A Bride for the Prizefighter: A Victorian Romance

her skin until she began to feel much refreshed.  Reclining in the tub a moment, she covered the tops of her breasts with the washcloth and with a sigh, fell back to lazily contemplate the colored illustrations on the screen.
She was just examining a flyer for The Amazing Ormerod Sisters whose act seemed to comprise of juggling in their frilly drawers, when she heard banging on the kitchen door which she knew she had secured by turning the key into lock.  Sitting up with a muffled exclamation, she reached for her towel and wrapped it securely about herself before peering around the doorway into the kitchen.  It was Nye, stood at the door with a face like thunder.  Hurrying across the kitchen she turned the key and swung the door open.
“We don’t lock this door—” he started furiously before catching sight of her barefoot and dripping on the flagstones.
“I was taking a bath in the scullery,” she explained with as much dignity as she could muster, considering she had wet hair straggling down to her waist.  To her annoyance, she could feel hot color rushing to her face.
He paused a moment.  “There’s a bathroom on the next floor,” he said through gritted teeth.
Mina inclined her head.  “I am aware, but I simply did not have enough energy left to carry cans of water up and down the stairs.”
“Next time,” he said shortly.  “Tell someone.”
Mina’s chin came up.  “Such as who?  I’ve only seen Edna all day, and she already has enough duties without waiting on me.”
He gave an irritable shake of his head.  “Such as me,” he answered gruffly.
Oh.  She eyed him apprehensively.  “I need my trunk carrying up to the attic,” she said after clearing her throat.
His eyes stopped their trudging progress over her bedraggled figure, and he nodded, then stepped past her.  Mina turned her head to watch him stride out of the room.  He had his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his instead of a collar, he wore a twisted neck scarf at his throat like a laborer.
Until the past month, she had never seen her father arrayed in anything but full correct attire for a gentleman.  It crossed her mind that her schoolmaster father would have been very shocked indeed to learn she had been married off to a publican.  Ironically, in allowing herself to be led by Lord Faris, she had been carrying out her father’s own last wishes.
“Any reason you’re still stood here, dripping all over the floor?” Will Nye asked her harshly from the doorway.  She gave a start.  He had her trunk on his shoulder, as though it weighed no more than a few pounds.  “Which room are you in?”
“The only free one,” Mina answered tartly.  She supposed he meant she should follow him up the stairs.  Gathering her neatly folded clothes from the scullery, she hurried after him.  He was already halfway up the first flight of stairs and she made sure to keep the span of a few steps between them.
At the top of the stairs, he paused, raised his eyebrows quizzically and angled his thumb in the direction of the largest room.  Mina nodded.  She hovered outside the room waiting for him to deposit her trunk and sure enough, he emerged mere moments later and strode right past her, heading for the stairs.
“Thank you!” she called after him pointedly.  He gave no acknowledgement and Mina, balling her fists, marched into the room, once more wedging the door shut with a chair.  He had no manners whatsoever, she told herself grimly as she unbuckled the straps of her trunk in search of her nightgown and robe.  She would not descend below stairs again today.  She had, had quite enough of The Merry Harlot and Will Nye for one day.  Besides, she felt fit to drop and she needed to apply some lotion to her poor hands which were red-raw.
Once she had dragged her high-necked, white cotton nightgown over her head and rubbed the last of her lavender-scented hand lotion into her sore fingers, she felt sufficiently revived to set about making the room her own.  Unpacking her familiar things in these unfamiliar surroundings was a bitter-sweet experience.  She hesitated before placing her silver-backed brushes on the dresser.
It seemed strange to see them there after all the years they had sat on the same dressing-table in her small bedroom at Hill School.  She laid her glass-topped hairpins next to them along with her lavender soap and glass stoppered bottle of rosewater, but the dresser still looked empty.  Its large proportions proclaimed it for a gentleman’s dresser in truth, along with the large rectangular swivel mirror that topped and the two-drawer locked hatbox that stood above the drawers.
Nothing about it looked dainty or feminine, despite her scattered things.  She thought fleetingly of Ivy’s cosmetics and perfume bottles strewn across her chest of drawers in the room opposite, but she had nothing like that.  Only once, Mina had dared to spend her saved pennies on a thrilling box of pearl powder done up in pink tissue paper which promised miraculous transformative powers for a rosy glow.  Some of the girls at Hill school had sworn by it, and in truth, Mina had not been so very much older than many of their pupils.  Her mother however had been so horrified and disappointed that Mina had been forced to throw it out before she’d even had a chance to try it.
Painting your face is the height of vulgarity, her mother had denounced in shocked, hushed tones.  Only fallen women would indulge in such depravity.  When Mina had wept penitently, her mother had patted her shoulder and promised she would not tell her father of her fall from grace.  Not all girls are intended to be beauties, her mother had explained gently.  We must accept our lot in life with good grace.  Your