A Bride for the Prizefighter - Alice Coldbreath Page 0,29
gasp. “Would ‘a broken my ‘eart, that would!”
“A lot of it had to be sold,” Mina admitted. “To pay my father’s doctor’s bills.”
Edna’s sharp gaze darted to meet Mina as she daintily spooned the sugar into the cups. “That who you’re mourning?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Recent?”
“Papa died ten days ago today.”
Edna breathed out noisily. Mina could see a question trembling on her lips that she could not quite bring herself to ask. She looked up suddenly. “I don’t care what they say,” she said defiantly. “It’s like I told my aunt. I know a respectable woman when I sees one.”
Mina felt a little choked at Edna’s vehemence. She set the empty bowl of soup onto the bedside table. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
Edna gave a sharp nod and lifted the lid to peer into the pot. “I know my own mind,” she said grimly. “And nobody makes it up but me.” She levelled a look at Mina. “Will you be coming to church tomorrow?”
Mina could see it was a loaded question. “Of course,” she replied, though the prospect of seeing that place again was far from enticing.
Edna looked gratified. “Service starts at nine sharp, so I always leaves at half eight to make it in plenty of time.”
“I will be ready to join you,” Mina assured her. Edna poured their tea and they drank it in companionable quiet. Then Edna withdrew and washed the things before restoring them carefully to Mina’s shelf.
“Goodnight, Mrs. Nye.”
“Edna, won’t you call me Mina?”
“It wouldn’t be fitting,” the maid replied looking scandalized.
“Just in private then?” Mina suggested. Edna looked torn. “Just consider it.” She gave a nod and closed the door softly behind her.
Surprisingly, Edna wasn’t the last of her visitors that night. Mina had dozed off into a deep sleep, only emerging from it when the clock struck midnight in the passage below. Then she heard heeled boots coming up the attic stared and guessed it must be Ivy, for Edna she knew retired early for her early morning start. The click of the heels stopped outside her room and hesitated a moment, before they crossed to the other side and returned a few moments later.
Mina frowned, only hearing the tap on the door because she was listening for it. “Come in,” she called and Ivy’s blonde head full of curls peered round it. She seemed surprised to see Mina wide awake. “Evening,” she said, coming into the room with her candle and in her other hand and a stoppered glass bottle with a floral label on it, straight out of the pages of one of Mina’s periodicals.
“Thought you might like a drop of lotion for your poor hands and shins,” Ivy said. “They looked scratched to high heaven when I saw you earlier.”
Mina was taken aback. “That’s very kind of you Ivy,” she said, sitting up.
Ivy shrugged, dragging a chair to the bedside. “Know how it feels, don’t I? Having a man promise you the world then passing you off like you were nothing.” She pursed her full lips as she pulled the stopper out of the bottle. “He may be a pretty spoken gentleman,” she said bitterly. “But that don’t make him any better than all the rest of them.”
Pretty spoken? Mina couldn’t think of anyone less pretty spoken than William Nye. When Ivy held her hand out, Mina placed hers in it with an air of bewilderment. Ivy tipped a blob of white creamy fluid into Mina’s palm and then started working it into her hands with her fingers.
“I’m sorry I laughed now, when he was acting ugly toward you, on that first night.” Ivy directed a frank look at her. “Only he’s a good tipper and I didn’t think about how you’d be feeling at the time.” Mina’s confusion grew. “Looking back on it now, I can’t blame you for thinking I was a spiteful cow. I’m not proud of myself.”
“I don’t think I quite…”
“I don’t expect you to confide in me,” Ivy interrupted firmly, reaching for Mina’s other hand. “Or to want to be friends.” She applied more lotion liberally to Mina’s other hand. “I just want you to know that—”
Mina’s frown cleared. “Do you mean Lord Faris?”
Ivy finely plucked eyebrows rose. “‘Course. Who else?”
“Well, he didn’t make me any promises,” Mina assured her. “I think he brought me here out of a misguided notion of familial duty.”
Ivy’s brow puckered over this. “Out of what?” she puzzled.
“Because we shared a mother,” Mina explained without thinking. Ivy gasped and fell back in