Then she had it. It was Cecily Carswell, the ward of one of their old patrons at Hill School, Sir Matthew Carswell. Cecily had attended their school for two years before her guardian had deemed, she had received sufficient education and withdrawn her. Unfortunately, he had withdrawn his patronage at much the same time. Her father had been most upset about it. Mina picked up her supplies as she saw the objectionable young man tow Cecily in the direction of the inn. Closing the door discreetly behind her, she retreated into the shadowy corridor, pulling her headscarf down to obscure her features.
“You, there!” the arrogant young man hailed her. “Do you have such a thing as a private parlor for hire?” He cast his eyes around the dimly lit hallway with disdain.
“We have three,” Mina answered him calmly, gesturing their direction with her arm.
“Curtsey when you speak to me, slattern!” he fired up. “Impudence!” He turned back to the shrinking young girl, not waiting for Mina’s response. “There, now you can stop your sniveling for did I not say I would find somewhere we could take some refreshment.”
He flung open the first of the three doors and instantly recoiled. “Faugh! It reeks of vinegar in there! I vow, someone has broken a bottle of it!” He flung open the second and practically flung poor Cecily into it. “If you move before I return, I promise you will regret it, my girl,” he snarled and then was gone in a whirl of his caped riding coat.
Mina paused only for a moment with indecision. She did not like the way Cecily had flinched from her escort. What was the child doing in the company of this flashy looking youth? It looked like nothing so much as an elopement gone sour. She knew from experience that Cecily’s guardian, Sir Matthew Carswell was a stern, autocratic man. Had his ward run away with the first young buck who had made up to her? Mina did not like the look of Cecily’s companion’s face which the lamplight had illuminated briefly. He had a cruel mouth.
Stepping into the first private parlor, Mina set down her bucket and newspapers and removed her apron and headscarf. Smoothing her hair, she approached the second door and softly opened it.
“Cecily?” she said quietly and watched the young girl wheel around, tears streaked down her cheeks.
“Oh! Miss Walters,” Cecily exclaimed in a choked voice. “Is that really you?” She took a stumbling step toward Mina before pulling herself up.
“It really is,” Mina responded gravely. “You seem to be in something of a predicament.”
Cecily’s lip trembled and fresh tears spilled over. “I’ve been so wicked, Miss Walters,” she whispered. “This is a judgement on me.”
“Nonsense,” Mina replied bracingly. “But you would certainly be ill-advised to continue on your current course. Are you yet married to this gentleman?”
Cecily paled and shook her head. “No! Oh no!” she said, shivering.
“When did you leave your guardian’s protection?” From what Mina could recall, she seemed to remember that Sir Matthew’s residence was somewhere in Cornwall.
“Not two hours ago,” Cecily sobbed, and Mina deduced it was likely the longest two hours of Cecily’s life. “Though in truth I left his house for a party and then I left the party for- oh, it’s complicated!”
Mina held out her hand. “Come quickly now, child,” she said. “With me.” The girl did not even hesitate. With a faint cry, she teetered toward Mina and allowed herself to be propelled out of the private parlor and along the narrow passageway leading to the stairs.
“Quickly now!” Mina took her hand and led her up the two flights of stairs to her attic bedroom. When Cecily made to speak on reaching the first landing, Mina raised a finger to her lips to caution quiet. Cecily nodded and clung to Mina’s hand as if her life depended on it. “In here,” she murmured and shepherded the girl into her attic bedroom. “If you sit tight, I will endeavor to extricate you from this mess.” Cecily squeezed her fingers and then obediently sank down onto the bed. “Not a peep, mind,” Mina repeated. Cecily nodded, wide-eyed. “You must be as silent as the grave. As if your life depended on it,” she stressed. “Until I return for you.” Cecily nodded again, and Mina turned and made her way sedately downstairs until she reached the foot of them.
“You! Wench!” Cecily’s companion hailed her insolently.
Mina stood very straight and proper in her respectable black gown and fixed a cold eye on him. He was flinging open the doors to all the private parlor rooms. Gus stood next to him, looking perplexed. “The lady I arrived with, where is she?”
Mina regarded him steadily. He looked flushed from drink and ill-temper. She let her lip curl with disapproval and Gus stepped in hastily.
“This young gentleman’s lost his travelling companion, Mrs. Nye,” he said loudly. “Have you seen any young ladies hereabouts?”
Mina lifted her eyebrows. “I’ve seen no one,” she responded coolly.
“What?” the young man exclaimed furiously. “You saw us arrive! I saw you in the corridor—” he broke off his words now, plainly noticing the lack of apron and headscarf. “At least, I thought it was you,” he added sulkily. “Perhaps I was mistaken.”
Mina looked at Gus. “He’s been drinking,” she said coldly. “Mayhap you should ask the bar to stay the liquor where he’s concerned.”
“You bitch!” snarled the newcomer, making a wild grab for her, but Gus came solidly between them preventing contact.
“Now then, young master!” he bellowed. “Less of that! Less of that! This be a respectable woman and mistress here! She’s no replacement for the one you’ve lost!”
“What’s this?” asked a rough voice ominously and Mina watched Nye appear from the shadows, looking irritable and dangerous, in short, his usual self.
“This young fellow,” started Gus affably. “Seems to have misplaced—”
“I’ve misplaced nothing!” snapped the haughty young man, wheeling around to face Nye. “This woman—” Suddenly, he made a choking noise and Mina noticed Nye’s large hand was fastened around his throat. The young man’s face turned purple as he started clawing ineffectually at Nye’s wrist.
“My woman, do you mean?” Nye asked with quiet menace, bringing his face closer. A gurgling sound was all the other could manage by this point.
“Steady Will,” Gus cautioned, but Nye ignored him, turning to Mina.
“What is he after?”
“From what I can make out, he’s drunk and looking for a doxy,” Mina answered coolly. She shot a malicious look at the young man, but his eyes were now bulging, and his sole focus was Nye. Mina thought of frightened, harmless Cecily cowering in the attic bedroom and found she had little sympathy to spare him.
As suddenly as he had seized him, Nye thrust him from him and the other man fell to his knees, gasping for breath and tugging at his cravat.
Nye’s lips twisted with contempt. “Get out,” he enunciated and strode past him, catching Mina’s elbow and towing her across the passageway with him.
“You’re not welcome, my lad,” Mina heard Gus telling the stranger sternly. “Best take yourself and that fancy gig o’ yours and leave.”
“What were you about? Skulking there in the dark?” Nye growled, propelling her toward the staircase.
Mina raised her chin. “You never told me to go near the private parlors,” she said pertly. “You said the taproom and the cellars were out of bounds, nowhere else. I had just finished cleaning the window in the first of them, that was all.”
Nye’s gaze was piercing, and Mina felt herself color. “Then I credited you with more sense than you deserve,” he retorted gruffly, and Mina bristled all over. Though why it should bother her if William Nye thought her a fool was beyond her. She found herself opening her mouth to make a smart retort before thinking better of it. “If you don’t want to be taken for a doxy again, you’d best keep to the parlor or above stairs of an evening,” he spat. Then pushed her in the direction of the staircase and Mina watched him slam through the door into the public bar.
S
he stood rigid a moment, before turning to look out of the window onto the courtyard. The objectionable stranger was climbing back into his high perched carriage. Mina watched as he scanned the lanes and hedgerows as he wheeled back out of the yard and onto the road. He was certainly taking a much slower pace on his way out then he had on his way in. Doubtless imagining Cecily fleeing him into the night like a poor frightened little rabbit. After a few moments of waiting to make sure he had truly gone, Mina turned and made her way quickly to the kitchen to boil some water for tea. While it boiled, she retrieved her things from the first private parlor and stowed them away in the scullery and then helped cut a few slices of currant loaf which she buttered, not knowing when Cecily would last have eaten. Last of all, she took some milk, remembering that was how most of the girls at school had taken their tea. Then she stole away upstairs to join Cecily.
*
“I have fresh bread and butter for you, Cecily and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea,” Mina told her, setting the bread and butter down on a bedside table and filling the silver teapot with tea leaves and hot water.
“I declare I couldn’t eat a thing!” Cecily’s bottom lip wobbled as Mina helped her undo her pretty bonnet and took her cloak. “I still can’t believe I’m truly out of his clutches.” Her hand clasped Mina’s. “Oh miss, he must have been ever so angry,” she said, tearing up again. “His temper was the most wicked I have ever seen.” “I had thought my guardian, Sir Matthew’s temper was terrifying,” she confided artlessly. “For he grows cold as an icicle. But Mr. Brinson’s was in a wholly different league.”
“And how is it that you are acquainted with Mr Brinson?” Mina asked, hanging Cecily’s bonnet on a peg.
“Oh!” Cecily’s eyes fell. “He—he is an acquaintance of my cousin’s friend. I met him through Vanessa at a party and afterward again, we bumped into him in the park. He—he seemed so very obliging and kind then that I always looked out for him.” Her eyes fixed on Mina appealingly. “My cousin also thought him a most affable and charming person.”
“Your cousin Vanessa?”
Cecily nodded her head dolefully. “So, you see, it was not only me that was quite deceived.”
“I take it Vanessa is very young,” Mina said dryly.
“Oh no, she is nineteen, quite the same age as me,” said Cecily naively and Mina reflected that Hill school had not prepared her for the snares of fortune hunters at all.
“I take it that Sir Matthew was not aware of this connection?”
Cecily quailed and shook her head. “N-no,” she admitted. “You see, Mr. Brinton said that his reputation had been sadly soiled by some unfair rumors which meant my guardian would quite take against him, if he knew of our friendship. Vanessa agreed that it seemed most unjust.”
“So now it turns out those rumors are likely well-founded,” Mina pointed out.
Cecily’s bottom lip wobbled. “Y-yes,” she agreed, ducking her head. “Oh Miss Walters,” she gulped. “Whatever am I going to do? Sir Matthew is going to be so very angry with me!”
After some gentle but firm questioning as she poured the tea, Mina ascertained that the most Mr Brinton had subjected Cecily to had been some rough words and a little manhandling. Cecily had most imprudently allowed herself to be persuaded to sneak out of a tea party to meet with him in the garden of her unsuspecting host. She had then been bundled quite roughly into a waiting carriage and threatened with all manner of eventualities if she ‘played Mr Brinson false’.
Mina was not sure if the scoundrel had meant to actually marry Cecily or to blackmail her guardian for her quiet return, she only knew that she had to do her best to try and minimize any damage Cecily might have wrought upon her reputation. Speed was really was going to be of the essence, she thought as she watched Cecily force down a piece of bread and butter and drink a cup of milky tea. It occurred to Mina, that her old pupil had not evinced any curiosity whatsoever as to how Mina had wound up at The Merry Harlot. Such was youth, caught up only in its own toils and troubles, she thought wryly.
“I’m going to have to go back downstairs now,” Mina said firmly. “To see if I can find some conveyance to take you home.”
“Oh!” Cecily’s eyes widened. “But couldn’t I stay with you, Miss Walters?” she pleaded, looking much younger than her nineteen years.
Mina reached across and patted her hand. “Cecily, you must see that your return is imperative. If you were to remain away from home overnight without your guardian’s permission, I’m afraid your reputation would be quite ruined.”
Cecily’s lower lip wobbled. “But I would be with you,” she said. “No one could be more respectable!”
Mina sighed. “You sit here and finish your supper. I will be back shortly.” She wasn’t looking forward to this interview with Nye. Indeed, she suspected he would be most angry when he knew how she had willfully misled everyone earlier. For an instant, she remembered how he had referred to her as his woman, and the color in her cheeks deepened. She couldn’t focus on that right now. She needed to sort out this situation with Cecily.
A quick scout around downstairs for Nye was fruitless, and Mina deduced he must be in the public bar. She would have to use strategy, she thought with determination, as he had expressly forbidden her from entering the taproom. Thoughtfully, she took up the hurricane lamp from the hall and carried it out of the front door and into the yard outside.
Pausing there a moment, she lifted it above her head and then slowly made her way across the courtyard in the direction of the stables, giving everyone plenty of time to spot her out of the window. Sure enough, she had only just reached the stable entrance when she heard the door of the inn wrenched open and a hurried step on the cobbles.
Concealing her smile of triumph, she dodged into the stable and then turned to calmly face her pursuer. Sure enough, it was Nye, a thunderous frown on his face.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” he demanded as soon as he’d swung inside.
“Ah good, there you are,” she greeted him briskly. “I need your help with a matter concerning an ex-pupil of mine.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“I need to get her back to a place called Upton-Gadsby that’s at least a forty minutes from here if I can take Cecily’s word,” she explained. “It’s a matter of the utmost urgency.”
“Back to?” he repeated blankly.
“Yes. She’s here and she needs to be there.”
“Well, what the hell is she doing here?” he demanded, his voice rising with ire.
“I’m afraid there was something of a misunderstanding,” Mina said evasively.
His gaze narrowed. “Such as?”
“Can we not focus on that right now? I really do need to get her home post-haste, or she will face some rather dire repercussions.”
He huffed out a frustrated breath. “You always talk like that?” he asked.
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “I’ve not got much book-learning,” he said cryptically.
“Oh,” Mina paused. “You seem to follow my meaning just fine,” she said a trifle awkwardly. After all, would it not be a far worse thing if she talked down to him?
He shot her another straight look. “Upton-Gadsby?”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Do you know it?” He gave a short nod. “Do you have a conveyance, or could you get a hold of one?” She hesitated. “I could pay.” He lifted a brow at that. “It seems I still have a half-sovereign at my disposal,” she added boldly.
He gave no response to that, just stared into space a moment. “So, this solves the mystery of why you were accosted,” he commented dryly.
“Well, it never really made sense that I would be mistaken for a doxy,” Mina pointed out.
He narrowed his eyes at her before coming to a swift decision. “Bring her here in ten minutes.”
Mina breathed a sigh of relief. “I will need to go with her for a chaperone,” she said apologetically. “Her guardian would not be
pleased if she turned up alone.”
“Her guardian?”
“Sir Matthew Carswell. He used to be a patron of my father’s school.”
Nye looked up quickly. “Carswell?”
“Yes. You have heard of him?”
Nye’s gaze fell. “I believe he’s a Justice of the Peace,” he said with faint scorn. “And keen on sending people to the Assizes. You know him, then?”
“Not well,” Mina responded quickly, seeing the tension in his frame for all he tried to hide it. “As soon as our school hit some difficulties, he withdrew his sponsorship.”
“So then, you owe him nothing.”
Mina’s chin rose. “I’m not doing it for him, but for Cecily.”
Nye seemed to ponder on this for a moment, as he looked at her with open speculation. “Very well,” he said after seeming to weigh things up.
“Thank you,” she said with feeling. “I really am grateful, Nye—”
“Don’t be,” he interrupted her. “I want something from you in return.”
“So long as it’s not more curtains,” she answered lightly. “Then I will most happily reciprocate. I mean,” she added hastily. “I will repay in kind.”
A grim smile flickered over his face. “I knew what you meant,” he said, then slowly held out his hand.
Mina glanced down at it a moment. Did he mean to shake? She extended her own and found it enveloped in a strong grip. She promptly exerted her own, remembering what her father had taught her about firm handshakes. His eyes gleamed, and she wondered if it was with amusement or some other emotion. He held on to her hand for a beat longer than she thought was correct form, then released it, leaving her with an impression of callouses.
A Bride for the Prizefighter: A Victorian Romance Page 12