Embrace the Day (18 page)

Roarke expelled his breath with a hiss. " 'Tis a damned strange notion. I don't—"

The door to the library opened slowly, and Genevieve stepped into the room. Roarke, Digby, Phineas, and a disgruntled Piggot turned as one to stare at her. As tradition dictated, she was barefoot and bareheaded, clad only in a thin lawn smock with a torn hem and fraying ribbons.

Instinctively, Roarke moved to throw his coat around her. But she pushed him away, lifting her chin proudly.

Muttering complaints about the primitive custom, Digby lowered the wick of the lamp.

Roarke felt a painful inner lurch at the sight of Gene, standing beside him so determinedly. Despite the thin rag she wore, she looked magnificent. Her bare arms were bronzed by the sun, and taut muscles shaped them beautifully. Her hair, unbound as common law commanded, tumbled down over her shoulders in a rich cascade of dark sable. She displayed no missish modesty; she didn't quail or try to cover herself.

The others weren't watching her closely enough to guess, as Roarke did, at the depth of her humiliation. He felt her shiver slightly and saw her bare flesh shrink in mortification. Never had he thought her love for him would have to bear this awful test. Humbled by her bravery, her quiet dignity, Roarke wanted to lay himself at her feet and beg her forgiveness. He wanted to die for her.

As if she'd sensed something of what passed through his mind, Genevieve slipped her hand in his.

" 'Tis a small price to pay, Roarke Adair," she assured him in a whisper, "for a lifetime with you."

Her words nearly brought him to his knees. "I love you, Gennie," he whispered.

Phineas Wakefield was decent enough to make short work of the ceremony. He said but a few words, set the documents before them to be signed, and pronounced them wed.

After Genevieve had hurried into her clothes, Digby Firth saw them to the door.

"Be happy, you two," he said, beaming from behind his whiskers. "No one deserves it more than you." He looked pleased with himself and turned to see what Henry Piggot was making of his cleverness.

"A right canny turn, wouldn't you say, Mr. Piggot?" he asked, not bothering to mask a little smirk.

Piggot's eyes narrowed, and the breath wheezed from him in short, angry gasps. He directed his anger at Genevieve.

"You've just caused me to lose everything," he said in a low, deadly voice. "It was my doing that you were able to build a life here at all."

"Yes, you let me build a life, and then tried to take it from me," Genevieve said. "You should have known you wouldn't succeed."

"Oh, no?" Piggot asked maliciously. "I wonder what I'd be able to recoup for turning in a known rebel." He laughed at Roarke's amazed expression. "Didn't think I'd use that against you, did you?" he asked.

Before anyone could react, Piggot plunged his bulk from the library, calling for the officers who slept upstairs.

Urging Roarke and Genevieve to hurry, Digby led the way down a back alley to the livery, where they hitched Roarke's horse to a serviceable farm cart. In minutes the couple were headed northward, keeping to the shadows to avoid the watchful British guard.

"Where are we going, Roarke?" Genevieve asked in a small frightened voice. The muck of Black Swamp sucked at the roan's hooves.

"To Williamsburg for now," he said darkly. "It's patriot ground."

She nodded. He looked at her, her small face grimy and tired looking, her hands twisting in her lap. Curving his arm about her, he kissed her temple.

"Ah, Gennie love," he murmured, " 'tis not the way I had our wedding planned. I didn't even think to bring the ring I'd bought you. You've been cheated of your chance to be a bride—-for the second time, I fear."

Hearing the regret in his voice, she immediately straightened and stopped feeling sorry for herself.

" 'Tis not being a bride that I want so badly," she declared, "but being your wife. And I've a whole lifetime to do that."

"Aye, but no woman should have to spend her wedding night fleeing in a farm cart."

"I want to spend it with you, Roarke. And I am. I ask no more than that." She grinned up at him. "You'll find me demanding enough later on, I'm sure."

The journey consumed the remainder of the night. Roarke had to move cautiously, aware that the horse and cart were valuable commodities for an army that needed to transport big guns and supplies. Neither of them slept. Morning found them wearily celebrating their marriage with a quiet meal of corn pudding in Raleigh Tavern. A scruffy-looking man approached them, staring with disbelief.

"Roarke Adair! By Job, I gave you up for dead at Vincennes!"

Roarke grinned and shook his head. He'd never spoken of the circumstances of his discharge to Genevieve; until this moment he'd nearly forgotten the months of fever and hopelessness. He stood and pumped his old friend's hand.

"Genevieve, this is Will Coomes. Will, my wife." Roarke swelled with pride as he claimed her for his own. "What brings you to Williamsburg?" he asked.

"We're marching to Yorktown!" Will said excitedly. "By Job, I wouldn't miss it for all the world, Roarke. It's to be the biggest siege of the war. Washington means to drive the redcoats from Virginia's shores."

Roarke gripped the edge of the table. "Washington? Last I heard he'd set his sights on New York."

"That's just what he wanted everyone to believe. He had Clinton guessing right down to the end. But he's here! And de Grasse is in the bay with twenty-nine ships and some three thousand troops from the West Indies."

"I'll be damned," Roarke said slowly.

Will drained his mug of cider and stood up. He lifted his hat to Genevieve. "We march in an hour." He directed a meaningful look at Roarke. "It's Captain Langston's regiment, Roarke. He needs all the good men he can get."

Genevieve watched her husband closely as they finished their meal. Only because she knew him so well did she see, in the depths of his eyes, the conflict warring within him.

"It could be the final battle," she ventured, thinking of the patchwork of southbound companies they'd seen assembling in Williamsburg.

"Aye. Let's hope so."

"You want to be a part of it, don't you, Roarke?"

He looked up sharply, and a denial leaped to his lips. "I have everything I want in you, Gennie. You and Hance, and the farm… I'm no soldier. I found that out when I was on the frontier."

"Just because you don't like soldiering doesn't mean you don't love freedom, Roarke." Genevieve had to force the words from her mouth. "Don't you understand? Everything you went through in Indian country will finally make sense if you see it to the end."

He looked at her, dumbfounded. "But Gennie, it'll mean leaving you—"

"I can wait," she said with more resolution than she felt. "Virginia can't."

He swallowed hard. She was so brave, so selfless, sitting across the table from him with the tears bright in her eyes and her jaw clenched hard against trembling.

He reached across the table, eyes brimming with emotion. "Sweet Gennie," he said. "I don't deserve you."

She clasped his hands and smiled. "Go with them, Roarke," she said with sudden, fierce conviction. "Go, and win your war."

"What the hell is that?" Roarke said, moving aside a low-hanging branch to peer through the woods. They were on the road to the front, and the company had veered off into the trees at the sound of a scuffle up ahead.

Lieutenant Colonel John Mercer, whose Virginia militia was marching with Langston's legion, put a spyglass to his eye and squinted.

"By God!" he exclaimed with a laugh. " 'Tis the French cavalry! Must be the Duc de Lauzun—he's got Washington's only horse soldiers. Looks like he could use a hand, lads."

The French, resplendent in their gorgeous uniforms, had charged a British contingent, which was guarding a heavily laden wagon train and a herd of cattle. Mercer and Lang formed up their lines and marched down into the fray.

It was Roarke's initiation into European-style warfare. Rather than shooting from the cover of underbrush at darting targets, the American columns marched boldly and let fly a blast of fire directly into the British charge. Sulfuric smoke and screams filled the air. The Frenchmen babbled in their own tongue, and the Americans raised a battle cry of jubilation as they slashed and hacked their way into the heart of the British guard.

Roarke didn't want to kill again. But when a redcoat rose up before him, sword raised, Roarke sent a musket ball into the man's middle. He hated the feeling of dark victory that rose within him and ached for the peace of his farm and Gennie's arms.

Moments later, at a shout from Colonel Banastre Tarleton, the redcoats dispersed, leaving their wagon train and livestock behind. The allies sailed their hats into the air as the first flush of victory took over.

And when, three days later, it was announced that the allies would open their trenches to the infantry that night, rebel fervor reached a fever pitch. Roarke joined in the drinking and singing as lustily as the next man. But as he bedded down for the night and looked up through the trees at the winking spray of stars overhead, his only thought was for Genevieve.

He whispered her name to the October wind and closed his eyes to form her image in his mind. He was still a little in awe of the fact that she was his wife. All the years of desiring her and being denied by her were finally at an end. She was safely on her way back to Dancer's Meadow. At last they'd make their home together.

Guns rumbled in the distance. The British, who had withdrawn from their captured redoubts to the inner fortifications, were probably firing on the sappers and miners in the trenches.

Roarke opened his eyes again and lifted a silent plea to the stars. There was a time when he'd felt so hopeless on the frontier that he hadn't cared whether he lived or died. But he cared now. Because Gennie was waiting for him. Let me keep myself alive, he begged to the stars, so I can hold her in my arms again.

The cart creaked beneath the weight of the Quaker family who had agreed to accompany Genevieve as far as Scott's Landing. They were kindly, and their children seemed to respect her pensive mood, leaving her to her thoughts.

There was joy in being married to Roarke, and she clung to that. Still, when she thought about the thousands of men making their way to Yorktown, she was seized by a terrible dread. It was possible, she admitted, that Roarke might do as Cornelius Culpeper had done. He might make her a widow before she'd had a chance to be a wife.

The appearance of a small company in the road ahead tore her from her thoughts. They pulled the cart to the roadside and hid amid a cover of underbrush.

But the British raiding party spotted them almost immediately. In minutes the cart and horse were surrounded.

The Quaker man settled back, sighing with resignation and drawing his family to his breast.

But Genevieve was furious. She leaped to her feet, planting herself in front of the British commander.

"You bloody thief!" she railed. "Would you steal from a woman?"

The redcoats laughed at her. " 'Tis the most expedient way," the commander joked.

Battling a pounding fear, Genevieve drew herself up. "Would you kill a woman for this cart?"

"Nay," said a voice from behind. "That won't be necessary."

Genevieve gasped. Henry Piggot insinuated himself between her and the officer and thrust her roughly aside.

"I was hoping for the chance to settle things with you, Mrs. Adair," he said, grinning. "The law has
exempted you
from debt, but in my mind you still owe me dearly."

"I have nothing," she told him through clenched teeth.

But Piggot shook his head. "You've a rather valuable commodity right here, Mrs. Adair," he said, nodding at the cart and Roarke's horse.

"You infernal bloody sod!" Genevieve said. The redcoats sniggered in delight at her temper.

Piggot reached for her. She closed her eyes to his avid face; the blood pounding in her ears nearly drowned out the catcalls of the redcoats.

Her eyes flew open at the sound of staccato yells from the woods above the road. Like a pack of wild dogs, a group of men descended on the raiding party. In minutes the rebels had the redcoats howling back down the road.

All except Henry Piggot. Ignoring the fighting around him, he shoved Genevieve up against the cart, incautious in his fury. She heard herself scream.

"Let her go," someone commanded. The voice was full of quiet rage. Genevieve turned with a gasp of recognition.

"Calvin Greenleaf," she said, her knees nearly buckling with relief.

With reflexes made quick by years of Indian fighting, Calvin's arm snaked out and captured the back of Piggot's collar. The Englishman was dragged away, flailing and cursing.

Too late, Genevieve saw his knife. She cried out, but the blade had already found a home in Calvin's middle. She expected the young man to faint with the pain.

He didn't. If anything, his rage increased as he wrapped his arms about Piggot's neck. There was a dreadful snapping sound, and Piggot's body went slack.

Only then did Calvin allow himself to crumble. He slithered to the ground, using Piggot's bulk to cushion his fall.

Trebell's Landing was the scene of a jostling, noisy crowd pressing its way in around the supplies that were being unloaded. The chaos was overseen by the despairing French commissary Claude Blanchard.

Genevieve looked about in a daze. Calvin's company, under the command of Major General Henry Knox, had asked for the wagon, and she'd given it gladly, along with the roan. The wagon was needed for Calvin and then to drag the allies' heavy guns over the sandy track from Trebell's Landing to the theater of war.

Genevieve sat inside a cramped tent, moving her hands absently over Calvin's sweating brow. The fever was a bad sign, the doctor had said. Infection had set in.

He was still lucid, though, and Genevieve clung to that. When he opened his eyes she forced herself to smile encouragingly.

"Can I get you something, Cal? Some water or—"

He shook his head and frowned at her. "You shouldn't be here," he grumbled. "Your husband thinks you're on your way to Dancer's Meadow."