A Bride for the Prizefighter: A Victorian Romance

a solitary and lonely looking inn.  Mina bit back an exclamation of annoyance for she had thought they were to reach their destination before nightfall, not put up at yet another roadside tavern.
Jeremy reached up with his silver-topped can and hit the roof three raps.  “Make for The Harlot,” he called.
The Harlot?  Surely, she had misheard him.  “Do we make for that inn?” Mina asked in dismay.
“We do,” he said thickly and turned his empty flask upside down.
“Are we staying the night there or are you simply stopping to refill your flask?” she asked coldly.
“You’d best learn to curb that tongue, young lady,” he said, wagging a finger at her.  “Or I very much doubt married life will be easy for you.”
Mina glared at him, but his eyes had drifted shut and did not open them again until the carriage came to a halt.  For a moment he gazed about him, blinking as though unsure of his surroundings.  “Do my ears deceive me, or can I hear fisticuffs?” he asked before darting with a bound from the carriage.
Mina leaned forward to peer out of the open carriage door.  There was certainly a raucous crowd in the vicinity.  Whoops and yells and jeers could be heard from what sounded like a very rough and ready bunch.  They did not sound at all like the sort of people you would wish to meet on a dark night.  She craned her neck out until she could see the coachman.
“Where are we?” she asked.
He did not answer, simply pointed wordlessly to the swinging inn sign with his whip.  Mina glanced up and saw an inn sign of a busty woman with plunging neckline and the name The Merry Harlot proclaimed over her tumbled, blowsy curls.  Drawing her cloak closer about her, Mina hastily retreated inside the carriage.
The public inns they had frequented along their journey had been respectable hostelries that kept good tables and comfortable beds.  She had thought Lord Faris liked his comfort far too well to stay anywhere disreputable.  This place, however, was of an altogether different caliber.  She could only suppose he had gone in search of more alcohol to fortify his plunging spirits.
Ten minutes later, she was dismayed to see Lord Faris striding across the courtyard toward her, holding a pewter tankard in one hand, and a shapely blonde in the other.
“Here she is, Ivy my love,” he proclaimed, wrenching the door back open.  “Come, Mina, show yourself.  I have one here who would fain take a look at you.”  He turned back to the blonde.  “I assure you Mina is no shrinking violet.”
Ivy threw back her head and laughed heartily, though Mina failed to see the joke.  Given little other choice, she was forced to clamber down from the carriage unaided as Lord Faris did not have a free hand to offer her.  She landed in a puddle that splashed up her skirts and made her mood even worse.  She gazed back coldly at her half-brother.  “Am I to understand we are to put up here for the night?”
This dissolved both Lord Faris and Ivy into fresh mirth.  “See?” he gasped, squeezing the blonde’s waist.  “Did I not say she was a regular gorgon?  I vow, she can turn a man to stone with one look from those eyes.”
“I wish that were so, my lord,” Mina answered cutting across Ivy’s giggles.  “For I would have found a statue a far pleasanter travelling companion, I assure you.”
“Oho!  Would you indeed?” he cried, releasing Ivy and grabbing Mina’s upper arm in a surprisingly strong grip.  “Well, I fancy I have a new companion for you.  Though whether you will find him pleasant, is another matter altogether.  Is that not so, Ivy my sweet?”
“If her does, she’ll be the first,” Ivy replied doubtfully with a thick west country accent.
Mina found herself propelled in the direction of the inn.  Surely, he could not mean that the man he intended her to marry was putting up at this den of iniquity.
“Wait!” she cried, struggling to turn back.  “My things!”
“Juggins will bring your bags.” Lord Faris tightened his hold on her arm.
“You’re hurting me, my lord!”
“Then stop struggling, my dear.”  To his credit, he did loosen his grip on her arm to seize her wrist instead.  Once they reached the courtyard, Mina was surprised by the number of lanterns and torches illuminating the place.  Straggling groups of villainous-looking people were strewn around, smoking and drinking and speaking in low voices.  Their murmurs fell off to silent stares as Lord Faris marched her across the cobbles and—horror of horrors—into a common taproom.
If Papa could see her now, she thought, her cheeks flaming as her eyes adjusted to the murky light within.  Someone was playing a fiddle and there was a good deal of laughter and jocularity.  She could even see other women, she thought as an old toothless crone cackled loudly, slapping her thigh.
Hanging above the bar was the most indecent wooden carved figurehead she had ever seen.  It was in the semblance of a voluptuous woman flaunting her bared breasts for all to see.  It must once have graced a ship’s prow, she supposed, but was now suspended from the beams in this gruesome establishment.
Lord Faris towed her in the direction of the bar and all at once the noise seemed to stop and an eerie hush fell over the room.  A horrible prickling sensation travelled up Mina’s spine as she realized all eyes were now turned on her.
“Take off your bonnet,” Lord Faris said softly as he held up a coin between two of his fingers for the barmaid to take.
“I will not!” Mina hissed back at him furiously and he chuckled, shaking his head.  The barmaid, by contrast to the wooden effigy hanging above her, was plain and angular.  She cast a look of undisguised curiosity