The Story of Eve

PROLOGUE

Summer, 1858

Eve Taylor ran from the big house in pure panic. Stumbling along the way, she kept straight willing herself not to look back lest she surely be caught. Her master, William Taylor, had set his sights on her once more and this time Eve had barely been able to escape had it not been for his mortified wife, Colleen, walking in on them.
"Eve! You come back here!" William called out as he burrowed out of the house and took off after her. Eve didn't slow down. She kept running, tears staining her face as she quickly scanned a safe place to hide. She was sure William would sell her now. She'd kneed him in the groin so hard he buckled over before falling face first on the floor in his study.
She continued to run but was stopped short when she looked up only to come face to face with a large oak tree. Slamming right into it she fell back in pain.
William came up beside her and stood watching as she winced in pain. Shaking his head he kneeled down.
"See what you did? Get up and get back to the house!" Still in pain, Eve struggled up off the ground. The sleeve to her thin shirt was ripped and blood stained.
Holding her injured arm she followed him back up the road towards the house where she worked as a maid. Eve was a slave and had been her entire twenty-five years of life and escaping her master's unwanted advances had come to be her life's purpose. William turned to face her and stopped short in front of her. Eve looked up at him. He lifted her chin to access the scratches on her beautiful face. Eve prayed he didn't try anything and thankfully her prayers had been answered.
"Why do you always run? I'll not hurt you, Eve."
Eve said nothing. Her eyes instead fell to the ground and her shoeless feet. William sighed. He'd been after her since her fifteenth year. Eve's mother, Anna, had assumed it to be because she'd started her menstrual and was now able to breed which meant more money if William could sell off any children he'd sire with her. He had not wanted any other man to lay with Eve. Eve had a strange feeling it was something more. She sensed his wife Colleen felt the same way because she despised Eve to no end.
"You'll be punished for this, you know?" Eve shook her head. She wondered what the punishment would be this time. Last time she flew from his advances she'd been sent to bed with no dinner but this time she'd struck him so the punishment would be greater. She was sure Colleen would see to that.
Upon arriving at the big house, William walked Eve into the parlor where his wife stood with her hands on her dainty hips and her green eyes blazing with anger.
"Well," she started, "I sure hope you have a severe enough punishment for the wench." She shot Eve a dangerous glare. Eve kept her eyes down.
"Colleen, I'll handle this."
"I just hope so. If it were up to me she'd be on the block at this moment. But, your perverse obsession with her whatever it may be will surely forbid that." With that, Colleen stormed out of the room. William turned to her then and Eve lifted her head to look at him. He was a nice enough man but a master nonetheless.
"Anything you have to say for yourself, Eve?" Eve shook her head.
"Fine. You'll be working in the fields for a week. See if that heat will straighten your thinking some." Eve had worked the fields before coming to work in the big house. After her mother died, Colleen had her come and made her a housemaid which unbeknownst to her had delighted her husband to no end.
Eve went to walk out when William stopped her. He looked at the injured arm and then back at her.
"I'll have Dolly take a look at your arm. You're lucky I don't take a whip to you. If you would just behave things would be better." Eve wanted to mention that his idea of "behave" merely meant that she lay still and let him have his way with her. She had no right to anything, not even her body but for as long as she could she would hold out on the one thing she held precious and that was her innocence.
If she were to give it to anyone it definitely wouldn't be the man holding her captive no matter how kind he appeared to be.

Eve was setting the table for breakfast when William entered the room. Her time in the fields had been hard. Her hands had been wrapped due to them bloody from having to pick cotton from sunup to sundown and her feet were blistered and bloody due to not having any shoes in the March cold. However, her master seemed not to care about such things.
"Morning, Eve."
"Mr Taylor." Eve said coolly as she placed a plate in front of him. She noticed Colleen hadn't come downstairs.
"Is the misses okay?"
"She's not feeling well. She asks that you have Jed send for the doctor."
"Yes, sir." Eve went to leave when William grabbed her hand. Looking at them wrapped up he shook his head.
"You brought this on yourself, Eve." He said looking up into her eyes.
"I know, sir. If you'll excuse me." She removed her hands from his grip and went in search for the butler, Jedediah or as he was known "Jed." She found him outside in the stables tending to the horses.
"Morning, Jed."
Jed was a young boy when he was stolen from the motherland and sold to William's father. He worked out in the fields but when William's father died, William bought him on as the butler. Jed smiled upon seeing Eve.
"Morning, Eve. Beautiful day whenever I'm gifted with your beautiful presence." Eve smiled. Looking down at her blistered feet and wrapped hands he frowned.
"Disobeying the master again, are we?" He asked pointedly.
"Unfortunately."
"What'd you do this time?" Jed knew of William's advances and praised Eve for sticking to her guns.
"I kneed him in the groin." Jed winced.
"Ouch! Be glad he sent you in the fields. Had it been up to Colleen you'd be headed to Florida by now." Eve knew he was right. With his obsession with her, came  William's forbidence that Eve ever be sold.
"Surely you didn't come to see an old goose like me for leisure. Something wrong?"
"Yes. Colleen has taken ill and wishes you to seek the doctor." Jed nodded as he continued to brush the mare's cinnamon hair.
"When does she never take sick?" They shared a laugh before Eve said goodbye and started for the house. She braced herself for yet another day with William and prayed she as she normally did that whoever watched her from above gave her strength along with the prayer that she would soon be free of him for good.

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