Page 16 of The Gambler Wagers Her Baron

“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.