Feeling strangely winded by the experience, Mina turned back hurriedly for the inn. She rubbed her own palm as she mounted the stairs, remembering his knuckles had been bloody the first night she had met him.
“It’s all going to be fine,” she told Cecily.
“You still have it!” Cecily exclaimed, turning from the dresser excitedly. “The little china dog I bought you for a keepsake!”
“Of course,” Mina replied, remembering how mercurial Cecily’s temperament could be.
“Do you remember what we called it?”
“I’m afraid not,” she admitted, reaching for Cecily’s bonnet and cloak.
“Lulu,” Cecily supplied happily. She kept up a happy and constant prattle for the next ten minutes without once asking Mina what she had been doing in the three years since last they met. Mina led her down the stairs to the stables, Cecily talking nineteen to the dozen about her fellow ex-pupils and questioning if Mina had kept up with any of them. “Did you hear?” she asked as Mina helped her up into the unassuming black coach that waited for them. “That Polly married a curate. A curate?” she repeated, looking around, her eyes very wide. “Can you imagine?”
“I did hear,” Mina admitted. “Lucy Williams wrote to me a couple of times and she was a bridesmaid if I remember correctly.”
“Lucy was?” Cecily cried in surprise. “How extraordinary! They were never terribly close in school. Did she tell you any particulars? Polly always used to say she would only marry if she were permitted to wear satin, orange blossom, and pearls. Do you remember? I doubt a clergyman would allow such extravagance in his spouse.”
Mina glanced up at Nye, who was sat impassively in the driver’s seat. He cocked an eye at her. “You sure you wouldn’t rather sit up here?” he asked dryly.
Mina sent him a quelling look as she followed Cecily into the carriage. It was true, Cecily was rather voluble, but she had a good heart, nonetheless.
The journey passed quickly, and Cecily’s loquaciousness was unabating until they arrived in the vicinity of her guardian’s property, then she began to fidget nervously. “You will come in with me, Miss Walters, won’t you?” she asked, turning her eyes on Mina in mute appeal.
“Of course.”
“Oh dear,” Cecily faltered. “Whatever shall I say to Sir Matthew? He’s sure to be much put out.”
“I’m afraid he will,” Mina agreed gravely. “Anyone would be Cecily, but I’m sure his most uppermost concern will be your welfare and reputation.”
Cecily bit her lip and nodded but was inclined to be tearful once again. “I wish I’d never met him!” she wept into her handkerchief. “Mr. Brison,” she added, looking up. “Not Sir Matthew. How shocking,” she reflected. “That such a fair face could disguise so vicious a nature,” she shuddered. “Why, it’s just like your tale about that wicked young gambler who haunted that highwayman,” she observed, surprising Mina a good deal. “Do you remember how his well-molded lips concealed his snarling predatory sneer?”
Mina blushed at the recollection of her florid prose. “He looked to me,” she said aloud. “Like he would run to corpulency in his middle age and likely suffer from the gout.”
Cecily’s mouth fell open. “No, really?” she breathed in horror. “Do you think so?”
“That type so often does,” Mina observed impassively, rightly judging this assessment would cause the last of Mr. Brinson’s glamor to fade forever.
“How hideous,” Cecil gasped. “Apparently, that curate Polly married is so unworldly that he often forgets to take his meals, unless he is prompted. Fancy that!”
“He must be the scholastic type,” Mina agreed. “My own father was rather like that.” She turned to look at Cecily to see if that prompted even a question as to her old headmaster’s whereabouts, but Cecily just smiled vaguely.
“I still could not marry a clergyman though,” she responded, her mind clearly elsewhere. “Not even if he was practically a saint!”
10
Sir Matthew was a lean man in his late thirties with a hawk-like face and shrewd pale eyes. He was stiff with outrage by the incoherent and tearful tale his charge laid before him. Mina was obliged to both remind Sir Matthew of their previous acquaintance and at times to make sense of Cecily’s tale which was interspersed with bursts of violent weeping and self-recriminations.
He was inclined to be accusatory rather than forgiving and practically demanded that Cecily admit herself complicit to the elopement plot instead of being forced into the carriage.
“You are not at the bench now, my dear sir!” Mina had been forced to interrupt at one point when his railings had reduced Cecily to a gibbering wreck. “If I might suggest you would be better employed elsewhere than in these pointless recriminations.”
He had drawn himself up very tall at this, his nostrils quivering. “Am I to understand, Miss Walters—” he started cuttingly.
“It’s Mrs. Nye now,” she corrected him in a steely tone. “And I’m afraid I must insist on the immediate sending of a card to Cecily’s hostess otherwise, my efforts will all have been for naught. You must have your footman deliver it without delay.”
“A card?” he snapped, his gaze darting from Mina to Cecily and back again.
“A card,” she confirmed. “Explaining Cecily felt unwell and went out to the garden in the hope the fresh air would revive her but was sadly unfit for company and obliged to return home. Perhaps Cecily could add a postscript note, apologizing for not saying her goodbyes before she left?”
Sir Matthew’s lips pursed a moment as he considered this and directed a piercing look at her. “You think of everything,” he said with a curl of his lips. “And seem to possess what is to be hoped is a rare talent for forging excuses, Mrs. Nye,” he said dryly. “One which I am not altogether sure I approve of.”
Mina inclined her head. “You may not approve, but might I suggest that Cecily’s reputation would greatly benefit from it at this present time?”
He stood very still for a moment and then strode around his desk, whipping out both silver pen and card. “Compose yourself!” he shot at Cecily who was propped against the wall, her face streaked with tears. “You will come and add a postscript when I am done with these few lines.”
“I couldn’t!” moaned Cecily. “My hand is trembling like a leaf!”
“You will come and write it, you little fool!” he flared up. “To prove you are indeed safe and sound at home and not elsewhere! That was the point, was it not?” he directed at Mina. She nodded slightly. “How is your father, by the way?” he asked, stepping back from the desk and gesturing to Cecily to approach. Cecily complied, though she dragged her feet over it and took the pen from him with a large sniff.
“He is dead, Sir Matthew. Some twelve days now,” Mina said quietly.
Cecily’s hand flew to her mouth and she almost dropped the pen. “Oh, but you never said!”
Mina managed to stop herself from pointing out she had never asked. “The school was closed up two days later and I left Bath to get married,” she added with dignity. “Now, if you will excuse me. I cannot leave my husband waiting any longer.”
She left the room quickly, and though she heard someone call out to her, she did not tarry but hurried out into the hall. The footman hovering in the hallway sprang to open the door for her and luckily Sir Matthew had not given her the chance to divest herself of cloak and bonnet. “Thank you,” she called over her shoulder as she ran lightly down the steps and across the gravel. To her relief, she found Nye had brought the carriage arrange. Making for it she was surprised when he leant down from his perch and extended a hand down to her. Clambering up the steps, she seized it and was swung up onto the seat at the front beside him.
*
They did not speak until they had swept down the drive and were back on the open road once more. Mina had a horrible suspicion the front door to Sir Matthew’s house had opened as they had bowled down the drive, but she kept her head held high and had sta
red ahead of her the whole time, so she could not be quite sure above the sound of the horse’s hooves.
Once they were out of sight of the house, she breathed a sigh of relief and Nye relaxed the pace of the horses. “That bad, was it?” he asked wryly.
“Not really,” she answered conscientiously. “Although, Sir Matthew was naturally most displeased.”
“He would be.”
She darted a hasty glance at Nye’s profile. “I did not really explain, but—”
“You don’t have to,” he forestalled her. “It’s none of my business and I’d rather keep it that way.”
“You don’t want to be involved,” Mina said uncomfortably. “And I’m sure I don’t blame you. But you see, I simply could not abandon Cecily to such a fate.”
“Married to some ne’er do well, you mean?”
“He was a thoroughly unpleasant bully,” she said roundly.
He shook his head. “It’ll be him or someone just as bad, more than likely.”
“Honestly, I don’t see how it could be.”
He was quiet a moment. “Not all girls have a Miss Walters to sweep in and save the day,” he pointed out. “You didn’t.”
“It wasn’t quite the same!” she retorted when she could draw breath.
“Wasn’t it?”
“Of course not! You didn’t abduct me for one thing.”
“No? What about Faris?”
“He didn’t abduct me either.” She took a deep breath. “In fact, I wasn’t far from being thrown out on the street.”
An uncomfortable silence reigned for a moment and Mina drew her cloak closer about her. She remembered how highly her father had thought of Sir Matthew as an upstanding member of society. He had been so proud to have his endorsement of Hill School. She thought of the genteel suppers they had used to throw for their entertainment. Lady Ralph, Sir Matthew, and Canon Carter-Hayes had all attended regularly in those days to be entertained by select recitals and entertainments on the pianoforte.
Lady Ralph had even awarded a prize every summer term to the ‘Most Improved Girl’. She even seemed to recall Cecily had won it one year. How long ago it all seemed now. The memories seemed slightly embittered these days, as she recalled how dismayed Father had been by Sir Matthew’s curt letter announcing his withdrawal as a governor and sponsor of the school. Lady Ralph had not even bothered to formally cut her ties, she had simply stopped answering any communications.
As for Canon Carter-Hayes, he had his own problems with some inconsistencies with church funds and had been summoned to the bishop’s palace to explain. Subsequently, he had been ordered to vastly cut down any positions of authority that he held, so they had not been so surprised by his withdrawal from the Board. Mama had begged them not to speak of it as it was ‘not nice’ and she was sure the poor dear Canon had been the victim of some gross deception rather than guilty of any incompetence or dereliction of duty.
“Did he offer you a post?” Will Nye interrupted her thoughts harshly. “Looking after his half-witted niece?”
“She’s not half-witted, only a little naïve,” Mina corrected him. “Nor is she his niece.” When he directed a cutting look her way, she added quickly. “And no, he did not offer me a post.”
He snorted. “More fool he. I expect you could have kept her out of trouble until she was of age.”
Mina looked at him in surprise. “She’s a little old for a governess,” she pointed out mildly. “And more in need of a well-connected chaperone who could introduce her about town. I am not well-connected,” she pointed out. “And would not be able to throw her in the path of eligible beaux.”
“If she has money and he’s not her uncle, he probably wouldn’t want that in any case.”
“What do you mean?”
He cast her an ironic look. “He probably means to marry her himself.”
Mina gave a startled laugh. “I hardly think so!”
“Why not?” Nye asked coolly.
“If you’d seen the way he speaks to her,” Mina spluttered. “Like an authoritarian rather than a suitor.”
“Cecily’s not the only naïve one, I see,” Nye rumbled and she cast him an irritable look.
“He’s at least thirty-five if he’s a day,” she objected. “And Cecily only nineteen!”
His gaze remained steady. “And?”
Mina rallied. “I can imagine nothing less likely!”
“You think men like that speak to their wives gently?”
Mina looked at him shrewdly. “I thought you said you did not know him?”
“I don’t know him,” he retorted. “But I know his reputation.”
“Which is?” She frowned, striving to remember what he had said before. Something about referring people to the Assizes in his capacity as Justice of the Peace.
Nye shrugged. “It’s none of my business,” he said evasively.
Fleetingly, Mina wondered if he knew of anyone who had suffered under Sir Matthew’s ideas of justice. She could always ask Gus if Nye was determined to be unforthcoming. On impulse, she asked. “Why did you tell Gus Hopkirk I was a schoolteacher?”
Nye blinked, clearly taken aback. He did not answer for a moment. “Must have come up,” he muttered.
“In general conversation?”
He cast her a resentful look. “I don’t remember.”
“He said he’s known you since you were a boy,” she persisted, suddenly loth to drop the subject. She decided to bluff her way since Nye was determined to remain a closed book. “Did he say he used to be friends with your father?” she mused as though trying to recall.
His eyelids dropped down, veiling his eyes. “I don’t know,” he grunted. “You tell me.”
It was like trying to draw blood from a stone, she thought ruefully. Perhaps he did let down his guard when with friends and acquaintances, but she was clearly not one of their number, nor like to be. “Do you wish Sir Matthew had offered me a post?” she asked, with a small wobble in her voice. How funny, just two weeks ago, the prospect of such a post would have filled her with quite a different emotion.
“No,” he said, surprising them both. Their eyes met fleetingly, then they both looked away. They drove on a few moments in silence, before Nye cleared his throat. “You haven’t asked me what I wanted in return,” he said abruptly.
“No, I haven’t,” Mina admitted. She glanced at him in sudden suspicion. “Is it about my remaining in the parlor at all times?”
He snorted at that. “Much good that would do me.”
She turned in her seat to face him. “I’m not used to being idle, you see,” she said deciding to go for open and honest. “And there’s so much to be done about the place. It’s not as though—”
“I understand that,” he cut across her.
Mina sat a moment, waiting for more, but nothing came. “So… you’re agreeable to my helping Edna about the place?” she persisted.
He remained silent a moment. “What I want to know is this,” he said at last. “Are you just another pair of hands about the place or do you mean to take up the role in earnest?”
“Role?” Mina repeated.
“Aye.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?” Mina asked, sensing there was a deeper significance to his words.
“That of publican’s wife,” he said, though his eyes avoided hers.
Whatever she had thought he was going to say, it wasn’t that. She paused. “I am a publican’s wife, am I not?”
“Are you, though?” His gaze bored into hers. Mina had to struggle not to drop her own. Swallowing, for her throat was suddenly dry, she nodded her head. “That’s what you want?” he persisted.
Was it? If she said no, she thought, then she would be doomed forever to this confined life of parlor and attic bedroom. Whereas, if she said yes… A strange and slightly terrifying prospect lay before her. Being a wife to Will Nye in both fact and deed.
A narrow, dull life or the unknown. For some reason, an image fl
ashed into Mina’s brain. The cliff edge where she had hovered for one thrilling and horrifying moment, right on the brink.
“Yes,” she croaked.
This time, she would plunge right over the edge.
On reaching The Merry Harlot, Nye drove the carriage straight into the courtyard and pulled on the reins. Turning in his seat, he yanked her roughly into his arms. Mina blinked up at him a moment, hot and breathless despite the bite of cold in the air. Nye did not speak, and she was ridiculously aware of the fact they were both breathing hard in each other’s faces. Suddenly, his lips were crushed to hers and she was clinging onto his jacket for dear life.
The firm press of his lips suddenly relented and Mina gasped. She would have slid off the bench if he hadn’t maintained his ruthless grip of her. She opened her eyes, staring up at him. When had she closed them? How long had she been pressed to his chest like this?
“You’ve got to breathe through your nose,” he murmured and for a moment she felt indignant, but then she noticed his own breathing was just as uneven as her own and his eyes still fixed on her lips.
“Oh,” she said lamely.
“And give me a taste of your tongue.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” she asked in bewilderment. “I can hardly talk at the same time.”
His eyes gleamed and for one horrible moment, she thought he would laugh at her. If he had, she wasn’t sure what she would have done, but instead he raised one hand to scratch the stubble on the side of his jaw. “I mean let my tongue taste yours,” he said gruffly.
Mina gaped at him. “What?” she faltered. She surely had not heard him correctly. One of the horses tossed back its head and Nye was forced to release her to right his grip on the reins.
“Alright there, Nye?” called a voice, recalling Mina to her surroundings. Her bonnet had come loose and was hanging off her head. She made a grab for it and Nye swore under his breath.
“We’ll give it another go,” he said. “Later.”
“Er… yes,” Mina agreed, thankful for her reprieve. “Quite.”
She could see other figures milling round in the shadowy courtyard and felt horribly embarrassed they might have witnessed their awkward embrace.
A Bride for the Prizefighter: A Victorian Romance Page 13