn’t about settling, finding comfort in what she had and losing sight of her independence and future in favor of a few months—possibly a year—with Lord Ashford and his family.

  At what point had her goals altered to such a degre
e that she’d fallen into the false security of everyday life at Ashford Hall?

  Chapter 15

  Damon rested his face in his open palms, listening to the deep rumbling of Joy’s breathing. Bathed, hair dried, and tucked into bed, she once again appeared the angel she always was in his eyes. Only in sleep was his daughter at peace, her forehead smooth and without worry lines. As her father, it was his responsibility to remove all her burdens. A duty he’d failed to do.

  And he hadn’t only failed at the park, but every day since her mother had passed.

  Their day had been wonderful. It had even given him hope that he’d begun his climb out of the dark place he’d lived in the last several years.

  It wasn’t until he saw his daughter’s head slip under the water that he knew—knew—how utterly he’d failed his children. Joy could have been lost forever—and thinking he didn’t love her.

  He’d told her…over and over on their ride home.

  When she awoke in the morning, he’d tell her again. And then he would go to Abram and repeat the words that hadn’t escaped him for so many years.

  A throat cleared behind him, and Damon turned to see Miss Samuels standing in the doorway, her candle casting a soft glow about her. As soon as they’d gotten home, he demanded she return to her chambers and change while he saw to Joy and Abram with Mrs. Brown’s assistance. He’d made sure his daughter was well and that the hearth in her room was stoked until the heat reached every corner of her chambers before he allowed himself to find dry clothes himself.

  His tight shoulders eased at the sight of the governess.

  If he hadn’t been there, he knew she would have saved Joy. He was positive. His children meant as much to her as they did to him. It was obvious.

  It had taken only a second, Joy lost in the water of the pond, to bring back the helplessness he’d felt all those years ago with Sarah. He would have risked everything in that pond if only to not repeat his failures from the past.