Embrace the Day by Susan Wiggs

Prudence said with uncharacteristic fierceness. "But I'm not like you, Genevieve. When you left London, you left nothing." She lowered her eyes. "I left the only thing that truly matters to me."
    "Edmund Brimsby," Genevieve said dully.
    "I loved him. I love him still."
    Genevieve stifled a curse. "How can you love the man who ruined you?"
    "You talk as if I have a choice. But it's not like that, Genevieve. I can't help what I feel."
    "What about Roarke?" The question leaped to her lips before she could stop it.
    "I'm grateful for all he's done for me. He'll be a good father to the baby. Genevieve, I wish I could be a better wife to him, but I can't. Roarke's a strong, bighearted man. He deserves better than me." Prudence gave her friend a sudden look of surprise. "He needs someone more like you, Gene."
    Genevieve felt a jolt of understanding, a blinding clarity. She knew then that she wanted Roarke. Wanted him in a way that made her cheeks flame, in a way that she must, at all costs, deny.

    "Gennie, you're behaving like a child," Roarke said, frowning at her.
    "You're not my bloody nanny, Roarke Adair!" Prudence gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "Roarke wants you to come to meeting with us because he cares about you, Genevieve. We both do."
    "I've no time for churchgoing."
    "Nonsense," Roarke said. "All of the Greenleafs have gone to the slave church at Scott's Landing. You'd do well to look to their example in observing the Sabbath."
    She opened her mouth to protest again, but Roarke was lifting her out of his cart and tugging her into the church before she could speak. Mercifully, they sat in the back, away from the curious stares of the townspeople. Genevieve kept her eyes downcast, her hands folded firmly in her lap.
    Furtively, she stole glances at Prudence and Roarke. He'd settled comfortably beside his wife, making a cushion for her by placing his. arm behind her waist. Prudence smiled distractedly at him and began fussing with a bit of lace on her bodice. Genevieve became fascinated by Roarke's hand at the small of Prudence's back. Great strong fingers were making tender circles there in a mindless rhythm of gentle affection. Prudence gave no indication that she'd even noticed his solicitousness.
    Resentment prickled within Genevieve.
She
would never be so indifferent to that touch, she—
    Suddenly, a fragment of the Scripture that was being read penetrated her thoughts. She imagined a note of accusation in the Reverend Carstairs's voice.
    " '… Flee also youthful lusts; but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, and them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart…' "
    Genevieve fled from the church. But as fast as she ran, she couldn't escape the guilt she felt at what she'd been thinking.

    "Bloody hell," Genevieve breathed, regarding the loaf she'd just brought from the oven.
    "Ma," Rose Greenleaf whispered, "Miz Culpeper's swearing again."
    Genevieve smiled a little sheepishly. "I'm sorry. It's just that I can't seem to bake bread. Look at this! Flat as a hoecake."
    Mimsy Greenleaf hid a grin behind her hand. Her husband's partner—Genevieve wouldn't stand for being called the mistress—tried hard in the kitchen but simply had no talent for cooking and baking.
    "That's all right," Mimsy said, shooting Rose a look to quell the girl's giggling. "We'll break it up into the stew tonight." She bent over the hearth and gave the pot a stir.
    Genevieve inhaled the fragrance of the bubbling small-game stew. Phillip, the Greenleafs' youngest boy, was a cunning hunter and was always bringing in a rabbit or squirrel, sometimes even a buck, which Mimsy transformed into a sumptuous meal.
    "Luck was smiling on me the day we met," Genevieve declared. "I don't know what I would have done without you." She turned her eyes to the window, where in the distance she could see Joshua and the boys carving furrows in the late-autumn fields with the new plow. Ordinarily, Genevieve was out there toiling alongside them, but she'd