Embrace the Day by Susan Wiggs Page A

fallen into a hole and twisted her ankle. Mimsy wouldn't hear of her working until the sprain had healed.
    So Genevieve stayed with Mimsy and Rose and Caroline in the kitchen. The Greenleafs had made a cozy home in the barn, but Joshua had yet to finish the chimney. At Gene insistence the girls slept in her house, where it was warmer.
    A shout brought her limping to the door. Curtis, Eustis, and Phillip ran tumbling down from the fields, calling out in delight.
    "Mr. Adair! Mr. Adair, what did you bring us?"
    Roarke swung down from the seat of his cart, his big arms spread wide to receive enthusiastic hugs from the boys. As always, he pretended ignorance as the youngsters repeated their question but soon relented and took out three pieces of maple-sugar candy.
    Smiling, Genevieve stepped out onto the porch.
    "You'll spoil the boys, Roarke Adair."
    "Those fine fellows?" He laughed and doled out candy to Rose and Caroline, who giggled and ran back into the house. "Never, Gennie. Besides, I'd best get used to young ones. I'll be a papa soon."
    "How is Prudence?" she asked quickly. Unlike Roarke, she knew Pru's time was coming sooner than anyone else expected.
    "As a matter of fact," Roarke said, "I'm here to collect you. According to Mrs. Weems, the midwife, we'd best hurry."

    The cart creaked beneath them as they drove toward the Adair farm. The acres that rolled by the river road were brown and sere, the trees stark and stately against the sky. A grouse rattled in the brush at the roadside, startled by their passing. Overhead, geese wheeled and cried out, spreading silver-gray wings that matched the color of the sky.
    Genevieve glanced over at Roarke. The months of outdoor work had deepened the color of his skin, and the sun had burnished red-gold highlights in his hair. Roarke looked totally at ease in his surroundings—strong, confident, full of vigor.
    He caught her staring at him and grinned. "I'm a Virginian now, girl. An American."
    "An Englishman," Genevieve contradicted.
    Roarke's eyebrows descended a little. "Maybe not for long. Plenty of folks aren't too happy with the way England's been treating her own."
    Genevieve nodded, conceding his point. Every so often, Luther Quaid arrived with a copy of the Virginia
Gazette
from Williamsburg, which regularly contained long lists of Parliament's abominations in the colonies. There had been talk of breaking away from the mother country, turning the colonies into a confederation of their own.
    "Such things don't concern us," she told Roarke. "It's all we can do to coax a livelihood from the land."
    "You'll be concerned enough when you get a taste of the tariffs they put on your tobacco," he said darkly. Then he looked thoughtful. "I've decided to put in extra corn next season. For the people of Boston."
    "You'd best forget politics, Roarke Adair," she said firmly. "You've a farm to run and a child on the way."
    The moment she said it, she was sorry she'd brought it up. Roarke's eyes grew slightly harder, as if some unpleasant thought had stirred in his mind.
    "Our wedding night was but seven months ago," he remarked, watching Genevieve closely for a reaction.
    She flushed and looked away.
    "Prudence is a good deal more than seven months along."
    "I know nothing of such things," she insisted, now blushing furiously.
    "Did Prudence ever tell you whose child this is?"
    Genevieve couldn't bring herself to meet his hard gaze. "You'd best speak to Prudence about it, Roarke."
    "Prudence and I speak of nothing," he said. Genevieve stiffened at the note of bitterness she heard in his voice.
    "Roarke—"
    "Don't make me pretend, Gennie, not with you. Prudence and I attend church together, we go calling, we set our table for the parson… But it isn't right. I don't even know who my wife is, Gennie. And she doesn't care who I am."
    Privately, Genevieve was astounded that a woman married to Roarke Adair could keep her mind off her husband at all. He was such a powerful presence, his