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 her chair.
“You never!” she squeaked. Mina nodded. After all, Jeremy had never enjoined her not to speak of it. “You mean, your mother was Viscountess Faris?”
“Yes,” Mina agreed slowly. “I suppose she was at one point. Not when I knew her of course, but before she was married to my father.”
Ivy shook her head. “Well!” she said, staring at Mina. “They always says as he took after his mother,” she mused. “But I can’t say as I can see a resemblance.” She hesitated. “Except maybe… In a certain delicacy in the cast of your features.” She returned to massaging the lotion into Mina’s fingers as Mina reflected this was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever said about her face. “And to think,” she marveled. “That Lord Faris thought to provide for you—a proper lady—by marrying you off to a nasty rough brute like Nye!” She looked scandalized. “He’s got a wild side and no mistake.”
“Lord Faris?” Mina clarified, trying to keep track of the conversation.
“Yes him,” Ivy agreed darkly, before hesitating. “The apple don’t fall from the tree and no mistake. You do know that—” She lowered her voice. “Nye’s father old Jacob Nye ran this place before him. But he weren’t the one what sired him.”
“I have heard that the old Viscount was his true father,” Mina admitted, coloring delicately. “Making them half-brothers.”
“That’s right. The old lord what was married to your Mother. Ellen Nye were his fancy piece for years. He bought this place for her when he was done. It’s named after her. Before that, it was called The Quiet Woman.” Mina absorbed this startling piece of news in silence. The Merry Harlot on the sign was Nye’s mother? “Jacob Nye married her, getting his hands on the inn and giving both mother and child his name.”
“I see.”
Ivy released her hand and moved down to the foot of the bed. She flipped back the coverlet and inspected the scratches up Mina’s shin. “Nasty,” she tutted, reaching for her bottle.
“You shouldn’t waste all your lotion on me, Ivy,” Mina said hurriedly. “It looks expensive.”
“Nonsense,” Ivy said, waving a hand. “You’ll ruin your skin with that nasty abrasive carbolic and wind up as dried up as Edna.”
“You and Edna have both been very kind,” Mina murmured as the soothing cool lotion washed over her skin.
Ivy shrugged. “You must have told her,” she said with a snort. “About your connection to Lord Faris.”
“No,” Mina answered. “Not a word of it. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
Ivy’s mouth dropped. “And she’s been hob-knobbing with you? Thinking you’re a cast-off bird of paradise?” Mina gazed back at her blankly. “A soiled dove. Lord Faris’s ex-mistress,” Ivy explained patiently.
“I’m sure she doesn’t think that,” Mina said, stirring uneasily as she remembered Edna’s words earlier. I don’t care what anyone says. I know a respectable woman when I see one.
“Bless you sweetheart,” said Ivy, plunking her hands on her hips and giving her a pitying look. “That’s what everyone thinks. The whole damn village.”
7
Mina woke the next morning and remembered it was Sunday. Her muscles felt stiff and sore as she donned a gown that had once been blue plaid but was now a rather dingy black. She would have to go in search of yesterday’s clothes at some point. She could not afford to lose half of her petticoats, even if the gown were torn and in need of repair. Outside her room she found her black ankle boots, polished and cleaned after their mishap at the beach the previous day.
Edna was already downstairs and together they washed, ate toasted muffins, and drank tea before donning their bonnets and cloaks and setting off for church. They were halfway across the courtyard when Nye’s voice hailed them. Mina whipped around and saw him emerging from the stables.
“Where are you off to?” he asked with a heavy frown. “I thought you’d sleep in this morn.”
“Church,” Mina answered him simply.
His gaze flickered over her and he cleared his throat. “You’re none the worst then,” he said, gazing at some fixed point to the left of her shoulder.
“Just a bit sore,” Mina admitted. “Which is my own fault.” She took a deep breath. “Next time I get an urge to visit the beach, I’ll look for a more sedate path.”
His eyes met hers briefly before he looked away. “You do that,” he said dryly.
Edna opened and shut her prayer book restlessly. “We’ll have to leave now, Mrs. Nye,” she interrupted them. “Or we’ll be late and Reverend Ryland doesn’t appreciate latecomers.”
Mina nodded, noticing that Edna did not address Nye or even look at him and his eyes were trained on her.
“No housework when you get back,” he said gruffly. “It’s Sunday, so you can take your rest.” He swung about on his heel and plunged back into the stables before Mina could react.
“Is The Harlot open on a Sunday?” Mina asked as she and Edna hurried across the courtyard. She felt slightly discomforted speaking of harlots on the Lord’s day.
Edna pressed her lips together and nodded. “I’ve put a shoulder of mutton in the oven this morning to roast. There’s plenty of sinners spend their Sundays at this godforsaken hole,” she said sourly. “And expected meat along with their liquor.”
Mina glanced up at the inn sign as they passed it and the pretty, round dimpled face of the harlot. For the first time she noticed she was winking one eye and clasping a tray of bottles to her ample bosom. She wondered if Ellen Nye had really been as pretty and as merry as the sign proclaimed. If so, her son had inherited neither of these traits.
For the first time, it occurred to her that if Ellen Nye had been the old Viscount Faris’s mistress ‘for years’ as Ivy had said, then very likely it had been during the time her own mother was married to him. Her footsteps faltered as he considered the likelihood that her mother and Nye’s had been love rivals. What a strange notion.
She was twenty-four this year, she would have put Jeremy at twenty-seven or thereabouts and Nye not much older. Had Nye been the old lord’s first-born, despite his illegitimate status? Was it that which had that cemented Ellen’s place in the old viscount’s affections and led to him purchasing her the inn? They turned down to the right and started down the steep hill to the village as Mina pondered these things.
It was at the first glimpse of the fishermen’s cottages lining the main street through the village that Mina felt the first stirrings of unease at the reception she might receive from the congregation. Ivy’s words came back to haunt her from the previous evening. Did everyone really think she was Jeremy’s cast-off mistress?