A Natural Mother [ON HOLD]

Chapter 1

 Hey guys. I decided to upload. xD

I'd just like to let you know a couple things before you read:

1) This is my first time writing a historical ficiton. I will get things wrong, and I'm begging you guys to give me suggestions and help if you notice something off about anything. Constructive criticism is strongly welcomed. :]

2) This story is going to move a lot slower than The Other One. I rushed a lot of things with that story, and I'd like to make this one longer and better. So, I'm sorry if it's slow in the beginning, but it needs to be done.

Thanks guys!

READ, COMMENT, VOTE, ENJOY! :D

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Annabelle Thatcher sat silently in her mother’s favourite chair, slowly moving back and forth on its old wooden rockers, waiting for a knock on the door of a house she no longer owned.

She was completely terrified.

Toying with the locket at her throat, she stood and took a deep, calming breath, moving to stand beside the boarded window to peek through the shutters at the dirty street.

What would happen to her now? All of her possessions, save her locket and the clothes on her back, had either been claimed by the various people her father owed or were being claimed tonight by the bank, along with the house. A night watchman would arrive shortly to sign the ownership papers on the building and essentially kick her out.

It was a tiny house, with only one floor and three small rooms in the darkest, dirtiest part of London, but it had been her home since birth and held all her happiest memories. She had no surviving family that she was aware of, and would now be forced to live on the streets.

The reality finally hit her, nearly reducing her to tears. She was past the legal age of adulthood, and because of that, she couldn’t even stay in an orphanage. Orphanages housed children; she was most definitely no longer a child. The only thing that could’ve possibly given her a child-like appearance was her tiny body, which lent her just barely five and a half feet of height. She had no idea where she’d gotten her pixie-like structure from – her mother had been rather tall for a woman, while her father had nearly cleared six feet. She had often felt like a dwarf.

The sharp rapping of knuckles on her door startled her out of her thoughts, and Belle jumped slightly before stepping to the door and cracking it open.

A short, burly man in uniform stood before her, tapping a nightstick in an impatient rhythm against his thigh. With a quick inhale for courage, she opened the door the rest of the way and moved to stand in the light.

Belle smiled gently at the watchman, who had suddenly become wide-eyed and slack-jawed. At least he wasn’t one of those awful watchmen who abused their power and enjoyed the pain of others. She’d had her fair share of those in the last month. They’d paraded through her house, sneering at her as they took away valuable pieces of her life. This one seemed better.

She gestured him into the little house with trembling hands and closed the door quietly behind him.

The man seemed to regain his senses and blushed. The ruddy red staining his cheeks struck Belle as rather comical, considering how masculine he was. As far as she could figure out, he didn’t even any reason to blush. She’d never seen a man blush before.

Then again, she hadn’t seen that many men in her life; her parents had mostly kept her in the house.

She smiled tentatively as he opened his mouth to speak, finding it suddenly difficult to stand without trembling.