Embrace the Day (20 page)

"Roarke…" Her voice trembled with longing.

He put his finger to her lips. "Just let me love you, Gennie," he said. "Just let me love you."

Each time an
unearthly, agonized groan issued from the bedroom, Roarke felt a shaft of pain as if it were he doing the suffering. He winced and ground his teeth and looked at the clock. Seven hours had passed since Gene fluids had moistened the bed they shared. Six hours since she'd begun laboring in earnest. How much longer would it go on?

Roarke was terrified. Losing Prudence to this business of giving life had been painful enough. And for Prudence he'd only felt a sense of responsibility, an affection born of duty. Roarke knew it would finish him if he lost Genevieve, for he loved her with a consuming adoration, as though she were as necessary to his survival as the very heart that beat within his chest.

For ten months she had filled his days with joy. Her laughter as she played with Hance in the garden, the endearing briskness with which she handled, like a seasoned trader, the business matters of the farm, the startling sweet ardor she showed as she lay with him night after night… Roarke raked a hand through his disheveled mane. Sweet Christ, he loved that woman. Every moan was like a hot dagger penetrating his chest.

Suddenly, Mimsy Greenleaf appeared at the bottom of the stairs. The sight of her, dressed in crisp cottons and a clean apron, reassured Roarke a little. She looked impeccably competent, not at all worried about her patient.

"It ain't right," she declared roundly. "Ain't right at all. I tried to tell her so, but she won't listen. She insists on having you with her, Roarke." Mimsy stalked across the room and took his arm. "Men got no business at a birthing, but your stubborn woman in there thinks different. Come along, now, but don't blame me if you don't like what you see."

Roarke hurried across the dim bedroom and knelt beside Genevieve. How could he not like what he saw? It was almost unbearable to witness her pain, but she had never looked braver or more lovely, even with her hair matted on her brow, her face contorted with agony.

"It hurts," she said faintly, the words squeezing from her between pains.

He peeled a lock of hair from her forehead and kissed her moist brow. "I know, love; I'd give anything to keep you from feeling it."

She tensed and gripped his hand. Roarke looked over his shoulder at Mimi Lightfoot and Mimsy, who were watching with quiet concern.

"Fetch the doctor from town," he ordered curtly. "Something's wrong—"

"No!" Genevieve had recovered from the pain enough to protest stridently.

Mimsy patted Roarke on the shoulder. "Nothing's wrong," she assured him. "Nothing at all. It's just the way of things."

He nodded and held Genevieve through another pain. From a distant part of the house he heard a small frightened cry.

"Hance!" he said. Morning had come, and the boy had awakened to an empty house. "Mimi, go see to him."

Mimi left the room to take the boy out of earshot, so he wouldn't be alarmed by Genevieve's cries.

"Roarke," Genevieve whispered, dazed by the last pain. "Roarke, promise me something…"

"Anything, love."

"If I—If anything happens to me, I don't ever want Hance to feel…" She grimaced. "He's ours, as much as if we'd given him life. I want him and the new baby to be as brother—" She arched on the bed, and her limbs began to shake.

"Christ, Gennie, don't take on so. Nothing's going to happen to you."

"Promise me, Roarke," she ground out.

"Of course, love," he replied. And he meant it. He loved Hance; the boy's willfulness and mischievous streak only made him more endearing. Genevieve had worked hard over the months to be a mother to Hance. She spoiled him shamelessly, giving in to his every whim and fulfilling his demands for attention, which were considerable. Hance called her Mama in a way that filled Genevieve with pride each time he said it.

But when, a few hours later, Genevieve gave birth to the son of his loins, Roarke nearly wept with happiness. Genevieve was unutterably weary, glowing with exultation. She watched with a full heart as Roarke himself bathed the child and then laid him in her arms.

"Roarke," she said, brushing her cheek across the baby's gossamer wisps of hair. "Roarke, we did it."

He sat on the edge of the bed and embraced them both, filling his arms with the most precious things he'd ever held.

Genevieve kissed him softly and gazed down at their son. "Hello, baby," she whispered. "Hello, Luke Adair."

Mimsy finished clearing away the linens and went to the door, motioning for Mimi and Hance. The little boy took a hesitant step toward the bed.

"Come on, son," Roarke said with a grin. "We named your brother Luke, just like you wanted."

Hance looked dubiously at the swaddled bundle in Genevieve's arms. "He's just a little mite of a thing."

Genevieve laughed. "Mimsy says he's big for a newborn. Eight pounds at least."

"Can I play with him?"

"I dare say he's a bit young for playing. But one day he'll need a big, strong brother like you to teach him to climb trees and swim and skip stones in the river."

"I don't think I want to teach him," Hance said, setting his jaw in the stubborn way Genevieve knew so well.

"Now, son," Roarke chided gently. " 'Tis grand having a brother. You'll see—"

"I don't want a brother," Hance shouted, and his sharp exclamation startled the baby into crying. "I liked things just the way they were." He stomped from the room and slammed the door.

Genevieve jiggled Luke to quiet him and gave Roarke a helpless look. But Roarke only smiled. Not even Hance's outburst could mar his happiness.

"Hance has been the only child around here for nearly eight years," Roarke explained, "He'll come around, Gen. He'll soon love our little Luke as much as we do."

"
Mama!" Luke came
running up the lane from the fields, his bare feet kicking up little puffs of reddish dust. The sun glinted down on his freckled, sunburned face.

"Mama," Luke repeated, "Hance wasn't at school again today. He lit out for Scott's Landing with the Harper boys. Parson Stiles said he'd come to a bad end, Mama." Luke stole a raspberry from the bowl on the porch table and popped it in his mouth. Then he poked out his lower lip in a pout. "Hance said if I tattled, he'd thrash me good, but I don't care. Seems I'm always smoothing the field for him. I just can't think of any more ailments to tell the parson, Mama." He flopped down on the bottom step and rubbed the soles of his feet in the dust.

Genevieve stroked her son's rumpled hair and hid a smile. At the age of six, Luke was the image of his father, with big rough features and hair the color of rain-wet clay. He had Roarke's solid build and stood a full head taller than most boys his age.

Luke resembled Roarke in temperament as well—dutiful, kind, with a strong sense of justice. The boy was no scholar, a fact the parson often pointed out, but ever since he'd been old enough to work in the fields, he'd done so without complaint. Luke was quick to understand that Hance didn't share his enthusiasm for farming.

"There now," she said gently, plucking a bit of dried grass from his hair, "You know how Hance is. He's nearly fourteen. He's gotten too old and too smart for the parson."

"Peter Hinton is fifteen, and he's always at school," piped a small voice. Five-year-old Rebecca Adair appeared on the porch with Israel, a dark-haired boy of four, and baby Matilda in tow. Genevieve smiled at her children, thankful that they were such a handsome, healthy lot, blessedly well behaved. But Hance…

"Hance isn't like other boys," Genevieve reminded them. It was true. Hance was different, so wise in unchildlike ways that it sometimes scared her. When he fled from school, it wasn't to idle the day away fishing or swimming. Often he would be found in the crook of a hickory tree poring over St. John's
Letters
or the essays of Tom Paine. Genevieve didn't mind that, but even more frequently Hance ran off to keep company with Wiley and Micajah Harper, sons of the hard-drinking ne'er-do-well Elk, of whom she heartily disapproved.

"It's not fair," Luke said obstinately. He traced a circle with his bare toe in the dust. "Papa never badgers him to help on the farm like he does me."

"Hance is busy learning other things." She shuddered to think what those things were.

Luke shrugged. "All a man has to know is how to plant a field and send his crops down the river."

Genevieve lowered her eyes. Luke was too young to understand that Hance had already begun looking beyond the tree-fringed boundaries of the farm. He wasn't made for growing corn and mending fences and clearing land. Roarke had taken him on several trips to Richmond, and Hance had returned full of enthusiasm for the rollicking life of the new capital. He seemed as intrigued by the blustering, self-important politicians of Shockoe Hill as he was by the flamboyant gamblers who plied their slick trade in Eagle Tavern.

Genevieve knew better than to suppose Hance's wild streak could ever be beaten or cajoled out of him. She felt she owed it to Prudence to let him make his own choices.

"We must accept Hance as he is, Luke," she said firmly, "as the Lord made him. Come now, get that glum look off your face. Didn't your father want some help building the new springhouse?"

"It would've been done by now if Hance hadn't lit out with the Harpers."

"Never mind, Luke. You'd best get cleaned up. Remember about tonight."

Luke's dark moods never lasted long. They were like a spring rain: a burst of anger, and then the storm was over. His face blossomed into a smile. There was a spray of freckles across his nose that made him positively adorable.

"Papa's birthday!" he cried, running down the yard. The other children followed him, whooping with glee at the prospect of a party.

Genevieve smiled after them, shaking her head. Not even the wind changed as quickly as her children's moods.

Roarke Adair sat at the head of the table in a room that now brimmed with the faces of seven Adairs. He felt a fullness of heart that made him tremble inwardly; it was almost a sin for a man to have so much.

The remnants of a feast littered the table: a succulent haunch of pork, large earthenware bowls of vegetables, a crock of butter. Only a heel of bread remained from two loaves. The one item left intact was the big cake, heavy with nuts and iced by Mimi Lightfoot's skilled hand.

Roarke looked around at his family. Luke's eyes fairly devoured the cake. Rebecca managed to look prim and serious despite her curly cloud of ginger-colored hair and the freckles that dotted her nose. Israel had inherited his mother's delicate dark beauty and, it seemed, her intelligence and passion for books. Genevieve was fond of pointing out that he already knew his letters and could pick out some of the words of the Lord's Prayer on his sister's hornbook.

Genevieve herself sat at the opposite end of the table, looking as fresh and girlish as she had when they'd married seven years before. She held baby Matilda in her lap, jiggling the child to amuse her and brushing her lips across Mattie's hair, which was an unlikely but beautiful pale-blond color.

Hance lacked the younger ones' round-eyed wonder at the cake but was prepared to be pleasant tonight, a bit contrite over his truancy earlier in the day.

"You do me proud," Roarke said. "All of you. As of this day, I've been on this earth for thirty-six years, and I'm thankful for each and every day I've had." He caught Genevieve's eye and was rewarded with the brightness of her smile. " 'Tis said a man should make a fond wish on his birthday," Roarke continued. "But not a one comes to mind. I've been blessed so many times over, with you children and the bounty of this farm, that I've nothing left to wish for."

Rebecca tugged at her mother's sleeve. "Can I give him my present now, Mama?" she asked impatiently.

At Genevieve's nod she climbed down from her chair, ginger curls bobbing as she approached her father. She climbed up into his lap and placed a limp parcel in his hands. Then she stepped back to watch him open it.

"Well, look at that," Roarke exclaimed. The sampler had obviously taken hours of the little girl's labor. To the delight of Mimsy Greenleaf, Rebecca showed a bit of talent with the needle.

"It's a Bible verse," Rebecca explained proudly. " 'I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word.' "

Roarke gave Rebecca a hug. "Well, now, 'tis a lovely piece of work. We'll hang it in the keeping room, next to the mantel clock."

A second parcel was pushed shyly into Roarke's hands. He smiled down at Israel, then spilled a collection of brightly colored stones out onto the table.

"Gathered 'em all by myself," Israel said importantly. "I went all the way to the river bank at the end of the road."

"Thank you, Israel," Roarke said. He selected a light pink stone, one worn smooth and polished by rushing water as if in a tumbler. "I believe I'll carry this one here in my pocket, for luck."

Luke's gift was a wolf he'd whittled from a bit of driftwood, surprisingly well made and properly ferocious looking. Brimming with pride, Roarke set it on the table.

Even Hance, who rarely displayed more than a wry tolerance for anyone in the family except the baby, had a gift. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a beautiful pipe carved from iron-maple burl with an ivory stem and silver band.

Roarke turned it over in his hands. "I've never seen the likes of this before," he said. "Where'd it come from, Hance?"

The boy thrust his chin up proudly. "I won it off a tobacco factor in Richmond."

Roarke set the pipe down. "Hance—"

"Won it fair and even in a game of loo, I did!"

"Your mother and I don't hold with gambling, Hance."

"You don't hold with anything I do," Hance fired back. His loud voice startled the baby, who began to wail. Hance snatched her up and stalked from the room.

Genevieve looked after him with a mixture of dismay and affection. Hance simply didn't understand that it wasn't the grandness of the gift that mattered but the spirit in which it was given.

The sound of Matilda's babyish cooing drifted in through the window, and Genevieve smiled. It was uncanny, Hance's attachment to the child. He'd never shown such affection for his other siblings, but right from the start he'd formed an unexpected bond with the infant. Perhaps it was her fair hair and blue eyes, which bore a slight resemblance to Hance's own coloring. Whatever it was, Hance was Matilda's most ardent admirer and her fiercest protector. And oddly, he seemed to need her as much as she needed him.

The mood in the dining room had quieted in the wake of Hance's angry departure. The children ate their cake and kissed their parents, and then Mimi came to put them all to bed. When Genevieve rose to help, Mimi waved her away.

"You just sit back with this old man of yours," she said cheerfully. "Or better yet, take your cider into the keeping room and leave the rest of us to find our ways to bed."

Genevieve sat before the hearth, listening to the ticking of the mantel clock and the sounds of her family settling in for the night upstairs. The back door slammed as Hance returned, his temper somewhat cooler, she hoped. Then Luke howled his older brother's name. The boys had scarcely ever gotten to bed without some sort of tussle. A sharp bark from Mimi silenced them. Israel began to sing tunelessly, as he was wont to do, but that stopped abruptly as it always did; the lad had a gift for falling asleep. Then Matilda fussed until Genevieve heard the rhythmic wooden creak of her cradle being rocked, probably by Hance. Finally, the soft murmur of Rebecca at her prayers could be heard, and then all was quiet.

Genevieve watched Roarke as he stirred the fire and added fuel. Blue flames wrapped themselves around the log, causing it to hiss softly in the settled stillness. Her heart filled with love as she watched him.

She'd never gotten over her astonishment at the depth of their love. Every moment they spent together was a small miracle, precious and fragile, to be guarded and kept close to the heart for safekeeping. Those moments, together with the larger miracles of their children and the success of their farm, brought a perfection to their lives she'd never dared dream of.

"Roarke."

He turned and smiled at the gentle warmth he heard in her voice. She patted the place beside her.

He wrapped her in his arms, inhaling the fragrance of her hair. "Gennie love," he murmured, nuzzling her neck. "Thank you."

She shook her head, tossing her curls. "Don't thank me yet, Roarke. I've not given you anything."

Rich laughter rippled from him. "Only everything a man could ever want."

He reached for her again, but she pushed him aside. Still smiling, she handed him a small parcel. She pointed to the words she'd written. "For my husband."

He opened it slowly, with relish. With a gasp of pleasure, he held up a silver drinking cup. The metal caught the light as he held it in front of his eyes.