Madeline

Chapter 22

The days passed and before I knew it, I'd been staying with Anne for three weeks. And I hadn't yet met Mr. Mitchell.

Keira visited several times with the children. She always apologized for the fact that there were no plans yet, and I knew she was frustrated by her limitations. William all but forbade her from walking that distance while she was pregnant, and she said you couldn't get there by carriage. Not that they had one anyway. The carriage that brought us here had been borrowed. Apparently William tried to contact Mr. Mitchell, but every time he was free to do so, Mr. Mitchell was away.

I was honestly beginning to wonder if it was ever going to happen. I loved the time I got to spend here, but I was starting to feel a little silly, not to mention unsettled. As much as I wished this truly were my home and family, it wasn't. I couldn't plan to stay indefinitely.

Besides, I felt bad for having taken Michael's room. He did leave sometimes, but most of the time he was home. Since I was in his room, and since he was much too tall to even think of fitting on the small sofa, he slept on the floor in the sitting room. He always said he didn't mind, but it couldn't have been very comfortable.

My relationship with Michael was a little strange. Initially, I actually wondered if I might feel similarly about him as I did with Mr. Mitchell. It was so easy to talk with him and laugh with him, and I thought he was handsome. I even thought I noticed him watching me in a certain way sometimes. But it wasn't long before I knew we were only suited as friends. Maybe it was because I saw his mother almost as being mine and because I was living with them like family, but he felt like a brother to me. Which, again, was strange considering my non-relationship with my actual brother. I didn't even have a deep relationship with any of my sisters. So a companionable sibling relationship where we could have serious discussions, tease one another, and everything in between, was completely new for me.

I smiled, thinking about how he was beginning to sound like Anne. When he learned that I liked to go exploring and could sometimes stay outside for hours, drawing, he'd given me several warnings about being careful and not wandering too far into the woods. I knew his instinct was to offer to come with me if I intended to go very far from the house, but his work wouldn't allow him to follow me around every day. Even if he didn't have just one job, he still had to work.

After assuring him that I'd be careful, once again, he left for the day, and I'd gone to the woods out back. I'd been wanting to draw the house for a while now, and on the previous day, I discovered the perfect angle to really show its beauty.

Several feet back from the tree line, I sat on a log, pencil in hand as the house began to appear on the paper in my lap. Stopping, I narrowed my eyes at a line I didn't like and wondered if I could work around it. Maybe I could make it into a bush...

"Wow! That's really good." The unexpected voice came from behind my right shoulder and nearly scared the life out of me. Pushing away from the log, I dropped my book and screamed.

Standing now, I turned to see who snuck up behind me and my eyes went wide when I found Mr. Mitchell smiling at me.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

I was completely frozen. All this time, I'd been waiting to meet him, wishing I would hear something - anything about it happening, and now that he was standing in front of me, I couldn't move or speak. Suddenly the reason I ran that first night made complete sense.

His lips twitched and he stepped forward to pick up my book and pencil. "You're very talented." He held my things out so I could take them back.