A Bride for the Prizefighter - Alice Coldbreath Page 0,71

work of the remaining buttons.

“You’ll have to lift the dress over my head,” Mina said hurriedly, feeling him give her skirts a tug. “It’ll never go over my stiffened petticoats.”

“How the hell do you get in and out of this get-up every day by yourself?” Nye muttered as he changed direction and dragged her black gown up instead.

“Needs must,” Mina answered, lifting her arms obligingly. “Wait,” she puffed. “There’s buttons at my wrists.” Nye’s hand shot out to capture her wrist. She saw him roll his eyes at the long row of buttons, however, due to much washing and re-wearing she knew they weren’t stiff. Sure enough, he made quick work of one arm, then the other. “I could do it,” she muttered and saw his eyebrows lift, though he made no reply.

“Arms up again,” he ordered. Mina complied and the black fabric was dragged over her head and discarded. Nye paused a moment, looking over her prim underwear. Suddenly, Mina felt a touch of uncertainty creep in. The dyed black gowns tended to cast an unfortunate shadow over her white undergarments. She hoped they didn’t look grey or badly washed. Before she could voice her concerns, he spun her around again and was unfastening the strings of her uppermost stiffened petticoat.

“It’ll be easier if you untie all the petticoats first and then I step out of them at the same time,” she advised.

“How many are you wearing?” he growled, tugging at a second lot of strings.

Mina thought a moment. “Four.”

He made an exasperated noise in his throat.

“Think yourself lucky,” she told him tartly, “that you are not similarly hampered on a daily basis.”

He yanked her petticoats down over her hips. “Step out,” he advised when he had the stiff fabric down so far as her knees. Mina was forced to set a hand on one burly shoulder before she could follow his advice. He was knelt at her feet with his hands at her waist now, as he frowned over her corset fastenings.

“Let me do it,” Mina cautioned, her fingers flying to the hook and eyes down the front. “If you mess with those laces, it’ll take me an age to get them right again.” Demonstrating her own familiarity with her underpinnings, she was soon out of her stays and hanging them on the back of the chair.

Nye rose back up to his feet. “Let me get a good look at you,” he said, placing his hands on his hips and planting his feet as his eyes roamed over the picture she made. Mina stilled, glad of the excuse not to have to strip further. All she had left on her now was her cotton chemise, drawers, black stockings and ankle boots.

It seemed an odd request for him to make, then suddenly, she remembered one of her old pupils, Miss Arabella Plimpton, telling the other girls about her brother’s French picture postcards. She had listened along with the others in astonished silence to hear that Bella’s brother kept a collection of well-thumbed photographs depicting women clad only in their undergarments.

Mina glanced down; doubtful her own appearance would be as alluring. She felt horribly aware that her underclothes were plain and functional without a frill or furbelow in sight. Even her garters were plain white elastic. She could see no reason for him to dwell with pleasure on the picture she made. They weren’t even a nice crisp laundered white these days.

“I’m afraid the black dye of my dresses rather rubs off on things,” she said lamely. Looking up, she saw Nye wasn’t attending her. His eyes were fixed on her legs, she thought with surprise and wondered why. She looked back down, suddenly wondering if there was a hole in her stocking.

“Take down your hair,” he said in a gravelly voice.

A refusal trembled on her lips, but it seemed silly to cavil after she’d stripped off her clothing at his request. Instead, she reached up hesitant fingers and removed her hairpins, unravelling the roll of hair from her nape. She shook her head and ran her fingers through it, until her hair lay loose over her shoulders.

“Turn around,” he said in a gravelly voice.

“Nye—” she started to object, but he interrupted her.

“Indulge me.”

She tutted and turned in a slow circle. “I know for a fact I look nothing like a French dancing girl.”

“Like a what?”

“You know,” Mina retorted, blushing. “Like one of those picture postcards of women in their drawers.”

Nye’s expression wavered for a moment. “When did you ever