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  Piggot shook his head. "I may be, but I'll not be lending—"

  "That wasn't what I had in mind. But tell me." He jerked his head toward Genevieve. "How much is she worth?"

  Genevieve gasped softly. Her initial dislike of Roarke Adair deepened by fathoms.

  Piggot, however, seemed pleased as understanding dawned. If he won the hand, then Cornelius Culpeper's money would be his, and he'd have procured a bride at no cost. He studied Genevieve, who backed against the wall, aghast.

  "She's a mite young."

  Watney was grinning by now, acting as if the idea had been his own.

  "Seventeen's plenty old, Henry. And she keeps a good house, does most of the chores for my wife. Any man here can vouch for her maidenhood; she's chased every one of 'em off at one time or other." Laughter rippled from the men, and Genevieve's blush of outrage crept to the tips of her ears.

  Piggot hesitated for a long moment, his small eyes appraising. Then he nodded almost imperceptibly.

  "She'll do. Show your hand."

  Still grinning broadly, Watney laid out his cards with obvious relish. It was a hand of straight black clubs. Genevieve felt weak with relief. For once she was glad her father was so adept at cheating. She shot a look of pure venom at Roarke.

  Piggot stroked his grizzled chin. "Very good, Watney. Very good indeed." He shrugged exaggeratedly and rolled his eyes up.

  Then, almost playfully, Piggot showed a hand of high red, beating the clubs roundly.

  "That ends the evening for me, gentlemen," he said jovially. "I'll be around in the morning to make all the arrangements. The girl's to be married by proxy here in London." He gave Watney a severe look. "And don't even think about not honoring your end of the bet. The girl's mine. I've got a small crew of sailors from the Blessing who'll back me up."

  Watney Elliot spluttered and fumed, but he was beaten, and he knew it. Even his cronies were struck by the enormity of what he'd done. They called the game at an end and slowly trickled back into the taproom.

  Genevieve had been in a state of numb shock, but she recovered when she looked up at Roarke Adair's rugged profile.

  "What right had you?" she demanded. Her green eyes glinted with outrage. "By what right do you come meddling here?"

  He seemed slightly bemused by her temper. "I merely made a suggestion, Gennie. 'Twas your father who gambled you away."

  "What kind of mart are you, to think in terms of buying and selling a woman like so much chattel?"

  He faced her, growing serious. "I've been watching you, Gennie. You strike me as uncommon in a number of ways. You don't belong in this seedy tavern, waiting tables and taking abuse from your father. You'd have rotted here, Gennie. Virginia will be good for you—"

  "And who in bloody hell are you to decide I'd be better off wed to some colonial lout?"

  He reeled a little as he straightened his hat and prepared to leave, looking utterly satisfied with himself. "You'll see, Gennie. You'll see." And then he was gone.

  Watney sat alone at the table and drained a mug of ale. The idea that he'd just gambled away his daughter didn't distress him so much as the fact that he was about to lose her income and her help in the tavern. There was no remorse in his drunken eyes, no word of apology when he looked up at Genevieve.

  "I've always known you for a bloody sot," she said matter-of-factly, painfully concealing her horror at what had transpired. "Now I see you've not so much as a shred of decency."

  "There now, 'tis no way to be talking to your father, girl."

  She whirled on him and unleashed her anger, eyes snapping with fury, voice brittle with bitterness. "Don't call yourself my father. What have you ever given me but a cuff on the ear and a foul curse when you thought my earnings too meager or my housekeeping too poor? You've never had so much as a soft word for me. I'm not at all surprised that you'd send me away for the price of a night's gaming. I'll go to Virginia, aye, and gladly, if it means never having to look at your besotted face again!"

  She left Watney staring agape and disappeared up the back stairs, where her mother waited, cowering.

  "Genevieve, you don't know what you're saying—"

  The girl regarded her mother for a long moment, her bosom heaving with emotion. Her poor, grasping mother, who'd done nothing all her married life save submit to her louse of a husband, producing three children in quick succession. Her sin was that of ignorance; she knew of nothing better to strive for.

  "Twill be a burden for you once I'm gone, Mum," Genevieve said evenly, having regained control of herself. "But perhaps 'tis for the best. My absence may get the boys out to the yards, working again." She thought contemptuously of her brothers, who hadn't earned an honest day's wages in months.

  "Must you go, Genevieve?" her mother asked blankly.

  The girl pressed her lips together. Why couldn't her mother be stronger, why couldn't she insist that this nonsense be stopped and some other way found to compensate Piggot? But the woman accepted this turn of events with characteristic apathy: spiritless, downtrodden.

  Genevieve sighed. "I'm going to bed." She left her mother and went behind the thin curtain in the loft to be alone with the thought that tomorrow she was to be married by proxy to a man she'd never met.

  Chapter Two

  Angela Brimsby set her teacup down firmly and smiled across the table at her cousin. She'd never thought to see him again, having practically laughed him and his fool idea of claiming land in Virginia out of her house, but things were different now. Summoning him back had been one of her more brilliant ideas.

  Smugly, she congratulated herself on having escaped the wild looks of his branch of the family. Roarke, with his mane of thick red hair and eyes that reminded her of a storm-tossed sea, looked as crude and elemental as the rugged land he longed to claim. She sat quietly, awaiting his reaction to her proposal.

  Roarke leaned his long form back in a French armchair, draping himself negligently on the expensive piece. Angela's smile wavered, but doggedly she kept her expression pleasant.

  "Sounds a bit cold-blooded, even for you, Angela," he remarked mildly.

  " 'Tis a perfectly logical solution. You'll need a wife if you mean to be a proper farmer."

  She selected a sticky sweetmeat from the tray before her.

  "I truly doubt you'll do any better than Miss Moon. Admittedly, the girl lacks a certain degree of style, but she is educated and knows her place. As a wife, she'll be quite satisfactory."

  "What does Edmund have to say about this?"

  Angela's face closed. "Edmund has no opinion on the subject. He'll not oppose the plan."

  "I can't help but wonder why you'd want to give the girl up, Angela. If she's as fine a person as you say—"

  "Let's just say Miss Moon and I have had our differences. Now, what say you, Roarke? Will you refuse me, and return to the docks, or will you agree to my plan? I'll send you to Virginia in grand style, with a wife by your side, so you'll have a proper start. Where's the harm in that?"

  Roarke narrowed his eyes at her. "I don't know," he said slowly. "But I'm sure it exists. What prompted this change of heart, Angela?"

  "Really," she sniffed, "you're questioning an extremely generous offer, Roarke. Let us just say that I suddenly realized that as your only living relative, I owe you this chance."

  Roarke sat silent for a long time, certain there was more to his aunt's scheme than she was saying. But something inside him strained with impatience and warned that a chance like this wouldn't present itself again.

  "I'll speak to Miss Moon," he said at last. "If she is agreeable, then we'll make arrangements."

  Roarke glared at the clock in the Brimsbys' drawing room. Its ticking measured twenty minutes with maddening regularity. Unpleasantly, he was reminded of his mother's clock. What an irony that he needn't have sold it in the first place. He'd never get the timepiece back, now that he'd given the claim slip to Angela, who had undoubtedly recovered it from Pembroke's shop at the first opportunity
.

  His thoughts fled as Prudence Moon appeared soundlessly. Pale faced and somberly dressed, she kept her eyes averted. The hand she extended was icy cold.

  "Good day, Mr. Adair. Mrs. Brimsby has informed me of your offer."

  "Then you'd best accustom yourself to calling me Roarke."

  "As you wish." Prudence seated herself tensely on a straight-backed chair.

  Roarke frowned. Her manner made him feel more like an executioner than a man come to claim a woman for his wife.

  "Prudence," he said, trying not to frown anymore, "I know the circumstances of our courtship—if you could call it that—are unusual, but I believe you'll like Virginia. By all reports, it's a veritable paradise." He watched her hands twisting in her lap. "Prudence, what is it? Angela told me you were eager to go, having no family here and no source of income—"

  "I'll go, Mr… Roarke. I'll go with you to Virginia."

  She looked so small, so fragile. But when she raised her china-blue eyes to Roarke, he was surprised to see a glitter of determination.

  "I won't lie to you, Prudence. Life won't be easy in Virginia."

  "It can't be any worse than here," she countered, her voice growing stronger with each word. "Let us be married, Roarke."

  His face broke into a grin. Prudence knew then that she'd never regret her decision. The piece of her heart that had been ravaged by Edmund Brimsby would never mend, but she vowed not to think of that once she was wed to a man so fine as Roarke Adair.

  "I'm told the crossing isn't bad in springtime," Roarke said to Prudence as a hired coach bore them into town, to a magistrate's office.

  Prudence regarded him expressionlessly. Despite her willingness to marry him, an air of melancholy clung to her, evident in her eyes and in the hand that reached up unconsciously to smooth the already perfect lace at her collar.

  Roarke scowled, then brightened, remembering something. "You'll find a companion on the Blessing. There will be another young woman aboard, by the name of Genevieve Elliot."

  For the first time a spark of interest lighted Prudence's eyes. "Genevieve!" She smiled at Roarke's amazement when he learned of the unlikely but precious friendship that had grown between a West End governess and an East End washerwoman. Roarke suddenly felt a slight and welcome lessening of guilt over what had happened in the tavern the night before.

  "Roarke, how did you manage this?" Prudence asked.

  He looked down at his hands. "I'm not terribly proud of how it came about," he admitted. "I don't know what possessed me to do it—I was deep in my cups at the time—but I suggested her father wager her in a card game with a man called Henry Piggot, who's been sent here to find a wife for a Virginian planter."

  This brought dismay to Prudence's soft eyes. "How could you? Poor Genevieve—Roarke, why?"

  He shrugged. "I know nothing of your friend, except that she doesn't belong there in Farthing Lane, serving unwashed louts while they ogle her and make sport of her. The thought came to me suddenly that she'd be much better off in Virginia."

  "You shouldn't have taken it upon yourself…"

  He thought for a moment, recalling the girl's outrage, the hatred seething in her gemstone-hard eyes. "Regrets occurred to me too late, I'm afraid." He sighed. "If Genevieve is truly averse to going to Virginia, I'll see Piggot today and settle with him."

  Prudence nodded. "It is best." She stared at him for a long time. "You've done a foolish thing, but you're a good man, I think, Roarke Adair."

  He glanced at her sharply, taken aback. Slowly, a smile spread across his face. "We'd best go and be married now, Miss Moon," he said, helping her down from the coach.

  Genevieve left the ink-and-paper-scented office in a pensive mood, walking a few steps behind a rather self-congratulatory Henry Piggot. She didn't feel any different, but following an unceremonious signing and stamping of papers, she was a married lady. Mrs. Cornelius Culpeper of Virginia Colony.

  "We're off to Southampton tomorrow," Piggot said as they reached the head of Farthing Lane. "The Blessing sails the day after."

  "I'll be ready."

  He studied her with small keen eyes. "I dare say you will. 'Tis best you bring little with you. The Blessing is a cargo ship with scant room for passengers' effects." Taking in her worn, drab clothing, he pressed a few coins and bank notes into her hand. "Use this to get whatever you need for the voyage."

  Genevieve covered her surprise as Piggot walked away. He couldn't know he'd just given her more money than she'd ever had in her life—close to five pounds. Carefully, she folded her hand around the notes and coins and placed them in her apron pocket.

  Her hand brushed against a small piece of paper. Frowning, Genevieve took it out and stared at it. Spidery writing, woefully misspelled, described a certain hooded wall clock that had been left at a pawnship. Genevieve had a sudden image of Angela Brimsby thrusting the paper at her, commanding her to take it to Pembroke's. In the ensuing argument the slip had been forgotten.

  Genevieve hurried to the shop and presented the claim to the pawnbroker. He set a clock before her, and she studied it closely, curious as to why Angela Brimsby would want it. The timepiece was decades old, oddly handsome. Charming even, with a halfpenny moon peeping through a hole in the dial. Below the face was etched a small inscription:

  Behold this hand, observe ye motion's trip, Man's precious hours, away like these do slip.

  A sudden smile lit Genevieve's face. All at once she knew exactly what she'd bring to Virginia with her.

  She left the shop with the clock concealed beneath the laundry in her basket. A small victory over Angela Brimsby, but she felt a certain grim satisfaction in it.

  As she trudged toward the tavern, it struck Genevieve that this would be her last night of servitude in the taproom. That a life of another sort of servitude awaited her in Virginia didn't matter. Nothing could be as degrading as her existence here in Farthing Lane.

  She had no idea what to expect beyond the cramped, sooty bounds of London, but a tremor of excitement eddied through her at the thought of the adventure that lay ahead. Smiling to herself, Genevieve envisioned vast green fields rolling out in all directions, a grand planter's house, perhaps a sun-warmed garden where she could while away the hours…

  Lost in thought, Genevieve didn't notice she wasn't alone. Then a long evening shadow suddenly crossed her path, and she heard her name spoken.

  "Miss Elliot."

  She spun about, her heart quickening inexplicably. Roarke Adair was silhouetted against the smoke-hazed sun, his dark red hair gleaming beneath his tricorn. He was even more maddeningly handsome sober than he'd been drunk.

  "You're early, Mr. Adair. The pub hour hasn't begun yet."

  His rugged features remained serious. "I've done more than enough drinking. I came to see you."

  "Why?" she demanded acidly. "To see that I held up my father's end of the bargain?"

  "If I thought there was a chance of your forgiving me, I'd apologize. But never mind, I'll just find Piggot, pay your father's debt, and things will be as they were."

  She glared at him. "Is that so?"

  "Aye. Mind you, I still think you'd fare much better in Virginia, but the choice is yours to make. It shouldn't have been decided by a draw of cards."

  "Your wisdom is a bit tardy, Mr. Adair," she remarked sarcastically.

  "Miss Elliot—"

  She laughed harshly. "There is no more 'Miss Elliot,' not anymore. I am Mrs. Cornelius Culpeper now."

  He stared, his blue eyes searching her face. Almost to himself, he said, "I should have known Piggot would waste no time. But 'tis only a proxy marriage… You might get an annulment."

  "Mr. Piggot is taking me to Southampton tomorrow."

  Roarke frowned. "That doesn't leave much time."

  Genevieve's resentment kindled hotter. Even with good intentions, Roarke Adair was proving himself as meddlesome as ever.

  "You've done quite enough interfering in my life, thank you," she said.
"If I didn't want to leave England, be assured I wouldn't. I don't approve of what you did, but perhaps Virginia will be a good thing for me. You were right in thinking I despise this London slum. So let me go."

  He stared at her for a long moment. "Are you sure, Gen?" he asked.

  She almost winced at the gentleness she heard in his tone. She raised her small chin proudly.

  "Quite sure, Mr. Adair. But don't start patting yourself on the back. I don't feel at all beholden to you for this."

  "I'm not asking you to. Nor am I asking you to forgive me. But I do hope you'll tolerate me for Prudence's sake."

  She stopped walking and stared at him. "Prudence?" she asked, her voice rising a little. "How do you know Prudence?"

  "Not as well as a man should know his wife," Roarke said simply.

  Genevieve's knees began to feel weak and watery. She leaned back against a nearby building for support as Roarke quickly explained what had happened. Angela Brimsby, that viper, was Roarke's cousin. She'd duped the sod into marrying Prudence.

  "Gennie?" Roarke was frowning at her. "Are you all right?"

  She straightened up quickly, hoping he hadn't guessed at the thoughts that shot through her mind. Drawing a deep breath, she said, "Prudence is my only friend. I'm pleased we'll both be in Virginia." Seeing his face soften, she scowled. "But if you ever do a thing to hurt her, Roarke Adair, I'll find out. I'll find out, and I won't be merciful."

  To her surprise, he grinned broadly. "I dare say you won't, Gennie. But don't worry. I've given you little cause to trust me, I know, but I'll do right by Prudence."

  "See that you do," she said stiffly, and fled down the street to the tavern.

  Chapter Three

  Genevieve's parents and brothers were assembled in the empty taproom, where she waited the next morning for Henry Piggot.

  Her mother held out a fraying shawl. "Take this. You'll be needing it to keep warm on the crossing."

  Thanking her, Genevieve added the shawl to her small bundle of belongings, which consisted of a single set of clothes wrapped around the clock. Her father gave her a linen purse containing a knife and some eating utensils.