A/N: Ok I'm back. Don't shoot! I'm soooo sorry that I haven't written sooner, but I have a REAL reason to be gone. I found out that I had a scheduling conflict with my Spanish classes. I had to take an entire class (9months) in 1 month. Yes, you heard right, I had to teach myself a 9 month course in 1 month. So you see my dilemma. "What about the other months that you abandoned us, traitor?" I hear you cry...... Well see, I had surgery, school started, my new job started and I found out that I was taking classes that I really wasn't ready for (a.k.a. studying my butt off!!). I'm also very involved with theatre and music up to my neck right now. So I apologize from the bottom of my heart, and I apologize to all other authors that I have been angry with for not delivering stories quickly enough for my liking. I was a fool, living in a fool's paradise called summer. So again forgive me. I beg you to continue on, and let me claim my redemption.
Chapter 4.... Finally.....
Early the next morning Marguerite awoke before the sun rose. She got off the cold floor and stumbled for the door. She grabbed the small, worn, pathetic excuse for a blanket for more warmth. She walked in the darkness, not too far, for fear of creatures stronger than her. But circled her way around the hut. She looked out at the brilliant landscape, as far as she could see in the dimly lit forest. The sun started to make its way above the horizon, and the sight brought her back to her old home. Resolved not to cry again, she tried to push the memories of her view from her terrace window out of her mind. As the sun made its accent she ventured farther and farther away from the hovel with each new ray of light. She discovered the forest and the beautiful songs of the birds, the sound of the stream babbling constantly and unchangingly. She saw the insects, as frightening as they could be, fly and flit and hop and slither around her, and for a short moment, the sense of her place on the earth struck her. She couldn't quite comprehend the feeling of littleness, for she had never felt it before. But to see the magnificent grandeur, the wide expanse of nothing but nature in its course, of the world in Supreme order and purpose, she began to feel rather small and silly in it all.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a loud crash from the cottage. She turned just in time to see James emerge from the hut frantically looking around him. Marguerite hid behind the trees and watched him search for her in a panicked frenzy. She giggled to herself at her little joke and waited till he had run far enough away from the hut that she could circle back to the house unseen. She made it stealthily to the door and when she got inside laughed to tears. She lay down on his cot, for once getting some small amount of comfort, and thought about what she would do next. She heard him crying out her name, and felt slightly ashamed at putting him through so much anxiety, but she loved the revenge. She sighed and again she caught that smell, not quite spice, not quite lavender, almost rose..... and then it was gone, and was replaced by the smell of her own self. She hadn't bathed in days, but the idea of where the bath would have to be taken and who would have to be around dimmed her desire to be clean. 'I can endure for another day I suppose' Marguerite thought as she heard another cry of her name, but this time, it didn't sound angry, or just slightly worried, it sounded devastated and distraught. She immediately jumped off her cot and started to go out to reveal herself, but stopped.
'Am I completely daft. That man will murder me if he finds that I have been making a fool of him. Last night he was kind, but that is not his usual character. Marguerite you push too far sometimes.' She thought. She carefully stuck her head out the door and spotted him many yards away, searching near the stream. She quickly darted in the other direction quietly, and ran into the undergrowth. She found her way a few yards farther off to a clearing and spotted a steep drop into a small ditch. She climbed into the ditch and covered herself in the dirt. She tousled her hair to look a little more unkempt that it already was, and lay there until she heard the cries coming closer.
'Well, maybe if he thinks I hurt myself it will be better than just running off into the woods and hiding. But a bath will definitely be in order after this' she thought. She heard him cry out once more, this time like a man who had given up most hope and whose voice was strained through held back tears. She was almost touched, as much as this man pushed her, he apparently thought she was worth searching for. 'Or maybe,' she thought, ' he just couldn't lose me because I am the princess, or was the princess. I bet he thinks it will surely mean death to him if he lets anything happen to me. My father was angry but surely he would be infuriated to hear of any harm coming to me because of a careless peasant.' The thoughts made her angrier towards him, but she wanted out of the ditch and out of trouble with the peasant, so she continued to pretend to be hurt and faintly cried out to him.
"Marguerite!" he shouted, as though he never believed to hear the sound. "Marguerite, are you there?" he screamed waiting for a reply. A soft whimper came for his answer. He ran towards the sound and looked down into the small ditch below. "Marguerite!! How on earth? No, never mind, just stay still, I'll get you." He crawled carefully into mud and picked her up slowly. Marguerite, doing a splendid job of pretending to be half conscious, found the security of his arms rather surprising. She leaned into him and let him cradle her as he carried her out of the ditch, only for realism, of course.
Back inside the cottage, James heated water for the rags and tried to sponge the dirt off her face and bandaged hands. Marguerite, feeling slightly guilty for her deception, lay on the cot and tried to keep from jumping up and screaming at the man for being so selfish for himself than for her welfare. But she stayed in character and emitted small moans when necessary.
"What happened?" he asked softly as he wet more rags. The question startled her. She hadn't yet thought of an excuse.
"Well," she said weakly, "I was going out to collect firewood and I just got turned around. The next thing I knew I had fallen into that ditch and I don't remember anything until you got there."
"You must have bumped you head, knocked yourself unconscious. You should be all right, you just need to rest. You see, I told you that you should have gone to those princess schools you clumsy little twit." He laughed. Marguerite was angered but tried not to let it show, and there was not scorn in his voice.
"I should have known better, " she whispered. "I was just trying to be helpful. And I was just looking at these beautiful woods. It is a shame I sent that prince away. I could own these woods now, instead of live in them"
She paused and looked over at him as his expression changed from a laugh to a scowl.
"Well, maybe you would have been better off there anyway, all the trouble you are to me. You can't even collect firewood correctly." He mocked.
"I was just trying to help, you pompous cuss. You didn't have to come find me. You could have just left me out there to die. No one asked you to save me, unless you are too worried about what my father might do if you were to let something happen to me." She started to rise off the cot and then remembered her "condition".
"Oh-ho! That is what you think? You think that your father even cares what happens to you? Look around Marguerite. If he cared he would be out here trying to bring you back. He knows where you are; he could have sent messengers to check on your condition. No, he doesn't care. When the papers were signed for us to be married, I had full control over your outcome. I could have killed you or sold you. No one is coming after me just because you fall in a ditch and bump your precious head!" he screamed.
"Fine! Then why don't you just sell me? You said yourself that I am no use to you. You could get a pretty price for the former princess! The stupid arrogant princess who was forced to marry you. What a prize, you get the girl that the prince refused, that was kicked out of the palace. The one that was stupid enough to be reduced to filth like you!"
"All right filth, that is what I am to you. I don't care Marguerite, but must you keep lamenting over that lost prince of yours. And I thought you rejected him" James shot back.
"I did reject him, but he..." she stammered. The memories of the man's face flooded back. She remembered it clearly. That man's indignant smirk, his cocky bow, his annoyingly rude remarks, and his captivating green eyes. "He was an arrogant man, and I despise the fact that I am having to live on his provisions now, for I never found him to be a kind man. He was rude and evil." She said staring at the wall away from him.
"So, he did reject you. Ha! Now that is grand! For now you say that this, as you would have it, rude and evil man found you even more offensive than himself, now that is saying a lot, "he laughed. "Well you had better rest. It is only noon and I am going to bathe in the stream. You may join me if you like, if that isn't too far beneath you. And sooner or later the smell is going to offend your pretty little nose, unless that you is your plan, to murder me by your offensive odor. And if that is your plan, I find it quite cunning, though not quite so affective," he laughed again as he shut the door behind him.
Marguerite huffed, and got off the cot. She stumbled into the workroom strolling aimlessly through her thoughts. She was hurt by James's comments, but tried to remind herself what kind of a man he was. He was an offensive, crude, cold-hearted man, who only cared for his own interest, but if that were entirely true, he wouldn't have looked for her. He said himself that no one was keeping track of her well being. He had nothing to lose. The man confused her. He was so- but her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a small wooden figure. She picked up the little statue. 'So this is what he does all day,' she thought. 'Well what do we have here?'
The small figure was a small heart surrounded by vines and leaves, and two small birds carved onto the face of the heart. The carving was by no means ordinary. It had so much detail in such a little space. Marguerite stared at the birds. They were facing each other; they were small birds, the size of a robin, but with spotted undersides. They looked like tiny swallows in a huge tangle of leaves and vines. She smiled at the little statue and turned it over in her hand. She saw an inscription on the back. "To the one who I truly love. There will never be another"
Marguerite was surprised, this inscription couldn't be for her, James may have some feelings toward her, but they were definitely not that strong. This must have been written to another woman. Maybe it was made for someone else and James was hired to make it. Or maybe it was a family heirloom. 'Or maybe,' she thought 'It was to another woman,' she started to feel twinges of jealousy, and quickly let it fade to anger. No matter. He could do whatever he wanted. She looked around the workshop. There were tools of a carpenter, and various instruments. And over in the far corner was a spinning wheel. 'Now that,' she thought, ' I may be able to do.'
P.S. What will happen next?... To be entirely honest I dont know myself, I feel like Im reading this instead of writing it. Starting out this chapter wasnt anything close to what it turned out to be, I dont know where it came from, so just please review and forgive spelling errors You can spell check all you want, but you can only catch so much you know.... darn computers... Love ya!