A Bride for the Prizefighter - Alice Coldbreath Page 0,43
letters.”
Mina took them gratefully and added them to another drawer. “And now I have no excuse not to finish that letter to Hannah very soon,” she murmured. Though goodness only knew what she was going to say about being married!
The next box was a pale yellow and filled with matching tissue paper. Inside it contained three little glass bottles of Eau de cologne decorated with floral labels. “Oh, how pretty,” Mina exclaimed.
“They’re all different,” Edna said proudly. “I picked out the spring flowers and auntie picked lily of the valley. The third one’s jasmine, I think the girl said.”
Mina immediately passed Edna the spring flowers bottle. “Then, this one is for you.”
Edna looked shocked. “Oh no, Mrs. Nye! I couldn’t!”
“Nonsense Edna. A perfectly modest woman may sprinkle scent on her handkerchief and gloves. Even my mother thought so. I’m sure Spring Flowers is a lovely fresh scent.”
Edna bit her lip. “It is,” she conceded. “But—”
“But nothing! Which do you think Ivy would like?”
“Ivy?” Edna snorted. “Whichever is the strongest!”
Mina sniffed the remaining two bottles. “Then, I think the jasmine,” she muttered, setting this to one side. She reached the last item, which was the most intriguing. The pink tin was done up with a rosetted ribbon on the top, so it looked almost like a hatbox.
“The gentleman in the apothecaries had to help us pick out the other things,” Edna admitted. “As auntie had no more knowledge than I about balms and lotions and such like.”
Mina levered off the lid and looked down at the three fancy pots within. Bloom of Roses she read on one pot. Restores youthful freshness. Its fluffy, whipped contents smelt good enough to eat. Emulsion of Almonds, she read on another, reduces wrinkles and blemishes she read. Magnolia cold cream was the third which apparently reinstates natural smoothness of complexion. “Which would you rather?” she asked Edna. “Restore freshness, reduce blemishes or reinstate smoothness?” Edna merely looked bewildered. “What do you think of the scent of this one?” Mina said passing her the Emulsion of Almonds.
“I couldn’t accept another gift, Mrs. Nye,” Edna began dubiously.
“Nonsense. I only bought three so I could share them with you and Ivy.”
Edna hesitated at this, clearly loth to miss out if Ivy would receive a share. “I’ve never held with artifices,” she muttered, looking flustered.
Mina reached across and pointed at the label on the bottle. “It says that one is a tonic and made from nature’s ingredients,” she pointed out. Edna removed the stopper and sniffed the milky-looking contents. “It doesn’t smell,” she said with surprise.
“You see,” Mina encouraged her. “Try a drop on the back of your hand.” She poured a second cup of tea for them both as Edna sampled the lotion. “It’s not as though it is rouge or powder, Edna. It’s a treatment for your skin.”
“My skin does get very dry,” Edna admitted, accepting the second cup.
“Then it’s settled.”
They smiled at each other over the rim of their teacups.
As it was Edna’s afternoon off, Mina threw her own supper together. An impromptu meal of cold mutton, pickles, cheese and bread and butter was partaken of, followed by her cream slice. After weighing the likelihood of being discovered by Nye eating in the kitchen, she resisted the temptation and instead took her plate through to the parlor. She still felt unsettled after their confrontation earlier and did not want to risk escalating matters. She dined in silence, washed hurriedly in the scullery alcove, and then extinguished the lamps and mounted the stairs with her candle in one hand, the bag of shopping in the other and her new curtains under her arm.
On reaching her room, she dragged a chair over to the window and set about fixing the curtains to the hooks. Once they hung in place, she stepped back to survey the results and thought they would look a lot better if they had a lighter pair underneath for decorative purposes, such as Nottingham lace. Pulling them to, she had to admit the heavy fabric provided a barrier against the cold blast which emanated from the attic window. It also served to muffle the intermittent bursts of rain which drummed against the panes.
Slipping across to Ivy’s room opposite, she left the bottle of jasmine perfume and the magnolia cold cream on the barmaid’s dresser before returning to her own room. She was not sure that she liked the lily of the valley scent that remained, but she set it on the dresser anyway as the