Nancy was bored... mind-numbingly bored. She had been double digging the new spud bed for days and already broken the shaft of one old spade and been beaten for it. The steep mountain field was full of rocks, but if they were going to get any crops next year, the new beds had to be dug deep and the manure from their steeds mixed in and allowed to mellow over the winter. A rider had come in fast about two hours ago and her father, the new community doctor, had ridden out with him almost immediately. Her new stepmother, Mrs. Marie Hyde, had followed him out the door and then stood as if pasted to the upright. She wondered if the woman was crying again. In the fortnight since the two had been hand-fasted, Nancy had yet to see Marie do even a lick of work. Certainly this back of beyond hill farm was not likely where the fancy City girl had thought she would end up when she had married a doctor… hell it hadn’t been where Nancy had expected to end up either. But crying wouldn’t get the house cleaned, the dinner cooked, or the potato bed dug, and Nancy had learned young that her father was as fast with his fists as he was on his horse. She would have told Marie that but the woman had been told she was a servant and so treated her as such. Having seen the pattern before, Nancy knew that Marie’s honeymoon would soon come to an end, and she would learn the hard way about just who the charismatic Dr. Hyde was.
