Embrace the Day

by Susan Wiggs

  Embrace the Day

  By

  Susan Wiggs

  Contents

  PART I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  PART II

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS

  "I love you, Gennie," Roarke said in a hoarse whisper.

  Genevieve caught her breath. She looked up at his face, a face that had haunted her since she'd first laid eyes on him seven years before.

  She lifted her hand to his cheek and stroked it gently. "I love you, Roarke," she admitted softly, giving voice at last to the secret she'd carried in her heart.

  His eyes seemed to burst into flames of joy as, ever so slowly, he brought his lips to hers. His kiss was so sweet, so compelling, that Genevieve nearly melted in his lingering embrace.

  "Oh, God, Gennie, I need you. I need to wake up to you every morning, to give you children, to embrace each and every day with you for the rest of our lives. Marry me, Gennie," he said against her lips. "Please."

  Also by Susan Wiggs

  The Lily and the Leopard

  The Raven and the Rose

  The Mist and the Magic

  Available from HarperPaperbacks

  Copyright © 1988 by Susan Wiggs

  This book was previously published by Paperjacks Ltd. in 1988 under the author name Susan Childress. It is herein reprinted by arrangement with the author.

  First HarperMonogram printing: January 1993

  For my parents, Nick and Lou Klist, with love

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to Jay, my heroically patient husband; Charlotte Childress Wiggs, Biblical scholar; Betsy Moize of National Geographic magazine; Walker Merryman of the Tobacco Institute; and Joyce Bell, Alice Borchardt, Arnette Lamb, and Barbara Smith, my literary best friends.

  Special thanks to Gretchen Gay for her proofreading skills.

  PART I

  And cheerfully at sea,

  Successe you still intice,

  To get the pearle and gold,

  And ours to hold, Virginia,

  Earthe's onely paradise.

  Michael Drayton, 1606

  Chapter One

  London, 1774

  Tick, tock.

  The clock had measured the moments of Roarke Adair's life from the instant he was born. The relentless regularity of its ticking had been present through all the small triumphs and large tragedies of his twenty-two years. The mulberry case, yellow with age, had been rubbed a thousand times by his mother's loving hands; the small whimsical halfpenny moon in the face had been traced by his chubby ringers years ago. Although a tiny sliver was missing from one of the corners, the clock had suffered minimal abuse from Roarke's father. Such had not been the case for Roarke and his mother.

  Tick, tock.

  The pawnbroker cocked his grizzled, patchy head and listened to the clock, poking at its time-worn casing with a pudgy finger. He raised narrowed eyes to Roarke Adair.

  "Two pounds-ten," the broker said at last.

  Roarke's breath drew in with a hiss, and his jaw tightened. The paltry sum would have been laughable if he hadn't needed it so badly. Still, it was about two pounds more than he had and fourteen shillings more than the last shop had offered him.

  Tick, tock.

  Still Roarke hesitated. It was no easy thing, parting with the only legacy his mother had left him. The last reminder of her small life. But Matilda Adair—ill these ten years, dead these ten days—would have understood her only child's dream. Even a dream so dearly bought.

  Tick, tock.

  "Three pounds even, sirrah, and a sight more than it's worth," the pawnbroker said, persisting. He set down a stack of coins with an air of finality.

  Roarke gave the slightest of nods. Then he swept the silver from the counter. The clock went onto the shelf, and the claim ticket went into his pocket, forgotten. But Roarke would carry the familiar rhythm in his heart for the rest of his days.

  Tick, tock.

  He joined Henry Piggot, the colonial agent, in the street outside. Noting the absence of the clock, Henry raised an inquiring eyebrow. Roarke told him the amount.

  "It's not enough, my friend," Piggot said bluntly. " 'Twill barely cover the price of passage, and then there're the taxes to be paid on the farm you've inherited." He patted the folded land titles in his pocket.

  "I know." Nearby, a beggar woman stretched out a gnarled hand and mumbled an entreaty. Almost without slowing his pace, Roarke put a single copper into the hand.

  "By the Eternal, man!" Piggot swore. "Why the devil'd you do that?"

  Roarke shrugged. "Maybe to remind myself. However little I have, 'tis a sight more than most folks."

  "Won't be for long if you keep that up." Piggot gave a snort of disgust and then turned the subject. "Now, what about the fare? The Blessing sails in less than a week. You mentioned a lady cousin…"

  "No," Roarke said quickly. "Not Angela. We hardly know each other. I couldn't ask her for the money."

  "What's this?" Piggot demanded. "A show of pride, eh? 'Tis hardly the time for that, my friend."

  Roarke said nothing, but he took the packet of deeds and titles from the agent, and they started toward the West End.

  Henry Piggot knew immediately, from the grim set of Roarke Adair's jaw as he left the residence in Bedford Row, that the young man had been unsuccessful with his lady cousin. Roarke closed the door quietly. But he brought his fist down so hard on the stone ledge at the top of the steps that Piggot blinked. It was the action of a man frustrated too many times by life.

  Piggot took out a small ivory pick and worked at his teeth, studying the young man with a mixture of interest and sympathy.

  Roarke Adair looked out of place in the elegant West End setting, a great colorful oak standing amid severely pruned hedgerows. His best set of clothes consisted of a frock coat straining against broad shoulders and concealing a cotton shirt that had seen better days, breeches of a rather muddy color, and boots that, even after unmerciful brushing, still bore dark seams of wharf-side coal dust. A profusion of flamered hair had been tied into a queue at his nape, and strands of it escaped a somewhat battered tricorn.

  The packet of papers was clutched in Roarke's great rough, freckled hand. A hand that, more rightly, should have been closed around the handles of a plow. With an odd start, Piggot realized he was looking at a farmer. A man who belonged with the land even more than one who had been born to it.

  Piggot put away his toothpick and sighed. It was a damned shame that Roarke's only living relative, Angela Brimsby, had apparently declined to help him. But for the money needed to pay the taxes and fare, Roarke could own his uncle's legacy, a good, solid farm in Dancer's Meadow, Virginia.

  Roarke crossed the street and fell in step with Piggot. He folded his mouth into a grim li
ne and stared straight ahead with penetrating blue eyes.

  "Did they even listen?" Piggot asked at length.

  Roarke shrugged. "Angela tapped her teeth with her fingernail and looked worried that I'd soil her settee. Her husband, Edmund, kept his nose buried in a snuffbox." He gave Piggot a crooked half grin. "They were a bit unprepared for me. Angela's mother and mine were sisters, but her family found that easy to forget. We were always the poor relations from St. Giles." His grin disappeared. "She was quite happy to take the claim ticket for the clock. It was the only thing she ever envied my mother."

  "Didn't you explain about the farm?" Piggot demanded. A Virginian for the past twenty years, he was a great proponent of the colony and for weeks had been trying to locate Roarke Adair. "By the Eternal, the Dancer's Meadow tract has been a working farm for a decade. Over a hundred bushels of corn an acre! A man can ship half of that down river, and the taxes don't even exceed five shillings."

  Roarke looked annoyed. "Which is five shillings more than I've got."

  "I know, I know. I'd lend you the sum myself, but I'm about strapped. Been doing other men's business in England for a few months now, and all I've left is a small bride price."

  "A bride price?"

  Piggot grinned and patted the coin purse concealed inside his waistcoat. "Bit of a shortage of women in some parts. Every so often a man'll send to England for a bride."

  They walked along in silence for a time, passing staid brick facades fronted by neat boxed hedges, watching the occasional passage of a gleaming coach with painted doors and the procession of fashionable people out for a stroll in the fresh spring evening. Then Piggot asked, "What'll you do, Roarke?"

  "I don't want to think about that right now."

  Piggot nodded. "Come along, then. I know a place that'll get you drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence, and then provide the straw for free."

  Prudence Moon's small, fine hands twisted a handkerchief in her lap, and her eyes filled with tears.

  "God forgive me, I knew it was wrong, but I gave myself to him."

  At the sound of her friend's whisper, Genevieve Elliot tore her gaze from the bustling wharf-side scene to stare at Prudence in disbelief.

  "Pru?" She placed her hand on Prudence's arm. "For God's sake, Pru, what are you talking about?"

  Prudence swallowed, and tears spilled down her cheeks. "Mr. Brimsby," she said brokenly, "I—we're lovers."

  "Bloody hell," Genevieve breathed, forgetting this once to avoid shocking her gentle friend with rough language. She tried to summon an image of Prudence Moon enfolded in the arms of the man who employed her as governess to his children. The image wouldn't form. Edmund Brimsby was one of those faceless, self-possessed individuals whose life would leave no mark behind, and Prudence so painfully proper and shy that even Genevieve, who was often accused of being fanciful, couldn't imagine the scenario.

  "Brimsby?" she asked. Surely she'd heard wrong.

  But Prudence nodded miserably. "It all began last Christmas. Edm—Mr. Brimsby came to the schoolroom and told me…" She crushed her fists into her moist blue eyes. "It doesn't matter what he told me. The fact is, we became lovers that night and have been for four months since. And the worst of it is, Genevieve, that I did nothing to stop myself. I lived for his nightly visits and died a little each time he stayed away, thinking he had done with me."

  "Oh, Pru…" Genevieve took the girl's fragile hand in her work-roughened ones and stroked it gently. A wind blew across the Thames, stirring up a hellish and dismal fog of coal dust.

  "I'm pregnant, Genevieve."

  The sounds of the Thames wharf seemed to rise and swell in Genevieve's ears, but even the shouts and clamor of the dockworkers couldn't drown out the dreadful truth of what Prudence had just revealed. Genevieve lifted her eyes to the gulls wheeling overhead with the absurd hope of finding the answer to her friend's dilemma somewhere above. But she saw only the ever-present dull layer of London smoke and heard the gulls' screams mingling with the cacophony of the wharf.

  "Does Brimsby know?"

  Prudence shook her head. "Nor shall he. I shall have to leave. I've heard there are places for women like—" She choked on a sob and buried her face in her hands. The sound of her crying tore at Genevieve's heart and filled her with a feeling of such helplessness, that she ached.

  "Where will you go, Pru? You've no family, no friends but me, no money—"

  "I'll manage."

  Genevieve looked at her dubiously. She was small and frail, like a little blond porcelain doll. Prudence Moon was remarkably intelligent in things like geography and French, but she was not at all resourceful. Her life had always been ordered by someone else; first by the parson who'd reared her and now by the family she served. She'd never had to do for herself. She wouldn't survive a week on her own.

  As they began walking back to Bedford Row, Genevieve tried again. "Brimsby is wealthy, Pru. He could give you a house somewhere, an allowance—"

  Prudence shook her head. "Edmund is many things, but not generous or careless with his reputation. He'd deny the child was his."

  "Sweet Christ, Prudence, and you fell in love with the bounder!"

  "I love him still. I can't help it."

  Genevieve felt a prickle of exasperation. "For God's sake, Pru—." She stopped herself, unwilling to add to the guilt that already consumed her dear friend. Pursing her lips, she hefted her basket of laundered goods to be delivered. At the top of the basket, couched in ladies' fine linens, was a calf-bound volume of Gulliver's Travels.

  Prudence was more than a friend. She'd taught Genevieve to read and had awakened a voracious hunger in her for learning. Like a thief, Genevieve escaped the stench of her father's tavern to meet with Prudence, to learn things she'd never dreamed of knowing. She stole an education a girl of her station had no business having. But today there would be no reading, no animated discussion, no admonitions from Prudence to keep her East End speech in check.

  In silence they walked the rest of the way, emerging from the noisy squalor of the docks onto a wide, tree-lined avenue. The West End was an oasis of stately quiet. The smoke was lighter here, letting in the sweet spring air tinged with the scent of cherry blossoms and budding flowers.

  Genevieve and Prudence entered number thirty-six Bedford Row through a servants' entry in the back. Prudence looked abominably pale and shaken, and Genevieve meant to take her immediately to her room. They passed through the scullery and made their way to the back stairs.

  Genevieve nearly collided with a young boy, Andrew, the Brimsbys' son. He gave her a dismissive glance and pushed past her.

  "Miss Moon, you must come," he insisted, pulling Prudence through the passageway toward the schoolroom. "Emily has spilled ink all over the map I was drawing and—"

  "Miss Moon! Is that you?" Angela Brimsby arrived on a swish of silk and lace. Touching a pampered hand to her brow, she frowned at Genevieve.

  "Lord, haven't I had my share of scruffy visitors today!" she snapped. Without glancing at her son, she propelled him back toward the schoolroom. "You should have left the laundry in the kitchen instead of traipsing through— Never mind, just leave my things and get Meeks to pay you. I hope the linens aren't scorched this time—"

  Mrs. Brimsby broke off and gave Genevieve a keen look. "As long as you're here, you might as well make yourself useful." She extracted a slip of paper from her bodice and handed it to Genevieve. "Take this to Pembroke's pawnshop and instruct him to deliver the clock to me first thing in the morning. He'll be paid when the piece is in my hands."

  Genevieve gave Prudence a helpless look and started for the kitchen with her basket. She stopped, though, when Angela's strident voice addressed Prudence in anger.

  "Where have you been, Miss Moon?" she demanded. "The children are completely unsupervised. It's difficult enough now that Nurse has given notice—"

  " 'Tis my afternoon off, ma'am," Prudence said softly.

  Angela's skirts rustled as she pace
d in agitation. "The afternoon is nearly over. Now, if you've concluded your visit with the laundress, I'd like you to go to the schoolroom and hear the children's lessons."

  Little Emily appeared, grabbing at Prudence's sleeve and howling that Andrew had pulled her hair.

  "Yes, ma'am," Prudence said wearily. There was a vaguely greenish cast to her complexion, and she swayed slightly, putting her hand against the wall.

  "That's better," Angela said above Emily's howling.

  As Prudence turned, her narrow shoulders sloping in misery, Genevieve was filled by a fierce, protective instinct. Her basket hit the floor with a thud. She stepped in front of Angela and tossed her dark head in defiance.

  "Prudence isn't well. She's going to her room."

  Angela's nostrils dilated. "What did you say? I won't have any cheekiness from—"

  Prudence put a hand on her friend's arm. "Genevieve, please. I'll be fine."

  "No, you won't, Pru. I won't have you working yourself to death."

  Angela's face reddened beneath the layer of powder that concealed a trace-work of flaws. "See here, girl. You are forgetting your place. I suspect it's your influence that's causing Miss Moon to be so troublesome."

  At that moment, Edmund Brimsby entered the passageway, wiping a film of snuff from his lip and frowning at the sound of raised voices. Genevieve's green eyes flicked over him contemptuously. She resented him, from his immaculately wigged head to the tops of his perfectly polished shoes. He was a comely man in a soft, almost effeminate way.

  "What is this? I just stopped Andrew from fairly breaking Emily's arm." His voice was clipped and nasal, with tones schooled into him by England's finest academies. "Why aren't the children at their lessons?"

  "I'm glad you're here, Edmund," Angela said. "Prudence is shirking her duties and is being encouraged, I fear, by this, this slut off the streets."