A Bride for the Prizefighter - Alice Coldbreath Page 0,21

warm blue woolen shawl over her shoulders as she unpacked the last of her things. After all, it wouldn’t matter if she wore colors in the privacy of her own room and the black-fringed shawl was thin and provided no warmth whatsoever. At the bottom of the trunk lay her white cotton chemises, drawers and handkerchiefs, her spare corset, and black stockings. These she dropped into the second drawer down and considering herself unpacked she climbed into bed to open one of the few periodicals she had managed to slip down the side of her packed trunk.

It was an old favorite, despite her father’s disapproval of such literature. Their pupils had bought swathes of them over the school terms and instead of throwing them out, Mina had built up quite a collection over the years, which she had kept in neat piles under her bed. Papa thought the serialized fiction and poetry within their pages to be of low quality and betraying poor moral fiber, though he did not object to her reading the domestic household pieces or the cooking recipes. Mina read them from cover to cover and consumed them like guilty treats. She knew the stories to be mere fluff, but the thrill of a female protagonist triumphing over the odds stacked against her was a lure she could not resist.

There was something entirely comforting about re-reading familiar articles and she had only just begun a fashion article on how to revive a ‘tired-looking bonnet’ when the volume slipped through her tired fingers and she nodded off to sleep.

*

Mina woke suddenly in the night, uncertain of the hour but with the conviction some noise had awoken her in the sleeping inn. She lay a moment, breathing in and out, but after a moment, she knew it had not been from inside her own room, but rather somewhere outside. Craning her ears, she caught it again - a sort of rumbling and dragging sound out in the courtyard. When she had steeled her nerves enough to slip out of bed, she crept to the window and peered out of it onto the courtyard below. Sure enough, the hanging lanterns had all been extinguished and she could see no lights in the window of the taproom or any other downstairs. The hour must be extremely late, she thought, indeed, it was highly likely the early hours of the morning.

She stood a few moments in the pitch blackness, but the only sound that now assailed her ears was the familiar swinging of the inn sign with its distinctive squeak. Mina shivered and was just debating returning to her bed when she heard it again. Something dragging over the cobbles and then a sort of scraping sound. Mina held her breath. What was it? For just a second, she thought she caught sight of a flickering flame, but just as her eyes darted to track it, it was extinguished. She had no matches or even a tinderbox in her room to light her candle and so left with little other choice, she made her way back to her bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Tomorrow she would ask for matches. Tomorrow…

*

The previous day set the pattern for the rest of the week. Nye studiously ignored her while Mina set about making herself useful around the inn. After the kitchen and scullery, she set about the pantry and larder, which though well-stocked with grain, wheels of cheese and hanging meat were in dire need of cleaning and organization. While it was true Hannah had done this sort of work in her previous home, Mina was no stranger to lending a hand below stairs, especially in the days when they had all ten beds in their girl’s school filled and it was frankly too much for the one maid they had employed.

Mama had not been good for many tasks beyond fine needlework, but circumstances had not dictated that her own daughter should be such a stranger to the practical workings of a household. Which was just as well, Mina thought as she shook up a pungent mixture of eggshells and vinegar for deep cleaning and getting rid of unpleasant smells. As the wife of a tavern owner, she had more need of the skills their maid had taught her than anything she had learned from her parents.

The day after turning out and scouring the laundry and pantry rooms, she turned her attention to the private sitting rooms and disused parlor bar.