A Spring Times Kiss: An Imperial Love Prequel

Chapter Eight

That night, Isla was having a hard time sleeping. She didn't know why she had such a hard time, perhaps it was because she had found herself in a new environment. But it was going to work in her favor for her. But she didn't exactly know it yet. She didn't realize that Jamie was trying to help her. Isla didn't realize anything anymore.

She started to think about Jamie, and she didn't know if whether or not she would be able to trust him or not. Given how much she already had suffered. She wasn't sure if she could trust any man anymore.

As Isla spent some time trying to help herself sleep. She looked out the window to see the sky was growing to be darker and darker. She heard the sounds of the owls and the crickets chirping. These were all sounds that were familiar to her, but were growing louder and louder and giving her a more difficult time sleeping. Her sleeping days were numbered and she found herself staring out the window trying to sleep.

Hours have passed and Isla was finally falling asleep. She felt her eyes starting to shut a little bit and feeling her eyes drifting, but then she thought she had heard voices. Voices that were familiar to her, mostly from her past, and the same man that worked in the factory, followed by other voices that crossed her when she was young. From her father, who betrayed her mother, and then the men who had been with her mother before she died of Scarlet Fever when she was Eleven years old. She then was forced into factory work after the death of her mother and was not put in the best condition. She was working all day and was getting herself injured to a lack of factory work experience and every time she did a poor job in his work, she would only end up being punished and hurt for her actions. But she tried to remember that none of it was her fault, she was put into the work labor without having experience with anything. 

She continued to make sure she was able to live her life to the fullest after everything that happened. So when she found herself meeting Jamie, she knew that there was a light to the tunnel that she needed. Jamie had been there for her in such a short amount of time and how they had met recently, and he immediately was doing his best to look after her. She didn't understand why, she thought of him as confusing in a way. After he had said he wanted her to stay away from him. But then he is trying to help her. She didn't understand.

Isla was tossing and turning that night, she was pacing around and felt her hand shaking. Which was something that happened often most nights. She just wasn't able to sleep anymore. She didn't remember the last time when she got a full eight hours of sleep. Most nights, she was up all night. Most nights Isla had found herself spending time reading all night.  

But then Isla found herself slowly starting to wake up again. She found herself taking herself out of bed and looking out the window to see that it was still dark out. Isla then got out of her room and looked over to see that everyone was still asleep. She saw Ethel and Mabel in the same room and then saw that Jamie was in the room sleeping across from them. Isla then went downstairs and went over to the kitchen area to see the clean kitchen. Then Isla looked around to see if there were any books she looked over to see the small shelf of books. There were a few different kinds of books, from Dickens, to Mystery books and most of them were books that she had read or books that she wasn't interested in. interest.  

Isla took one of the mystery books because she wanted to see if she would be able to read a book that wasn't her favorite genre. She wanted to step outside of her comfort zone. Isla looked at one of them and immediately took interest. Isla opened the book and started reading it from the beginning. Isla had found herself reading for hours, hours on edge not realizing that the sun was rising. She didn't even bother noticing because she was reading the third book of the night.

Meanwhile, she heard footsteps coming down the stairs, but she didn't think anything of it. Until she heard a man call her name. It wasn't any man, however. She immediately knew who it was. It was Jamie.

"Isla how long have you been up?" Jamie asked, Isla gasped and shut her book closed.  

Jamie had his arms crossed and just laughed at her. Isla smiled at his laughter. She didn't think she would make a man like Jamie laugh.

"Did you get any sleep?" Jamie asked her walking over to her.

"Maybe...is two hours enough?" Isla asked,

"Absolutely not." Jamie answered, "It's far from enough." 

"I'm used to it." Isla admitted. Jamie didn't want to say anything else, because when he was in the military he never got any sleep at all. He knew he was in no position to judge her.  He then looked over as Isla pulled her hair to the side, which resulted in Jamie seeing the bruise on the back of her neck and he was stunned. He didn't want to say anything because he was worried about getting hurt or even worse having Isla hurt. He had been in many situations where he had gotten into fights for confronting people but that only had gotten him hurt, and people he knew killed and he didn't want to see that happen again. As he was watching the bruise, he listened to Mabel come down the stairs. He looked over at her speaking but didn't really listen to any of the words that she was saying.

"Was Isla up here all night?" Mabel asked finally noticing that she was there. Jamie looked at her for a moment and nodded and then started to laugh loudly.

"I was reading..." Isla said out loud then looking terrified of Mabel. Mabel looked over and Isla and didn't know what words to come out of her mouth.

"You were reading?" Mabel asked seeing all of the books that were on the ground, 

"She was reading." Jamie answered.

Mabel looked at the rest of the books and Isla started to clean all of the books up and placed them orderly so Mabel didn't have to do it later. As Isla was organizing all of the books, Jamie looked at Isla, while Mabel was staring at Jamie. Once Isla had all of the books organized, Isla stood up straight and stared at Mabel and Jamie, wondering what was next. Mabel could tell that Isla thought she had to do work around the house, but Jamie reminded her that there was nothing she could do in the house.

"Is there anything else you need from me?" Isla asked Jamie and then asked Mabel. Isla started to look around to see if there was anything that needed to be done. But Isla looked around and noticed that everything was tidied up. 

Mabel then walked off and Jamie was still in sight. He then looked at her for a moment and reminded her that his bringing her in was all about safety for her. Isla smiled and thanked him again. 

"Is there anything you want to do maybe," Jamie asked, "Anything in the city?"

"I'm supposed to be at the factory today really," Isla answered, "I am going to get into loads of trouble once they find out I'm missing..."

"Then get yourself in trouble..." Jamie claimed, "It's unsafe there anyway..." 

Isla smiled as she heard those words and she looked over to see Jamie's chuckle, which had her blushing even more. She was pleased to know that Jamie was willing to mess around with her and she could tell he truly was growing to care about her.

"I should warn you..." Jamie started, "A lot of people know me around here...from things from my past..."

"How so?" Isla's wide eyes asked Jamie curiously, she had so many questions. She had little knowledge on Jamie's past, but she had a little bit of an idea of what kind of man he used to be.

"I'll explain it to you on the way." Jamie said as he took his hand out for Isla to take, Isla looked at him and then looked over at his hand and took it and started smiling, "Because it is a long story, that is all I have to say."