A Bride for the Prizefighter: A Victorian Romance

by Alice Coldbreath

  “Of how we are going to conduct ourselves within this marriage,” she elaborated carefully. “You have kindly made me a space in your inn. Am I to take it, that my activities are to be confined to this area?”

  He jutted out his chin. “You are.”

  “I see.” She hesitated, reluctant to break their truce. Embarrassingly, she chose that moment to remember how she had screamed in his face like a banshee. “Yes, I quite see,” she added awkwardly.

  He breathed out noisily. “I married you to get my hands on some property that was mine by right,” he said starkly. “It was promised me and Faris did not honor that promise. I thought—” he broke off frustratedly. “What I can’t figure out is why you did it?”

  “Me?” She paused, trying to think of a delicate way to say she was destitute and had little choice in the matter. Words failed her, so she decided to go with the unvarnished truth. “My father died last week,” she said bluntly. “I was left alone in the world with a lot of debts to settle.” She took a deep breath. “He ran a small school in Bath, but it had been struggling these past few years. My father’s health was such…” she sighed. “He left just enough to cover our bills but no further expenses.” She glanced at Nye, but his expression gave nothing away. “I taught at the school too, but I could not secure another teaching post, though I’ve been trying for months,” she confessed in a rush.

  “You’re a schoolteacher?” he bit out at last, with a disbelieving look.

  Mina nodded. “I had hoped perhaps to find work as a governess, but as the school failed, all our sponsors fell away. None of them replied to my letters.” She swallowed. “I was desperate,” she admitted.

  “You must have been,” he replied with faint bitterness.

  It occurred to her belatedly that she had perhaps been rather tactless. Ah well, in for a penny; in for a pound. “Have you been married before?” she blurted and then colored hotly.

  “No,” he said grimly.

  “So… all these lovely things,” she swallowed. “Must have belonged to your mother then?”

  He regarded her in silence a moment. “Is that a problem for you?” he asked and something in the tone of his voice made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

  “Of course not!” His expression still closed off, he made no reply, just straightened up as though to take his leave.

  “Nye!” she said quickly and watched him stiffen. “I very much appreciate what you have done here,” she said painstakingly. “Making room for me, I mean.”

  His eyes held hers for an instant, then abruptly he swung around and made for the door. Mina collapsed back into her chair, closing her eyes an instant. My God, why was it so difficult to speak to that man? Hearing the door close firmly behind him, she opened her eyes again and stared into space. And how was she supposed to get through the rest of her married life with him?

  True to his word, Nye reappeared an hour later with a bearded man who looked vaguely familiar, carrying a large mahogany dining table with fluted legs. The ginger bearded man tugged his cap at her and stared as though astonished to see the transformation that had taken place in the room. Mina, who was sat repairing the rips and tears in her petticoats from her misadventure on the cliffs the day before, hurriedly dropped them out of view down the side of the sofa.

  They trooped out, only to re-enter carrying a set of eight matching chairs with decorative backs and seats of muted gold-colored fabric which put the previous chairs to shame. They tucked these under the table and left again without any more ado. Mina drifting over to examine the table saw it had a winding mechanism underneath to expand it even further if necessary. It was lucky the parlor bar was such a large room and could easily accommodate so large a piece of furniture. Stealthily, she made her way to the kitchen to see if she could find the tin of furniture polish to buff it up to a shine.

  Edna was just closing the door to the oven. “Oh, Mrs. Nye,” she said. “I meant to bring you another pot of tea, but time has quite slipped away from me.”

  Mina, glancing around the room, saw the profusion of pots and pans and the way Edna surreptitiously swiped at her beaded forehead with the apron. “I’m not surprised Edna, you could clearly do with more hands in here. What time do you serve your roast mutton?”

  Edna, who had visibly bristled, slumped against the table where she had a huge pile of peeled carrots and three large cabbages. “It gets served when it’s done,” she said grimly. “I can’t be held accountable to time, not when I’m on me own.”

  “Is Ivy serving at bar?” Mina asked absently as she picked up an apron and started to tie it over her dress.

  “Mrs Nye, whatever are you doing? You heard what Master Nye said—”

  “That’s just nonsense, Edna,” Mina said briskly. “I can’t be sat daintily in the parlor while you slave away here by yourself.” She reached for a knife and began chopping up the carrots. “Is that water boiling for these?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’m sure you have the meat in hand. Allow me to prepare the vegetables.”

  Edna hesitated. “I put the meat and potatoes on to roast in the bread oven before church, so they’re almost done.”

  “Excellent, then I think you should probably make the batter from the hot fat and the gravy from the juices. Is that not so?”

  Edna’s harried expression relaxed a little. “Well, but—if you’re sure?”

  “Certainly, I’m sure.” Mina sent her a calm look of assurance and Edna scurried into the scullery to check the oven.

  The next two hours flew. She chopped, boiled, simmered, wrestled with the kitchen range and together with Edna plated and bowled up at least thirty roast dinners to be served. Edna ran back and forth from the kitchen while Mina remained where she was intently focused on the task in hand. The kitchen door swung open and closed a few times, but Mina could not have said who came in and out. Edna left her stirring the gravy or carving the joints of roasted meat onto the plates. By the time all the food was served, Mina was piling up the pots and pans and carrying them through to the large sink in the scullery.

  Edna returned, looking red-faced and weary. “Those two’s ours,” she said, gesturing to the last two plates of food remaining on the cleared table.

  “Shall we eat now or after washing up?” Mina asked, thinking of the overflowing piles of tins and trays.

  “Eat now,” Edna said grimly. “I’ll have to go and collect all the emptied plates for washing in a bit.” She moved toward one of the cupboards and drew out a tablecloth. “If you’ll just give me a moment to lay your table, Mrs. Nye—”

  “I shall take my dinner at the kitchen table with you, Edna.”

  “Mrs. Nye—”

  “I do not care to sit alone on a Sunday, Edna,” she said quietly. “I assure you; I will sit in the parlor by myself for the rest of the week.”

  That gave Edna pause, and after a moment, she inclined her head and went to fetch them cutlery. “I must admit, after cooking it, I seldom have an appetite,” Edna said as they took their seats.

  “Small wonder. You’re probably exhausted,” Mina commented. “I don’t understand how they take their meals here in the taproom. Surely at some point, people would have sat at the tables in the parlor bar?”

  Edna nodded. “Before my time, they did. Back in the days of Jacob Nye this place was crawling with folk. Two, three times as many as are here today. There used to be four barmaids and four kitchen maids in those days.”

  “Good grief, really? So extensive a staff?”

  “Six stable hands too,” Edna said, nodding. “You see, the stagecoaches used to stop here to change their horses here on the way to Exeter.”

  Mina paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “I noticed the stables were large,” she admitted. “So, they used to house teams of horses here?”

  Edna nodded. “Sometimes as many as twenty-four horses at a time.”

  “Why do they not stop here now? The stagecoaches, I mean?”

>   Edna’s gaze dropped. “Couldn’t say, I’m sure.”

  Mina frowned. “The patrons here,” she said hesitantly, remembering the motley assortment gathered there the night she was wed. “Are they village folk?”

  Again, Edna looked evasive. “A few maybe,” she said—blandly. “But there’s a tavern set in the heart of the village. The Ship, it’s called. The villagers prefer that one. It’s not so far for them to walk and—er the reputation is more… wholesome.”

  “I see,” Mina said thoughtfully. So, The Harlot was frequented by unsavory types. It was no more than she had suspected. “The—er—night I arrived,” she added. “There appeared to be some form of bare-knuckle boxing match taking place in the courtyard.”

  Edna pressed her lips together. “Master Nye is a champion from ‘round these parts,” she said with a fleeting look at Mina’s startled face. Edna sighed and shook her head. “He’s fought bouts in Exeter and London too. Prizefighting, they calls it. A nasty, rough business it is and brings a nasty, rough crowd with it.”

  Recalling the assortment of people gathered in The Harlot that night, Mina could not help but secretly agree. “If he’s a champion,” Mina said slowly. “Maybe that is why he does not devote more energy in to making this place a successful coaching inn?”

  “Mebbe.” Edna did not look convinced.

  Mina chewed the last of her mutton and swallowed. “A very tasty gravy, that,” she said. “Do you always serve the battered pudding on the same plate? We always used to have it with gravy as an entrée.”

  Edna snorted. “It’s all served on one plate here. Plate, bowl, whatever comes to hand.”

  Mina nodded. “Do you have any diners in the small private parlor rooms on a Sunday?”

  “Oh yes,” Edna agreed. “All three of ‘em usually. They just has the same as what’s served in the public bar though.” She shrugged. “I try to make sure they all gets matching plates, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “Well, that’s certainly understandable all things considered.” Mina rose to go and fetch the pail from the scullery.

  “What you doing of now, Mrs. Nye?” Edna asked in alarm. “You should let your food digest a while by lying on your sofa.”

  “I’m going to fill the copper, so we have hot water for the pots and pans.”

  Edna jumped out of her chair. “If Master Nye sees you out there working the pump, it’s my head he’ll scalp for it.”

  Mina turned in the doorway. “Very well,” she conceded. “Though you’ve still got to go and collect all the plates,” she pointed out.

  “I’m used to it,” Edna said dourly. “I’ll fetch the water.” She paused. “If you’re truly not ready to retire to your parlor, then you could grate some soap shavings for doing the dishes.”

  “Yes of course,” Mina said and crossed the room to search the cupboards for a grater.

  It took two of them an hour, stood side by side at the huge scullery sink to wash the pots and plates. They had to replace the dishwater several times and boil the copper again before they were done. By the time Mina took herself off to bed, she was sure she would sleep like a baby.

  Alas, it was not to be. Again, she woke in the early hours to strange noises outside the inn. She lay a moment listening to the rumble and drag across the cobbles. Then she threw back her blankets and crossed to the window. For a moment, she could have sworn she saw two flickering lights amidst the darkness outside, but even as she craned her eyes to focus on them, they went out and all went quiet. She stood there a moment, silent and still, waiting and watching, but nothing happened. Frowning, Mina returned to bed and when rain started pelting against her window an hour later, she finally fell asleep.

  8

  Mina was brushing crumbs from her skirts after her toast the next morning, when Nye appeared in the doorway of the kitchen and gave her a meaningful look.

  “Good morning,” she said brightly.

  “Parlor,” he replied abruptly. “Why aren’t you in it?” Edna hastily retreated into the scullery.

  Mina eyed him warily. “It seems foolish to lay that large table for just one person to eat a slice of toast,” she answered, drawing herself up to her full height. He looked unimpressed. Admittedly, she did not reach further than his shoulder.

  “I’ve got something to occupy you today,” he replied darkly. “You sew?”

  “Yes,” Mina admitted. “As a matter of fact, I was going to start repairing my dress today.”

  “I’ve got another project in mind,” he said, taking her elbow and steering her out of the kitchen into the passageway.

  Mina stole a sideways look at him. “What is it?”

  “You’ll see.” He opened the parlor door and guided her inside.

  Mina saw at once there was a quantity of blue velvet fabric piled up on the dining table. She looked at it and then back at Nye questioningly.

  “It’s curtains,” he said. “You need to alter them.”

  “For in here?” She glanced over at the windows.

  “No,” he said. “For the bedroom.”

  “For my bedroom?” she asked in surprise, glancing critically at the heavy blue fabric. “They don’t really look like bedroom curtains. I would have thought a floral print—”

  “For the bedroom,” he said flatly. “I’ll have a brass curtain rod put up in there in this morning.”

  “Oh.” On the whole, Mina felt markedly unenthusiastic about the task. She had always liked creating new things from scratch, alteration projects not so much. “Are they lined?” she asked, flipping over the blue velvet, and finding the yellow silk lining. “They look expensive.” She glanced at him quizzically. “Were they hanging in another room?”

  He didn’t deign to answer this, just walked back to the door. Before opening it, he looked back over his shoulder at her. “I want no more standing at windows in the early hours, Mina,” he said with a strange tension running through his words.

  Mina almost gasped. “But how did you—?”

  “I don’t sleep,” he said succinctly. “So, I see everything. Remember that.”

  “You don’t sleep?” Mina repeated doubtfully, but he had already wrenched the door open and was striding off. She frowned as she took up the workbox to extract a tape measure and tailor’s chalk. These curtains were long and luxurious. It seemed frankly a crime to cut them down sufficiently for the attic room window. She would be practically hacking them in half! She bit her lip, wishing she could hang them in this room where they would be much better suited.

  How tiresome of Nye to insist she have them in the attic bedroom! He must have spotted her stood there, staring out in her white nightgown. But why did he have to make it an issue, she wondered? If he had problems sleeping surely, he should sympathize! She mounted the steps up to the attic, deep in thought. She had finished with the tape measure when the two men from earlier came sheepishly into the room with tools to put up the curtain rail.

  “Mrs. Nye,” they murmured in unison, looking anywhere but at her.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell them to have a care in her room, but glancing around the bare attic bedroom, she suddenly realized how foolish that would be. There was truly little here to show it was even her room. Instead she nodded to them briskly and left them to it.

  She spent the next few hours ill-temperedly altering curtains, one of her least favorite tasks. In truth, she had only ever done it once before, but this fabric was a good deal more difficult to work with. Edna gave her the use of a flat iron and trivet from the scullery to press the material, but she had to be very careful indeed for she was not used to dealing with quantities of velvet and silk which required more gentle care than the cottons or linens she was used to working with.

  A knock on the door before lunch turned out to be Gus Hopkirk who ambled in with another bunch of wildflowers for her. This brightened her mood somewhat, though she had no vase to put them in. In the kitchen, she discovered a pretty blue jug for this purpose and th
en returned to place them in the center of the mahogany table. To her surprise, Gus was still waiting for her in the parlor. She offered him a cup of tea and he took the pipe out of his mouth with an expression of pleasant surprise.

  “That would be very nice of you, Mrs. Nye,” he said affably. “Very nice indeed.” She gestured to him to take an armchair, though after gazing at its upholstery and then down at his dark brown breeches he shook his head. “I’ll take a wooden chair, Mrs. Nye,” he said firmly and retrieved one of the few that had remained from a dark corner.

  “Do you mind if I return to my curtains?” Mina asked after pouring the tea. “Only Nye insists they are to be finished today and—”

  “To be sure, Mrs. Nye,” he said comfortably, forestalling her. “I’ll not hold you back from your woman’s work.” Mina sat back up to the dining table and once more started pinning up hems. So unpalatable was the idea of wasting any of the fabric, that she had determined to make two sets of curtains from the original pair. The second pair she would give to Edna, whose window also faced the courtyard, though she had never mentioned being troubled by strange sounds in the night.

  “How be you finding life at The Harlot, Mrs. Nye?” Gus asked before taking a noisy slurp of his tea.

  “Oh, I’m finding my way,” Mina answered lightly.

  “Heard you found your way down to the beach the other day,” he commented, and Mina cast him a sharp look. His round blue eyes met hers with a twinkle in their depths.

  “Yes,” she agreed after a pause that was a little too long. “I’m afraid the route I took was somewhat precipitous. Nye was forced to come to my rescue. But I’m sure I will find a more sedate path at some point.”

  “You’re fond of the sea, then?”

  “That was the first time I’ve ever seen it,” Mina admitted.

  Gus looked shocked. “Well fancy that!” he exclaimed roundly, setting down his cup in its saucer with a clatter. “Never seen the sea before! I can scarcely credit it.”

  “You were born and bred here I take it?”

  “That I was not,” he admitted. “I hail from Norfolk parts by rights, but I been here some ten years or so.”