Chapter 2

I woke to someone shaking me awake. I groaned, and tried to brush off the hand that was on my shoulder when I suddenly remembered where I was. I shot straight up, the knife clutched in my hand. It was still pitch black outside, and Darcy stood over me, fully dressed, holding a lantern.

"Good, you're awake," he said, not even fazed by the fact that I wearing nothing but a chemise and a sheet, and was pointing a bread knife at him. "I have to leave now, so you're on your own until around sundown. Here's a list of everything you need to do today." He handed me a piece of paper that had barely legible writing on both sides, being careful to keep his hand away from the knife that I still held in front of me.

I hesitantly lowered the knife and took the list from him. He walked over to the desk in my room and lit the lantern that I had set there the night before.

"Georgie will be awake in about an hour, so I would advise that you be up and able to tend to her. And we have a few animals that will need to be taken care of, as well. I wrote it all down for you on the list. I'll be back before sundown." Darcy left the room, and closed the door after him.

I was still on the bed when a second later, the door opened again, causing me to jump. Darcy stuck his head in.

"I left the sewing kit and all of the fabric I could find on the kitchen table, you can see about making something else to wear if you have time." He left again abruptly.

I sat there for several minutes, still trying to shake the cobwebs out of my mind. I had two windows in my room, one on the side of the house, and the other on the front of the house, facing east. I could see a glow through the trees as the sun began to rise. I heard a rooster crow somewhere in the back yard, and that gave me the motivation to untangle myself from the warm sheet.

I took the list Darcy had given me over to the desk, and began to try to decipher what it said in the dim glow of the lantern. I basically gathered that I was to scrub the house top to bottom, tend all of the animals, weed the garden, and baby-sit Georgie. I found myself feeling insulted at the extremely detailed instructions on how to do some of the most mundane tasks. Such as scrubbing the floor or washing the dishes. He must think me an utter simpleton.

The rooster crowed again, and it seemed to sound impatient this time. I left the list on my desk, and left the room in only my chemise. No one was around to see me, Darcy had made that very clear last night. Nothing had been disturbed in the kitchen, I wondered briefly what Darcy had had for breakfast, but realized just as briefly that I didn't care.

Picking up my filthy dress off the floor, I went downstairs, grabbed the bucket from beside the door, and headed around to the pump and filled the bucket. I quickly scrubbed my dress until the dirt stains were out and went to the kitchen to let it dry on one of the coat hooks. Going back outside, I made my way to the back of the house. The chicken coop was behind the clothesline, and I quickly fed and watered the chickens and gathered the eggs. Beside the chicken coop was a pig pen, but I had no slops to feed the pig with at the moment.

I stood there for a moment and surveyed the yard. It was fairly large, with a few trees dotting it here and there. The entire property was surrounded by trees, and I wondered idly how much of the land Darcy owned. In the back yard, there was a garden, clothesline, chicken coop, outhouse, wood pile, pig pen, and a barn. The barn was to the side of the house, the same side that my room was on. I walked over to it, and was hit with the smell of hay and horse droppings as I pushed the door open

There were two stalls that seemed to be used, and three others that were full of grain and tools. The loft was full of hay. From one of the two lofts that had the distinct odor of being in use, came a braying sound. I peered in, and saw the cutest little donkey. It brayed again, and I opened the door to go in. As soon as I did, the donkey head butted the door, pushing me out of the way and pushing the door all the way open. It ran out into the yard, braying gleefully the whole way.

"No! Stop!" I shouted, running after it. This was not good. It definitely wouldn't go over well if I lost Darcy's donkey on my first day here. The donkey stopped beneath one of the trees, and started to graze. I walked up to it slowly, but as soon as I got half a dozen steps away, it bucked away. I did that a couple times, before I realized that it probably wouldn't leave the yard. Hopefully.

I was distracted by a wail coming from inside the house. Georgie! I had completely forgotten about her while chasing that stupid mule, its braying must have woken her. I hurried back inside and up to her room. She was standing in her crib, not crying, just screaming. She quieted as soon as she saw me, and held her arms out. I picked her up and got her ready for breakfast. After I went downstairs and deposited her into her highchair, I began to search the cupboards for something to eat, eventually settling for some bread and butter. When I turned back around, I found Georgie attempting to crawl out of the highchair. I dropped the bread and raced over to her and grabbed her just as she began to teeter.

"No Georgie!" I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. "Don't crawl out of your highchair by yourself. Here, I'll take you out and put you down." I set her on the floor, and she immediately started to attempt to run away. Was everything going to run away from me? I thought, exasperated. I scooped her back up, and put her back into her highchair. She was giggling the whole while. I hastily retrieved the bread from the floor, and the butter from the counter, and walked over to the table. I kept my eye on Georgie the whole time, making sure she didn't try to climb out again.

After breakfast, I took Georgie outside with me. After some searching, I finally found the bucket of slops and realized that I should probably use Darcy's list for instructions on where everything was. I set Georgie in a patch of grass, and let her crawl around. The donkey was on the other side of the yard. I walked over to the pig pen, but didn't see the pig anywhere. I rattled the bucket and banged the fence calling "here pig pig pig." Worried, I opened the gate and was about to step into the pen when the pig came charging out of its shed. I yelped and jumped to the side, the pig blew out of the pen and into the yard.

Great! I thought, everything was literally going to run away from me. This was not my day. Leaving the gate of the pen open, I didn't even attempt to give chase. I walked over to Georgie and picked her up, she obviously viewed the whole affair in delight and found it very funny. I became aware of a snuffling and snorting behind me. Turning, I saw the pig standing 30 feet behind me, eyeing me in a way that I didn't like. Then the pig started to charge.

I realized that this creature was not going to run. And I decided, as I ran toward the house with Georgie in my arms, that I much preferred it when the animals ran away from me and not at me. The pig was surprisingly fast for such a large animal, but I managed to reach the house before it did and slammed the door shut behind me.

I put Georgie down and gasped for breath as I sank to the floor, leaning my back against the wall. So far I had let two animals loose, one was running away from me and the other wanted to run at me. This wasn't in the least a good start to the day. At least I got the chickens taken care of without any problems.

I decided after that to just stay inside. As far as I could tell, neither the donkey nor the pig were going to leave the yard. I settled for running around to the pump and filling buckets of water as I needed them, staying out of sight of the pig. I dusted and scrubbed the house, and stacked all of the rugs up by the door to beat out later, after the pig went back into its pen.

Once the house was decently clean, and Georgie was down for an afternoon nap after lunch, I sat down to look at the fabrics Darcy had left me. They were surprisingly nice and feminine. There was an especially pretty dark blue bolt, and I decided that I would use it. I set to measuring. Having only made a few dresses for myself in my whole life, I hoped that I got the measurements right. The art of sewing had never interested me, in fact, it bored me to death. I got as far as measuring out a bodice with the chalk, when I gave up and walked to the sitting room. I walked over to the two bookshelves that were beside Darcy's desk, and was happy-albeit surprised- to find several modern novels on them. I selected one and curled up on one of the rocking chairs that were in front of the fireplace.

I jerked awake and almost fell out of the rocking chair. Startled, I looked around to see what had woken me, and was horrified to see Darcy coming through the front door. I looked out the window, it was still very bright, not anywhere near sunset. Looking back at Darcy, I saw him looking at me, and I scrambled out of the rocking chair, almost falling down again in the process. I stood, and was mortified when I remembered that all I still only had on that stupid chemise. I also realized that the chemise was filthy, getting knocked down into mud and other filth twice had not helped the already filthy garment. Darcy's eyes zeroed in on the book that I still clutched in my hand, his eyes turned furious.

"Where did you get that book?" He asked, his voice filled with barely masked rage.

"From the bookshelf." I hastily replied. "I had finished what I could and didn't have anything else to do and didn't realize that you didn't want me to touch the books and..." My voice trailed off as I realized that I was rambling.

Darcy pinched the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache, and when he looked back up he appeared calmer.

"I apologize." He said. "There is nothing wrong with you reading the book, I just...am not used to having people in the house, touching my things."

I felt the sudden urge to change the subject, and said the first thing that popped into my head. Unfortunately it was: "The pig got out."

He looked at me sharply, "What?"

"Um, the pig... and the donkey, escaped." I said weakly. "I was trying to feed them, and they both just rammed through their gates and got out. The donkey ran away from me, but the pig chased me, so I couldn't get either of them back into their pens."

Darcy sighed heavily, then looked around. "Where is Georgie?"

"She's upstairs taking her nap," I said, suddenly realizing that she had been sleeping for a while. I kept this information to myself however, and waited until Darcy had walked out the back door grumbling, to go get the animals back into their respective pens. I grabbed my dress from the hook in the kitchen that I had put it on to dry, relieved that Darcy had not turned and seen it. Practically flying up the stairs, I pulled the dress on and ran to check on Georgie. She was just beginning to stir from her nap so I picked her up and bounced her awake.

I looked out her window, which faced the back yard, and saw Darcy leading the pig by its ears back to its pen. I sighed, and carried Georgie downstairs. I didn't bother putting her into her highchair, I didn't want to risk her attempting to crawl out again. I had found some toys in her room, so I set her on the floor with them and started dinner.

I had potatoes baking in the stove and leftover stew heating on the stove when Darcy came back in, his clothes now looking the way my chemise had looked. We sat down for dinner, and the silence was almost painful so I attempted to start a conversation.

"So what kind of work do you do?"

"I'm a blacksmith," he said shortly, barely looking up from his food.

We sat in silence for a few more moments before I asked, "If I may ask; what happened to your wife?"

Darcy looked at me for a moment, his face blank. "My wife?"

"Yes," I replied hesitantly, "Georgie's mother?"

"You think Georgie's my daughter?" His face was a strange cross between amused and horrified. "Georgie is my niece." He said, and returned to eating.

I sat there, feeling incredibly dumb. Darcy didn't offer any more information and I didn't ask, not wanting to seem stupid again.

As soon as we finished eating, Darcy disappeared into the sitting room to his desk, and I did the dishes. When I finished, Darcy came back into the kitchen and looked at me.

"Our local man of the cloth and his wife will be joining us for dinner tomorrow, so I would suggest preparing something nicer for our meal." He said shortly, and went back into the sitting room.

After that, I was left with nothing to do again and I didn't dare try to get the book from the sitting room. I sat down and subjected myself to my sewing project again until it began to get dark. Darcy came back into the kitchen and picked Georgie up again.

"It's best if we go to bed earlier, it makes getting up early a lot easier," He told me, and started up the stairs with Georgie. I stayed at the kitchen table, studiously working on my dress. Darcy came back down a few minutes later and stood in the doorway of the kitchen, watching me for a few seconds. I kept my shoulders hunched and stared at the pattern I was making, but quickly gave up. I got up, aware that he was still staring but ignoring his odd behavior, and it wasn't until I dared to glance up at him that he looked away and returned to his desk.

I decided to leave my dress making project on the table, and went up to my room. I sat down on my bed, and waited until I heard Darcy climb up the stairs. For a painfully long three seconds, he paused at the top of the stairs before going into his room. I waited for several minutes more before blowing out the candles and going to bed. Once again, I fell asleep holding the knife.

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for the reviews! They really encouraged me to keep writing. Just to let you all know, I won't be able to update again for three weeks, but I'm not abandoning the story.