Page 29 of The Gambler Wagers Her Baron

Payton turned to look at Joy, who giggled at her wide-eyed expression.

“What of you?” Payton asked. “Do you think me decrepit, too?”

The girl’s brow furrowed, and her smile vanished as she bit her bottom lip in thought. “At least fifteen,” she announced, obviously pleased with her guess as she grabbed a hunk of cheese and popped it into her mouth.

“Well, I can tell you that neither your father nor I are close to our fortieth year,” Payton declared. “However, I am a bit older than fifteen.”

“Told you.” Abram poked Joy in the side.

“Why on earth would the pair of you be discussing my age?” Payton asked, turning her attention to the display of cheese, bread, and cold pheasant, making light of her question. “If you spent more time at your arithmetic, Abram, you’d be moving on to your next-level coursework.”

“Can we go to Pall Mall and see Xavier’s Traveling Menagerie?”

The question came from Joy, throwing Payton off their original topic. The child’s expectant yet hesitant smile had Payton longing not to disappoint her. In her time at Ashford Hall, she’d never taken the children farther than the townhouse garden.

“Yes, Miss Samuels.” Abram bobbed in his chair, the most excited she’d ever seen him. “Can we go? I am certain Father will give us the two shillings each for the show. Can you believe they have a real bear…and a monkey?”

She glanced between the pair, their matching green eyes staring up at her in anticipation. Two days prior, they were playing horrid jests on her; and today, they wanted her to take them gallivanting about London. Was it a ploy to be out of the townhouse where they could escape her watch and cause the baron to dismiss her? If she were honest, she did think the children spent far too much time cooped up in their drafty home, and Payton was blessed enough to have her day off each week where she could return to Craven House and go about her business. Joy and Abram didn’t have that privilege. Even the baron tended to remain locked away at Ashford Hall most days.

“I…and the pair of you…out alone?” Payton’s skeptical tone had the smiles falling from both children’s faces.

“Not alone,” Abram grunted, sounding far too much like his father. “We will have our driver. And a footman. Father can not deny us. You will tell him it has to do with our lessons.”

The boy smiled triumphantly as if he’d secured the answer to all the world’s problems.

Joy gasped. “Mayhap Father will come with us.”

She clapped her hands as she bounced in her seat, nearly knocking her plate to the floor.

“Your father is a very busy man,” Payton hedged. There was no sense misleading the pair. The baron would never accompany them on an outing to see a traveling menagerie, no matter how many bears and monkeys the show boasted. The man couldn’t even be bothered to dine with his children, let alone be seen in public with them. “I don’t think—”

“Please,” the pair whined in perfect unison.

Payton glanced between their pleading stares. “Well, your father has not been particularly happy with the trio of us of late.”

“We are sorry we ruined your gown,” Joy moaned.

“And put the ants in your bed,” Abram continued.

“Ants in my bed?” Payton set her fork aside, suddenly itching at her scalp. “When did you put ants in my bed?”

Joy waved her hand at the question. “Oh, ages ago. I am sure they are all gone—”

“—or dead.”

“—by now,” Joy finished with a giggle.

Payton wanted to ask who in their right mind puts ants in someone’s bed; however, she’d done far worse to gall her older siblings. Not that she planned to share any of that with the children.

“Mayhap I can have a word with your father tomorrow or the next day,” Payton promised. What would she tell them if the baron said no? In her younger years, she would have gone anyways, consequences be damned. Unfortunately, she didn’t possess the funds to take the children, nor the transportation needed. They could signal a hack, but again, where would she find the money required to pay for the conveyance or the entry fees. But it was only a brisk twenty-minute walk to Pall Mall. “Yes, I will do my best to speak with him; however, if we are to be allowed out of the townhouse, the pair of you must promise to be on your best behavior from this moment until we return.”

Abram poked Joy again, and the pair shared a look, an unspoken message. It was similar to the conversations Sam and Jude had growing up, never exchanging a word but communicating everything through a simple glance nonetheless. A pang of jealousy hit her, but Payton refused to entertain the feeling. She was no longer a child, nor should she be privy to whatever silent conversation the siblings were entrenched in.

“May I please be excused?” Abram asked.

Payton’s brow rose at the question. “But you have yet to finish your meal.”

He glanced back at Joy before continuing, “I have something I need to tend to immediately.”