Mina gave an awkward laugh. “Well, there were prizefighters all over the place and – and their company,” she said.
“Mmm,” he agreed, his hand sliding down to cup her between her legs, over the pale pink silk. Mina gasped. “Like you’re my company now?” he suggested huskily.
“Yes,” Mina agreed breathlessly. “Someone – I’m not sure who, for I did not know everyone’s names at the time – well, he was fighting with a woman in the front bedroom. At least...” She frowned. “Now that I think about it must have been Clem, for the female shouted, ‘I’ll see you hanged, Clem Dabney, or something of that sort.” Nye’s thumb had started to lightly stroke over the silk covering her mound and Mina’s breath caught.
“So, Clem was fighting with his doxy?” he put in smoothly.
“Yes, they broke a mirror. I think she threw something at him. Possibly a shoe.”
“Mmm, then what?”
“Then—” Mina had to make a concerted effort to concentrate. “Um- oh yes. I heard Ivy in with someone,” she broke off distractedly. “Oh wait, I think it must have been Frank Toomes, for when I went into the room next door, his brother Jack was lying on a mattress on the floor and he said ‘Are you finished with Frank now?’ Because you see, just for a minute he believed I was Ivy.”
Nye’s thumb immediately stilled. “He spoke to you?” he asked sharply.
“Yes, you see, he thought—”
“He thought you were Ivy, yes,” Nye said tensely. “What reply did you make?”
Mina gazed up at him. “I don’t really remember, in all honestly,” she added at his heavy frown.
His eyes narrowed. “Mina—”
“I think I just uttered some kind of apology and ducked out of the room,” she said truthfully.
“That was it? The full exchange?” Mina nodded, wondering at the intensity of gaze. Why was he so wound up about it? She watched his shoulders relax. “Then what?”
Mina cast her mind back and flushed. “I don’t remember!” she prevaricated.
A smile curved his lips. “Little liar,” he contradicted her. “That’s when I happened upon you. Outside Jeb and Effie’s room.”
“Oh yes,” she admitted weakly.
“Listening to them rolling in the sheets.”
“Nye! I was not!”
“Your face was red as fire,” he teased. “And when I spoke to you, you jumped two feet in the air and shook like a leaf.” The playful look left his face and he looked regretful. “You were scared of me.”
“No,” she contradicted him uncertainly. “It wasn’t as straightforward as that. I felt really, really angry with you.” She heaved a great breath. “On the walk back from the church, I had wound myself up into a huge temper with you. Even at the time,” she mused. “I knew it was strange that I blamed you more than Jeremy.”
“Did you?”
She nodded and bit her lip. “Because, I felt—” She broke off her words. “It’s silly really.”
“Tell me,” he insisted.
“I felt that we’d been forced into it together and—” She heaved a breath. “But you didn’t feel that way at all and I felt so humiliated in the church,” she squeezed her eyes shut and felt him shift closer into her, crowding her with his bigger body, his hand stroked over her hip encouragingly. “I couldn’t really make head nor tail of anything that night,” she recalled wonderingly. “And I didn’t know anyone save you and Jeremy. Everyone else were complete strangers to me. And I knew there was something between you and he, but I didn’t understand then what it was at all. I just knew I was completely in the dark.” She paused and his fingers squeezed her waist. “And when you grabbed my elbow, I just felt myself relax, because for some reason, I trusted you in the dark to steer me right.” She swallowed. “But then you – you left me behind. You walked out of the church and everyone followed you. And when I tried to catch up, I fell over my shoe,“ she broke off as a tear rolled down her face. “So stupid.”
“Yes, I was,” he said gruffly. “Because you were right. We were in it together and I had no right to blame you like that. I was a fucking idiot to leave you in that church. I showed myself up, not you.”
She looked up quickly at that. “Well, but—”
“Do you know why I was angry with you, Mina?” he asked softly.
“Yes. Because you didn’t want to marry me.”
“No,” he contradicted her. “It was because I thought you were Jeremy’s cast-off mistress.”
Mina gasped. “Oh yes, I had forgotten about that,” she admitted. “Ivy explained it to me later.”
He looked grim, but she knew his anger was directed toward himself. “I thought he was giving me his leavings, like his father did to mine.” She regarded him speechlessly a moment. “And I was furious about it, really furious. I wanted to break his neck. Not yours,” he added. “Never yours. But I didn’t want you. Not then.”
“Well, I’m not surprised.” She gulped. “Not if you thought that!“
“I wanted you at the top of the stairs, though,” he said gruffly.
“What?”
“When you stood there, looking so fucking embarrassed.” He reached up and scratched the side of his jaw. “It really threw me off.”
“You had to put your mouth by my ear to make me hear,” she recalled. “Because Effie was making so much noise.” She cleared her throat.
He smiled. “And you shivered and dropped that ugly bag of yours as if I’d touched you. And I thought, why the hell does he want to be rid of someone as sweetly responsive as that?”
“Is that really what you thought?” Mina marveled. “I thought you despised me at that point.”
He snorted. “No. If I had, I never would have sent you up to my bed.”
“Your bed you didn’t sleep in!” she pointed out.
“Till now.”
“Nye?” she whispered. He turned his head to look at her. “Did you really want me then? That first night, I mean?” He nodded. “Oh.” She smiled at him.
“Nothing like as much as I do now, though,” he admitted, reaching down and dragging her leg over his hip. He twisted his body, so he lay on his back, bringing her over him. “When I think about how I left you to walk back to The Harlot like that in the dark and on your own—” He broke off angrily. “I hate that I did that. Can you forgive me, sweetheart?”
Mina relaxed her body into his with a sigh. “Yes.”
“Really?” She nodded and the expression in his eyes grew warm. “You’re so good to me, sweet Mina.”
Mina hid her hot face against his shoulder. Sweet Mina? “You wouldn’t say that, if you knew what I fantasized about doing to you all the way up that hill,” she mumbled.
He let out a laugh, then dropped his voice. “I hope it was filthy.”
She swatted his shoulder. “Of course, it wasn’t! I was a virgin bride at that point and hopelessly clueless.”
“What was it?” She squirmed and he grabbed her backside and ran his thumbs under the lace covering her buttocks. “Tell me.”
“Pulling off my shoe and flinging it at your stupid, handsome head,” she admitted.
He chuckled, then looked instantly contrite. “And instead you dripped candle-wax all down your poor little wrist,” he sounded so regretful, Mina looked up in surprise.
“I didn’t realize you’d noticed me do that.”
“Of course, I noticed it. I wanted to pull up your sleeve and check your skin, but I thought you’d likely piss yourself with fright if I touched you at that point.”
She made a rude noise. “I probably would have snapped and boxed your ears,” she said.
He laughed. “It’s just as well you didn’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because then I would have snapped,” he said. “I don’t think my little virgin bride was ready for me at that point.” He grew suddenly serious. “When I said that about Effie tonight, I only meant that none of those women have your sweetness, Mina.”
> “You’re the only person who ever found me sweet,” she answered honestly. “Even my father said I had a sadly sharp tongue at times.”
He laughed. “I like your tongue. But I still don’t know why you think tonight reminds you of that first night at The Harlot,” he admitted.
Oh.” Mina’s frown cleared. “I meant those people out in the corridor looking at us with such disapproval and shock. That was like me on that first night. My face must have worn the same expression.” She giggled, then covered her mouth. “I’m definitely tipsy,” she said. “I never giggle.”
“I think, you are a little tipsy,” he agreed with a slow smile. “You may have a sore head in the morning.”
“Really?”
“I won’t mind,” he said agreeably.
“Because you won’t mind missing our planned trip to the botanical gardens?” she asked archly.
“We can just go later in the day,” he said with a shrug.
“I’m sorry I caused a scene,” she whispered, lowering her face to touch her brow to his. “I don’t know why our wedding day keeps springing so forcibly into my mind today. It makes me over-emotional. “
“I do,” he said. “It’s because this is what it should have been like. A celebration. An occasion. I wish it had been,” he said regretfully. “I regret so much—”
“But not marrying me,” she interrupted anxiously.
“God no!” He carried her hand to his lips and kissed her palm before setting it down over his heart. “That’s one thing I will never regret.”
“Then the rest doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “For we have the rest of our lives to do things the right way.” She bit her lip. “Though, I do think we might be one of those couples that fight as much as we reconcile.”
“So, we’ll never grow bored,” Nye shrugged. “Besides.” His eyes gleamed. “The fighting’s just part of the making up. And I really like making up with you, Mina.”
“Yes,” she murmured in agreement, smiling as she tried to remember who it was that said that about them first. Then she realized it was Gus and hastily changed the subject. “We must stop referring to it as The Harlot now,” she reminded him. “For it is not The Harlot anymore.”
A new sign now swung over the courtyard, one that bore the likeness of a man hunched in a fighting stance, stripped to his waist with his fists clenched. It looked rather like Nye, and Mina admired it excessively.
He nodded. “I will probably slip up every now and again. It was The Harlot for a long time.”
“Well, now it is The Prizefighter, named in your honor.” She dropped a kiss on his jaw. He angled his head for her to kiss the other side and she obliged with a spurt of laughter. “Edna is thrilled about the change of name and so is Corin’s granny. And you must own, we seem to be gaining a good deal of new custom.”
“Mmm,” he agreed, his gaze locked to hers. She ignored the blatant message in the dark depths of his eyes and leaned an elbow onto the pillow behind his head. It thrust her lace-clad bosom practically into his face, but she pretended not to notice this or the way his gaze was riveted to it.
“The new name means I can now invite my old maid Hannah to stay with us as our guest next summer, for you must own it sounds a good deal more respectable. Even Teddy is now permitted to ride over and visit with us, so long as he brings a groom. By the way, we must remember to pick him up a present before we return to Penarth. Preferably something pugilism themed, for he is becoming almost as enthusiastic about boxing as he is horse racing.” Nye’s hands settled firmly on her hips. “Perhaps we should take the opportunity to buy an engagement gift for Corin and Herney now they are walking out together? For I’m sure it will not be long before—” Her words ended in a shriek, as he rolled her under him. “Nye!”
“Tease,” he breathed. “You do know I adore you, Mina, and that I always will?”
She caught her breath and nodded. “I know it, William Nye,” she confessed. “And I wholly reciprocate the sentiment. As for teasing you, I bought you a present this morning.” She colored faintly. “It’s in your bedside drawer.”
He frowned but reached across to open the drawer, withdrawing a slim cream cardboard box. He lifted his eyebrows and flipped up the lid. What he saw there made his gaze catch fire. “Red stockings?”
She nodded. “The store assistant seemed a good deal shocked. She could barely look me in the eye as she wrapped them.”
Nye laughed, rolling off her at once and propping himself up against the pillows. “Put them on now and do it slow.”
“Like a showgirl?” she asked, sitting up and slipping her wrapper off her shoulders. “You know, you’ll have to take me to the music hall, if I’m to learn how to do this properly.” She shook out a red stocking.
He shook his head. “None of them are the equal to you, Mina. Not in my eyes. No one is.”
She smiled at him as she drew the red silk stocking over her toes and up her calf. “I feel the same about you, Will Nye,” she assured him warmly. Then she did her best to prove it.
THE END
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More stories coming from Alice Coldbreath in 2020. Please visit my website for more information.
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A Bride for the Prizefighter: A Victorian Romance Page 37