I stood on the platform for what felt like the hundredth time. I had been caught again and dragged back to be sold as an indentured servant. This was the problem with America, my mother had complained about it constantly when I was younger. She always claimed it was uncivilized. Overrun with Indians and convicts sent from England under the guise of being indentured servants. She had always said that the indentured servants just escaped and became full-fledged outlaws and that the endless forests and lack of any real law just helped them on. I had just scoffed at her. I grew up in the colonies, this was my home. Yet all of my mother's predictions and paranoid fears had come true.

I had unfortunately learned that lesson very well 7 years ago, when I was 12. It had been in the early fall, and harvesting season had just ended. I was the youngest in my family, and Mama wanted me to get one more year of school before I started working the ranch full time like my older siblings. I had come home from school one day to find my family dead and our entire ranch burning. They had been attacked by the very Indians that my mother had been so scared of.

After that, I had no place to go. We had no relatives- they had died in England-which was part of the reason that our family packed up and moved out to the British Colonies. I hadn't even been born yet at the time.

Our neighbors would just put me to work, and the sheriff would put me up on the indentured servants block to pay my family's debts. And that was exactly where I'd ended up anyway- several times. I searched my mind for any hope at how this situation could turn out, and found absolutely none.

Every year for the past 7 years was exactly the same: I would be sold, and when the situation eventually got to be too bad, I would run. It would usually take several months for me to reach the limit of what I could stand. A lot of the time I had nowhere to go anyway. It was usually after the harvest season when I would be forced to run, and then the cold would drive me to "civilization" again, and I would be caught again by contractors. The cycle repeated itself every year. You would think that I would have gotten at least a little better at hiding and not getting found, but no.

I was led to the old, rickety stage where three other indentured servants stood. Soon enough, it started and a man began bidding on me. I was filthy and painfully skinny by this point, and was in the part of the country where people wanted a hard worker. I usually zoned out during the bidding because I never had a say in who bought me anyway. My mind wandered back to where I was currently. The little town was as backwoods as you could possibly get and only consisted of 7-8 run down buildings. There were trees in every direction. I was startled back to the auction when the contractor slammed a wooden hammer against the stage to signal someone was sold. The man had bought me cheap, because no one else was bidding on me, and led me away.

They had tied my hands together to keep me from running, and this man didn't bother to cut the bonds. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, and he was in desperate need of a bath, haircut, and shave. He sure had been eager to buy me. I shuddered at what that implied, and kept my guard up.

He didn't say a word until we reached a wagon. Then: "Get on up there girl" He told me, gesturing to the back of the wagon. I didn't move, but when he took a step toward me I clambered on up as best I could with my hands tied in front of me. He slapped my behind as I climbed in, and I glared at him. He didn't take notice and instead spit to the side, got in the front, and slapped the reigns to get the horses moving.

We traveled for the whole day through the woods, and my owner didn't say a word the entire way. By the time we pulled up to a house right after sunset, I was exhausted. I wasn't able to sleep in the back of the bumpy wagon and I was lightheaded from the lack of food. The man who bought my contract started to climb off the wagon when I saw another man come out of the farm house. My hope sank. This was bad. This was not some fat, rich old man that I could fight off. These were two able bodied men.

"Well, here she is." My owner said, jumping down from the wagon. He came and swung me out of the back, letting his hands slide down to my hips and linger there for a moment too long. I pulled away from him and looked at the other man. He was tall with dark hair and he was surprisingly young, probably early 20s. He stared at me, his face suddenly furious.

"I told you to get me a girl that could cook and clean and tend a baby!" He yelled at my owner. "Not this tramp!"

I felt white hot rage for a moment, I didn't let any of this show on my face though. I had learned long ago that men- angry men in particular- took any facial expression the wrong way. And then their anger was directed at you.

"Well, she's what I bought. Now repay me." My now apparently former owner told the angry man.

"How much did you pay for her?" Asked the angry man. The first man named a price much higher than what he really had paid for me.

"I don't believe you," the angry man said bluntly.

"It includes traveling costs," the first man replied with a smirk. He spit to the side again. Angry man sighed and paid the first man, who rode off in his wagon.

Angry man turned to me, scowling. I stood very still. He then seemed to notice my still bound hands. He took my arm and led me up the steps, across the small porch, and into the house.

The house appeared small on the outside, but inside it was fairly spacious. The front door opened into the kitchen, and the kitchen opened into three other rooms, and there was a staircase straight ahead from the front door that went up to a second level. In the middle of the kitchen was a table. And sitting at the table in a high chair, was a little girl. She looked to be about one year old, but no older. She was a pretty little thing, with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. Even with the girl's fair looks and the man's darker looks, they still appeared to be related. She was probably his daughter.

"What's your name?" The man asked me.

"Lizzy," I replied.

"My name is Darcy. William Darcy. And this is Georgianna, but I call her Georgie for short." Darcy said, motioning to the little girl in the highchair. "I had Fitzwilliam buy you for me because I work all day, and I need someone who can cook and clean and take care of her," he continued.

Darcy began rummaging around in a tall cupboard that stood in the far corner of the kitchen to the left of the back door, and pulled out a loaf of bread. From my position still in the front doorway, there was a beautiful wood burning stove to my left, against the middle of the wall. On it was a pot which appeared to have stew in it. Darcy walked over to the counter that went from along the right side of the stove all the way to the far wall. There was a narrow shelf on the wall over the whole counter. He picked up a knife from the counter and walked to the sturdy wood table in the middle of the kitchen. He sliced three slices of bread, and then walked over to me, still holding the knife. I took an involuntary step back, and he shook his head.

"Hold out your hands." He told me. When I did, he sliced the ropes in one clean swipe with the knife.

The table was already set, with real silverware, china dishes, glass cups, and cloth napkins. Darcy put the pot of stew onto the table and began to put it into the bowls. He motioned me to sit down in one of the chairs. I hesitantly sat, and he put a bowl of soup in front of me and handed me a slice of bread. He served Georgie and then sat down.

"Do you have any other clothes?" He asked, looking at me.

"No, I don't," I replied," suddenly self-conscious of the filthy, torn rag I was wearing.

"Can you sew?" He asked.

"Yes."

"I have some fabric and a sewing kit, you can see what you can make from them."

The rest of the meal was quiet. When we finished eating, Darcy stood up and started out the front door, leaving Georgie in her high chair.

"Follow me," Darcy said over his shoulder to me. He grabbed a bucket from a hook beside the door so I stood and followed him.

Darcy turned right outside the door and walked along the deck, which went across the whole front of the house, and down the steps on the side of the house. He walked a few steps around the house to a pump, and began pumping water into the bucket.

"We don't have running water in the house, so whenever you have to wash the dishes or clean anything, you'll have to pump the water yourself," he told me.

When the bucket was full he walked back into the house and put a kettle on the stove. He then took some logs and put them into the fire. He continued with the instruction:

"It's easiest if you keep water on the stove at all times so you can have at least tepid water whenever you need it, which means you will be constantly pumping water and adding wood to the stove. I'll give you a list of everything that you'll have to do during the day. Right now I'll just show you where everything is."

He then proceeded to walk around the kitchen, opening cabinets and cupboards and giving me a quick tour of the room. Darcy led me out the back door, and in the in light that was still left over from the sunset, pointed out the clothes line, outhouse, garden, and wood pile that were all behind the house. Then he began to show me the rest of the house. To the right of the front door, when you just come in, the kitchen flowed into a sitting room, which had a fireplace with two rocking chairs in front of it. The sitting room was large- as large as the kitchen. It had a desk against one of the walls with bookshelves full of books on either side of it. As we walked through the sitting room, Darcy lit the lamps that were on the desk and on the mantle over the fireplace. He picked up a lantern, lit it too, and continued through the house.

Between the sitting room and the kitchen, the staircase was directly in front of the front door. It had walls on either side of it, making it appear dark and ominous. Darcy walked up the narrow steps and I followed hesitantly. To the left of the landing at the top of the stairs, there was a single door that led to a room over the kitchen.

"That's my room." Darcy said, motioning to the door. He turned to the right of the stairs, and the small hallway that ran back toward the front of the house. There were two doors along the hallway.

"This is Georgianna's room." He said, motioning to the first door. He led me down the hall to the second door and opened it. "And this will be your room."

The bedroom was small, with a bed, wardrobe, and a small desk with a vanity mirror over it. I stood there for a moment, looking around the room. Darcy cleared his throat behind me, and turned to go back down the stairs, taking the light with him. I turned, closed the door behind me, and followed him.

Georgianna was still sitting in her high chair quietly, playing with two spoons. She looked up when we came down the stairs, and when she saw Darcy she held her arms out to him. Darcy put the lantern on the table and picked her up. She wrapped her small arms around his neck, and he held her with one arm while lighting another lamp that was on the counter. It was now totally dark except for the lamps that were scattered through the house.

By this time the water on the stove was warm, I looked at Darcy.

"Should I do the dishes?" I asked. He nodded and pulled a bowl from underneath the counter and set it on top.

"Soap's always right here." He said, taking a bar of soap out of the bowl.

Putting Georgiana down, he lifted the heavy kettle and poured some of the water into the bowl. I gathered the dishes and put them into the water, along with the soap. After a few seconds of searching, I gave up and asked.

"Where is a wash cloth?"

"Here." He answered, pulling one out from a drawer under the counter, along with a drying towel.

After I finished the dishes and put them away in the cupboard, I looked at Darcy questioningly. He pointed out the back door.

"Just throw it out in the yard, in the garden is best but it's too dark to see now."

I walked a few paces from the house and threw the water out.

After everything was cleaned up from dinner, Darcy picked up Georgiana and walked up the stairs. I followed them, and he showed me how to get Georgiana ready for bed. It simply involved putting her into her nightgown, brushing her hair, and washing her face and feet. After Georgiana was tucked snugly into her bed, Darcy led me back down the stairs. When we reached the foot of the stairs he turned to me.

"Listen, there isn't a town for thirty miles in any direction. Our closest neighbors are ten or twenty miles out, and they all know me and know that I was buying an indentured servant. There is no place for you to go, so don't even try it." He looked me right in the eye, his expression dark and fierce. "I leave before dawn, and won't get back until after sunset. That leaves you and Georgiana alone here all day, so if you try to leave, Georgie could get hurt. I don't think you want that to happen. And another thing, you wouldn't get five miles in these woods. If you followed the path, you would be picked up in no time once you were discovered to be missing. If you cut through the woods, you would get lost immediately. I know how to track very well, and I know these woods like the back of my hand. I think you should know this before you decide to try something stupid. Understand?"

The threat in his voice was very clear, and I just nodded that I understood.

"Good," Darcy said.

Then he went about the house, blowing out the lamps. He handed me another lit lantern, and went up the stairs. I waited until his door closed, and then went up to my new room. I simply took off the disgusting dress, which left me in just my underthings. I wrapped myself up in the sheet that was on the bed, and lay down on top of the blanket, hyper aware that Darcy was just down the hall. I curled my fingers around the knife that I had swiped from the kitchen, and eventually fell asleep.

This is my first fan fiction so constructive criticism would be appreciated!

*Update*

Hi everyone! Just to let you know, I slightly revamped this first chapter because after re-reading my original, I cringed so badly that I couldn't help myself. I didn't change much, just tweaked a few things that were driving me nuts.

To any new readers: Be glad you didn't have to read the first version. :)