Disclaimer: …Oh, wait. I own everything here. Well, this is new! (So used to Fan Fiction…)

Author’s Note: ’Sup? Welcome to my Fiction Press debut! This is, um, historical fiction/romance. It’s, uh, based on real events in history, mainly the American Revolution. Of course, all characters I focus on are created by me. There will be a few familiar names mentioned (George Washington, as an example), but that just comes with the package—I’m not trying to offend anyone with any personal views of how the revolution came about. So…yeah.

Warning: It’s…a really crappy title! :D

Quick Author Babble: (singing) I’m so excited…I feel happy…I have so many stories to write…Oh, crap…

Two For Tea

Chapter 1: A Day Out

When Mary Johnson first met him, she was eight years old. It was her birthday—her favourite day of all the year, for she was taken out for the whole day to go outside and see the town, which happened rarely, if never. It was important that little Mary be kept safe, for she was the daughter of a very rich and successful lord and general of the American army, Thomas Johnson. They lived in a big, almost palace-like mansion a good ways away from town, but not too far as to make it a long journey just to get groceries. They lived on top of a hill and had a grand, beautiful garden at the back that Mary liked to walk through just to clear her head, for she loved flowers and nature and anything of the like.

“Well, princess?” asked her butler—or more like personal assistant—Wentworth, as he sat in the seat in front of her in the horse-drawn carriage. “Where would you like to go first? The bakery? The bookstore? The flower shop?”

Mary turned to him. Everyone at home usually called her “princess” even though she wasn’t one. To them, she was their little princess, for she was so beautiful even in her youth—she had pale skin, almost white, and short, dark hair, wavy and shiny. She had the most beautiful eyes, so deep a brown that they were almost black, with long, lovely eyelashes. Unfortunately, Mary was known for her anti-sociality, and mostly spent her free time by herself, so there were few who could truly admonish her beauty without being shooed away.

“I think I will just wander the streets to begin with,” she said coolly, and Wentworth, already used to this behaviour, nodded.

“Yes, I suppose you can get a good look at everything before making a choice,” he replied, but Mary said nothing back. Making conversation seemed pointless to her.

xXx

“Do you need help getting down, milady?” Wentworth asked, stepping down from the carriage first, looking at Mary inquisitively.

“I think I can handle taking a few steps, Wentworth,” she replied, her voice slightly tinted with annoyance, “but thank you.” It was quite obvious she didn’t mean it, but Wentworth just nodded with a good-natured smile, accustomed to the abuse.

Mary picked up her skirts and allowed her expensive, gold-sequined shoes to touch the muddy road. They were pearly white, let alone made of scant fabric—the dirt would never come out.

“Oh, Miss Johnson!” gasped Wentworth, appalled. “Your new shoes! What a shame.”

“We could always buy new ones,” Mary said, indifferent. She had at least fifty pairs at home. She couldn’t care less about what happened to one of them.

“Well…I suppose.” Wentworth sighed and shook his head. He could never understand what went on in that child’s head. He could put up with her coldness, but her materialistic view of money made him angry. Many people were working themselves nearly to death just to save their family from starvation, and here was this fortunate child, who’d never even had to lift a finger to get anything she could ever want, or even dream of, wasting away precious dollars that could help dozens of people survive. What made him even more furious was that she would never learn that money should be used carefully, for she will live with her father until she turned sixteen or older, in which case she’d be married off to an equally wealthy, if not wealthier, suitor.

“Come along, Wentworth,” Mary ordered, getting ahead of him. “We have a town waiting.”

“Of course, princess,” remarked her butler. The two wandered through town until Wentworth stopped her. “Why, look Mary—” he began, but Mary interrupted him.

“You must not call me by name. It is incredibly inappropriate to do so.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” Startled by his own ignorance, Wentworth bowed his head. He was so used to calling her “Mary” because he’d taken care of her even when she was a mere infant. Only recently had she started up with this formality business.

“In any case, what were you so excited about?” she asked, and Wentworth smiled at her curiosity. Though his mistress didn’t show it, he knew her well enough to know when she was interested.

“A hair salon, milady,” he replied, pointing at a small building beside them. It was old and a bit crumbly, but still had wonderful architecture; there was a sign above in fancy writing saying, “Victoria’s Hair Salon: Modern Styles for the Modern Lady.”

“Are you suggesting I need a haircut, Wentworth?” She sounded indignant, perhaps a little insulted.

“Quite the opposite, actually. It just reminded me…did your mother not want you to grow out your hair?”

“Oh, not this again! What Mummy wants has nothing to do with me. Besides, long hair is so impractical. I wouldn’t know what to do with it all.”

“You could tie it up,” Wentworth offered, “or wear a powdered wig.” Powdered wigs were quite the fashion these days. You could not truly be called handsome without an impressive hairpiece upon your scalp.

Mary scrunched up her face, and for once she actually did look like an eight-year-old girl.

“Oh, powdered wigs are for royalty and old people,” she remarked, “and tying up my hair is such a bother.”

“But you have such nice hair, madam,” Wentworth commented innocently, admonishing the dark, lustrous locks. Most girls would kill for such gorgeous hair.

“Hm.” She agreed with a curt nod, knowing the power of her own beauty. “Perhaps when I’m older and it’s more that style that I’ll start growing it out.”

“Goodness, princess, if you want long hair by that time, you’ll need to start growing it out soon!” the always honest butler pointed out. “Hair doesn’t grow long overnight!”

“It doesn’t?” Even though Mary was very intelligent for her age, sometimes she lacked common knowledge.

“No, my dear. You must wait awhile, and bit by bit, your hair will grow,” Wentworth explained. “If you want it very long, you must wait a few years.”

Mary nodded as if to absorb the information, then continued walking. Wentworth took a moment to ponder before following. She was a very fascinating child indeed.

xXx

“Oh, aren’t these charming, miss?” Wentworth stopped at yet another small store along the way. It was a little jewellery shop, and indeed one of the highest-quality ones in America. He held up two silver earrings, and in both was a shimmering sapphire, clearly real and practically priceless. So beautiful were they that any person, man or woman, would be forced to stop and stare in jealousy. But Mary merely brushed them aside with a bored look. Wentworth sighed and put them back in their cushiony, velvet box. After they’d visited the bookstore, sniffed the freshly picked roses in the flower shop, and taken a quick bite at the bakery, Mary had completely lost interest in everything. She couldn’t care less if he had taken her to the most luxurious clothing shop in town or the best jewellery store in the country. He sent an apologetic look towards the shop owner, a withering old man with long, white whiskers that almost reached the ground with his back bent, and his assistant, a rather stout woman with frizzy, dirty blond hair and slate grey eyes. They both looked severely offended, and had already been upset by the wealthy girl’s disdainful expression. He sighed and turned towards her. “Perhaps we should go, princess. It doesn’t appear that you will be entertained by anything here.”

“Thank goodness,” Mary sighed, a little too loudly. “I thought I would die of boredom. I don’t know why you forced me to come into such a dismal place anyway.”

The shop owner raised his cane, now completely insulted. His assistant held him back, but not very convincingly, for she looked like she wanted to give Mary a good wallop as well. Wentworth pretended he had not seen and carefully let Mary exit ahead of him, so that she wouldn’t have a chance to be harmed. He heard hushed voices behind him.

“What an awful child,” whispered the assistant, but still loudly enough so that Wentworth’s hearing could pick it up. “Whose daughter is she? She couldn’t have been that old man’s. He was talking to her like she was his superior, using words like ‘madam’ and ‘milady’.”

“Oh, don’t be silly now,” replied the shop owner. “That old man’s name is Wentworth. He works for Lord Johnson, the wealthy general who lives in that giant mansion on top of the hill. That girl would be his daughter, Mary. She’s beautiful and very fortunate indeed, but her heart is as cold as ice. She’s a positively dreadful child.”

Wentworth exited the shop, closing the door with a rough bang. Gossip was everywhere nowadays, and Mary, though almost always quiet and minding of her own business, could not help but be the target of such chatty people, for in some ways, her outstanding appearance was her weakness.

“Hmm…I wonder where she shall go next,” Wentworth said, tapping his chin, trying to get his mind off such dark matters. “Would you like to stop by the park? Or maybe you want some ice—”

“I heard what they said, Wentworth.” Mary cut across him, sounding agitated. “There’s no need to pretend.”

Wentworth looked at her, and when he saw her, trying desperately to camouflage how hurt she was, he raised his gloved hand to his face and started to nervously twist the ends of his greying moustache. He always did that when he felt uncomfortable or overwhelmed.

“You know, princess, those people know absolutely nothing about you, and that’s what makes them think it is all right to say those things. Pay them no heed.” But Mary still looked troubled, and Wentworth knew he hadn’t heard the end of this subject. When he noticed more passers-by pointing at the little girl and whispering, he decided it was time to head home. “Come, now. I believe now is a good time to depart.”

xXx

As the pair was walking back towards the carriage, Mary’s eyes constantly drifted downward in depression. Wentworth said nothing about it, for, despite him being rather like a fatherly figure to her, he trusted that Lord Johnson would take care of it when they got back home.

Yet, as they continued onward, the silence was broken by the loud, terrifying sound of the smashing of a bottle. Wentworth, by reflex, put a protective arm around the small girl beside him.

“Whaddya think I am, stupid?!” a man standing outside of the local bar took a few stumbling steps forward onto the road. He was in the worst state—his clothes were very disorderly with his sleeves ripped up and not tucked in, his stockings with gaping holes, and the soles of his shoes flopping about, showing his big toes. He looked unshaven and his speech was slurred, and Wentworth could almost smell the alcoholic scent coming from across the street. “You think you can get away…get away with this?! No! No, sir! You…you people, trying to trick me out of my whiskey! This won’t…you all…you’ll all go to hell!”

Wentworth pulled a face in disgust. It was a drunk—an unclean, impolite drunk, at that. He had no sympathy for such people, who left all responsibility at the bottom of their mugs.

“Perhaps we should go another way,” he proposed, and he took Mary’s hand, for he was sure that the drunkard would eventually notice the eye-catching girl and make a scene. But the only way around, he noticed, was down a dark alleyway. Now, Wentworth usually did not place his faith on dark alleyways, but that day, on a late afternoon, he decided he must. After all, he could see no people along the way, and he most certainly didn’t want to run into the alcoholic man, so he hid Mary behind him and ran for it.

“Wentworth, you don’t seem to be acting like the most regal butler at the moment,” Mary commented, but Wentworth dismissed her remark with a “ssh!” He knew he would get in deep trouble for that later, but it was better safe than sorry.

They crept through the dark alley. Wentworth’s heart was beating fast as he looked around. Even Mary felt a little nervous, giving a small squeeze to the old man’s hand. They were near the end now, and nothing seemed to pose a threat, so Wentworth automatically assumed they were in the clear, when suddenly his foot hit something with a soft thump. He froze. His heart stopped. Mary was paralyzed behind him. All of time seemed to come to a screeching halt as the thing he had hit gave a loud, human groan.

“Run, Mary, run!” cried the butler, losing all manners and train of thought as adrenaline raced through his body. He had been so terribly stupid. How could he have possibly thought a dark alley was an option? He shoved Mary roughly to get her going, but the young girl didn’t obey and instead walked past him almost coolly, kneeling down on the ground. Her sharp, brown eyes had noticed something. “Mary, I swear, if you refuse to move, I will—”

“Oh, calm down, Wentworth. It’s just a boy.” At those words, Wentworth’s heart calmed to its regular beat and he turned back to face the body. Indeed, after his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see the small form before him. The boy was dressed in ragged clothes and covered in dirt. He had a relatively small form—he couldn’t possibly have been more than ten years old. Wentworth leaned over him, rubbing his greying moustache while he checked his pulse.

“He is alive,” he stated matter-of-factly, “but he appears to be unconscious.”

“What do we do?” asked Mary, sounding a little more curious than usual at the new find. Usually the yearly day trips followed the same patterns and were dull and mundane. This was welcomingly new. “Leave him here?”

Wentworth considered. Lord Johnson wouldn’t be pleased if he brought back another mouth to feed, but he couldn’t leave a clearly injured child in the gutter.

“No,” he responded calmly, “we should take him with us. Your father will decide what to do with him.”

“Fine, as long as I don’t have to play with him,” Mary muttered, apparently losing all interest in the escapade now that she knew she would see him more often. Wentworth relinquished a sigh as he scooped the young boy up in his arms—which was actually quite a strain, for the boy was quite grown, and he quite old—fighting the urge to lecture her on selfishness and priorities, but alas, he had not the authority to do so.

“Come, mistress,” he said with his usual levelled voice. “Let us get back to the carriage. I promise we shall take no more suspicious shortcuts.” And with that they departed, not knowing that the child they were now bringing home would change the course of their entire lives.

Gasp! Dramatic ending! Yeah, a little foreshadowing on my part. I usually don’t bother to flirt with that specific element, but this time I couldn’t resist. It’s the introduction, give me a break.

Anyway, some information you should know about this story: Yes, historical fiction—a very fragile genre indeed, which is probably why I’m so intrigued by it. Now, if you’re not interested in all that history and stuff, don’t worry about it! I swear, there’s a reason it’s fiction and not hardcore history—to not bore people to death. Historical fiction is an interesting, fun way to pick up facts about the good ol’ days without killing yourself with a big, heavy textbook from school. Trust me, I should know—I love the stuff. Of course, I love all genres in my own way, but…that’s just because I’m a freak.

If you don’t know when the American Revolution took place, it began in 1776, when most of this story will take place. Currently, we’re in the year 1770-1771. If you are hardcore history, I suggest 1776 by David McCullough. Praise to the book that makes even the most boring situations come alive!

The end of my debut…Boo, it was so exciting…

Read and review!

See ya!