Embrace the Day (41 page)

Vaguely, Genevieve realized that there was more to this than saving the tiny life. She needed this baby to live, as much for herself as for Luke and Mariah. The child was the link that never should have been severed. If he died, Genevieve knew she'd lose Luke for good.

"Ma." Luke's voice penetrated her desperation. "Ma, it's no good."

Genevieve ignored him and continued breathing into the baby's mouth and nose.

"Ma, stop!" Luke said more loudly. "I can't stand to see you—"

Genevieve hesitated, but not because Luke had begged her to. She'd sensed a difference in the baby and paused, studying him, silently summoning every prayer she knew. She didn't dare believe the minute rise of the baby's chest. Then the child gasped and coughed.

And, blessedly, began to cry.

It was the sweetest, most miraculous sound Genevieve had ever heard.

Hance liked London
. He liked living in a city that never slept, where amusements abounded on every street corner: dancing dogs, small mice spinning in gilt cages, a fiddler playing for the price of a tot of gin, markets that offered everything from jasper chessmen to Turkish sabers.

And he liked the gentlemen's clubs, Crockford's and White's, Boodle's in St. James's Street, where fortunes were lost at the turn of a card or a spin of the rouge-et-noir.

Night after endless night he frequented the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall and Ranelagh, where he was as likely to meet the Duke of Cumberland as a child from the Foundling Hospital.

Hance found the Londoners an excitable, learned group. Everyone, even the ladies, discussed politics, be it the Whig Prince Regent and the Tory government or the boundless vulgarity of Princess Caroline. Hance's friends enjoyed being in a constant state of alarm over the king's health or whether they'd been invited to a fete at Carlton House.

London liked Hance, too. The fashionable acquaintances of the Brimsbys took an immediate liking to Angela's distant "cousin," charmed by his rakish good looks and smooth Virginia accent. It was quite a distinction, being considered "an original" at a time when the unique was pursued with an abject horror of boredom and a distaste for the mundane.

Since Hance had arrived in London, he and Angela had settled into an attitude of mutual tolerance, while he took an unexpected liking to Edmund Brimsby. The elder man often declared he was in his dotage, but it was only in body. Edmund conversed aptly, having well-formed opinions on a variety of topics from universal suffrage to the abolition of slavery. His chess game was impeccable, although he failed miserably at the games of faro and
jeu d'enfer
that went on at Crockford's.

Never did Hance think of this intelligent, gouty, weak-willed man as his father. He declined to think about the circumstances of his birth at all.

That was the beauty of London. He didn't have to think; he had only to indulge himself. When he was in the mood for lighthearted pleasantries, he called on Melinda Speed, a daring woman with a too-bright smile and a sense of humor that was both bawdy and rich.

When Hance craved a darker pleasure, a dangerous one, he sought the lovely Agatha, Countess Carey. A sultry beauty two decades younger than her husband, she had a carnal appetite that challenged and enticed. She was too wealthy to expect presents from Hance and too wise to demand his love. Agatha knew better than to risk asking for things Hance wasn't willing to give.

Amid the social flurry of the high season of 1813, Hance noticed through a haze of brandy that his father was dying. Edmund had become positively slight in the past several months. No amount of the doctor's tonics and diets could revive him.

Hance wasn't surprised when, as an autumn chill gripped London, he was summoned to Edmund's bedside.

The older man eyed Hance admiringly, taking in his elegant figure. "Lord, but you've got character," Edmund wheezed. "You're hot-blooded and willful, to be sure, but as shrewd and wise as any man I've known, Hance. I can't help but wonder how you came by those traits."

"Doesn't matter," Hance said with a shrug. "I'm my own person."

Edmund nodded. "Aye. You're a lot of things, Hance. But you lack the one asset that truly counts."

"Oh? And what might that be?"

"Happiness."

Hance chuckled. "Since when does a good Londoner consider that important?"

"It occurred to me too late, my friend." Edmund gestured weakly at Hance. "But you—you're young still. Don't give yourself up to cynicism at this stage of your life. Tell me, Hance, what you've been longing for. Ever since I've known you, you've been hiding something deep inside, covering it up with rakish bravado."

Hance looked sharply at Edmund. He hadn't realized until now how well the man knew him. He began talking then, telling Edmund about Ivy. Hours later, having consumed half a bottle of brandy between them, he finished his story. He was amazed to see tears in Edmund's eyes.

"Shall I get the doctor?" Hance asked.

"No. Not yet." Edmund brushed at a tear. "I haven't started feeling sorry for myself, Hance. But I just heard you say you let go of the one woman who could truly make you happy." He sent Hance a knowing look. "I believe I was guilty of that myself. With your mother."

Hance's hand shook as he added more brandy to his glass.

"That won't help," Edmund pointed out.

"I know."

"There's only one thing that will, Hance. You've got to go to her."

"Damn it, Edmund, haven't you heard a word I've said? I just told you she turned her back on me when she found out I was illegitimate. That'll never change."

"Maybe not, Hance, But people change. You didn't even give the girl a chance for the shock to wear off."

Hance wavered. He recalled Ivy's white-lipped fury, but there had been regret in her eyes, too. Longing. Maybe…

"Do it, Hance—don't spend your life wondering," Edmund prodded.

Hance clasped the older man's hand. "You've always given me good advice, Edmund. I won't ever forget that."

Edmund brought Hance's hand to his heart and looked at him steadily. "Thank you, son," he whispered, claiming Hance with that word for the first time. "And now I believe I'd like you to send for the doctor. And my wife."

Angela protested the terms of the will, of course, because it divided the estate between her and Hance.

Two days after the funeral she was waiting in the drawing room. Hance had been out all night with Agatha, reluctant to be alone with the idea that his only link to humanity was gone.

"I expect you to be out of here by evening," Angela said. "The house is mine, you know."

Hance sighed wearily. "Yes, Angela." He had no desire to stay anyway. Edmund's advice lingered in his mind, impossible to ignore even when he was with Agatha. As a footman was helping him fill his trunk and clothespress, Edmund's valet appeared with an old wooden letter box.

"Mr. Adair, I found this while going through the master's effects. I believe the contents might be of interest to you."

Hance set the letter box on the bed and extracted an assortment of papers and small certificates, a small supply of dried ink and a well-whittled quill.

At the bottom of the box was a calf-bound book, its cover embossed in flaking gold leaf with the initials PM. Hance dismissed the footman and valet, poured himself a generous glass of brandy, and took the volume to a chair beside the fire.

The journal was written in a tight, precise hand. Hance was surprised to see that the handwriting had an uncanny resemblance to his own. He flipped through the descriptions of the Brimsby children, pausing to grin at Prudence's as-sessment of young Andrew: "A fat, sneaky individual who resists learning as if it were a deadly scourge…" Even Edmund had admitted that his son had been no scholar.

Impatiently, Hance skimmed through disjointed, meticulously penned entries. There was a short bit on Prudence's opinion of Rousseau's philosophy, a recipe jotted here and there, a note to herself to share some thought with her friend, Genevieve Elliot… And then the handwriting changed slightly. It became more careless, spilled over the pages by a hand that seemed to be trembling or overly tired.

"He is more than the man I love," Hance read. "He has become the reason I take nourishment each day and draw each breath that keeps me alive. God forgive me." With a jolt, Hance realized that he was reading of his mother's relationship with Edmund Brimsby.

He felt her longing as she mentioned a chance meeting in some part of the house, the electricity of a casual touch. She'd resisted him for months, burying her feelings, secreting her private longings in the diary.

At last she stopped denying what was in her heart and gave herself to him. As Hance sat reading, his image of his mother was transformed. For so long he'd carried around an impression of the wily governess using her charm to entice the master of the household, to win favors from him.

It wasn't like that at all. Prudence Moon had felt a deep, abiding love for Edmund Brimsby. Hance understood. He'd loved Ivy with the same pureness of heart, the same disregard for convention. The words on the page swam before his eyes.

He still loved Ivy.

His dead mother's words, shimmering ghosts from the past, brought back all the intensity of that love.

Closing the book and putting it in one of his bags, he finished packing.

Hance looked at Dancer's Meadow from beneath the brim of his beaver hat. The town had matured since his boyhood. Its main street had been paved by brick, and a number of storefronts had sprung up where only dust and tree stumps had once existed. The horse he'd purchased in Yorktown bore him down the river road to the farm where he'd been born.

The house looked the same. A little more careworn, the trees taller, but the white clapboard with its breezy porch was still familiar. Hance dismounted and secured his horse, calling out a greeting.

"The Lord be praised…" called a voice from the door.

Hance snatched off his hat. Mimsy Greenleaf looked grand, with a puffy white cloud of hair, erect posture, and the plumpness of a life well lived. Her embrace was firm.

"It's good to have you home," she announced, filling her eyes with him. Then she hurried off to ring the kitchen bell, summoning her family and sending one of Eustis's sons down to Genevieve's old place to fetch the others.

Hance said little as he shared their meal. Instead, he marveled at what the Greenleaf family had become. Joshua, the proud patriarch, presided over a table long enough to encompass the whole of his brood, which now included his sons' wives and five grandchildren.

Two of the Greenleafs were absent, though obviously in their family's fond thoughts. Calvin, restless as ever, was involved in the dangerous business of abolition; his parents didn't elaborate but hinted that Cal had been responsible for the escape of a number of slaves. Rose was teaching now at a Quaker school in Philadelphia, Joshua informed Hance with pride.

After the meal the men retired to the front porch. Evening was settling over the distant blue haze where the mountains melted into the western sky. Phillip cleaned his gun, while Curtis hummed softly, playing checkers with Eustis. Inside the house the children were giggling and being scolded by their mothers.

Hance inhaled appreciatively on his cheroot. "Best smoke in Albemarle County," he declared with a grin.

"You should know," Joshua said. "You sure stole enough tobacco from the curing sheds when you were a boy."

"How did you know about that?"

Joshua's eyes danced. "That's the trouble with twelve-year-old boys. They tend to think they're invisible. And invincible."

Hance gazed out at the farm. Years ago it had been his whole world. Somehow he wished that had never changed.

"Well, I don't believe it anymore," he said humorlessly.

Hearing the world-weary note in his voice, Joshua frowned. "Where've you been?" he asked.

Hance shrugged. "Everywhere. And I still don't know where I belong. I've learned a lot about myself, Joshua. Things I don't much like."