“That you, Dabney?” asked the voice in surprise. “Good gad sir, I’d have scarcely recognized you rigged up like a gent.”
“Oh yes, it’s me alright,” Clem Dabney answered good-naturedly. “By habit, I don’t tend to walk about stripped to the waist.”
“No,” mused the gentleman sounding surprised, as though he’d never considered that prizefighters might have lives outside the ring. “I suppose you wouldn’t, by God.”
“I’ll be out shortly, Cyril dear,” his companion dismissed him. “Mr. Dabney was going to introduce me to his lady friend, Miss Gold.”
“Oh,” the unfortunate Cyril responded without interest before another aspect occurred to him. “Now don’t you get distracting Dabney before his fight Clara,” he reproved her. “Needs all his concentration on defeating that bruiser Nye. Devilish ugly customer he can be. I lost my shirt when he defeated that Frenchie last June.”
“Nay sir, she won’t distract me,” Clem said easily. “Besides, there’s some of us that benefits from a last-minute distraction. I get too wound up if I’ve nothing else to focus on.”
“Oh?” Cyril sounded interested in this technique. “Well, in that case, proceed my dear fellow! You’ll join me when you’re ready Clara,” he said, his voice drifting away.
Clara giggled. “I didn’t realize you were fighting William Nye.” Her voice was breathy with excitement. “Maybe I should wait and offer the spoils to the victor,” she purred.
“Nay, one so beautiful could not be so cruel,” Clem murmured. “You’ll not abandon me so fast? Not when I’m so anxious to play the swain.”
She laughed at that. “You’ll not escape so easily, my big strong ox,” she told him. “For I mean to put a yoke on you before this night is ended, my fine, lusty ploughboy.” Mina hearing a rustling sound, guessed they were kissing.
“Oh, very well,” Clara conceded with a sigh. “In that case lead me to your rustic hayrick forthwith.”
“Aye and gladly,” he responded. “We’ve got half an hour for I fight at eight.”
Hurried footsteps mounted the staircase. Slowly, Mina advanced into the hall. She was trembling, she noticed as she reached for the bannister, with anger. So, the lady considered she might offer herself as a winner’s trophy to her husband did, she? Mina inwardly seethed as she climbed the steps to the attic. She did not know if Clem had been allotted a bed on the second or third floor, but she went slowly to ensure she had provided them with plenty of time to have ensconced themselves in his room.
She reached her bedroom without further occurrence and once there, made haste to don her nightgown and bed-socks and an unflattering nightcap besides. She drew the covers over her head and thought about the people currently spilling from every door in the inn. Disreputable types she thought them. A mix of sportsmen and villains.
Her mother would have been shocked to the core at such goings-on under her roof, she thought. But then, Mama’s own experience of life at Penarth had set her on the ruinous course path to divorce. She was not sure how Mama subsequently wound up marrying a respectable schoolmaster, for her parents had never spoken to her of such things. She supposed they must have drawn a discreet veil over Mama’s previous life. On reflection, perhaps it was not so strange that she had not known Jeremy even existed.
She turned over on the bed, furiously dragging the sheets with her. It took only a few moments with her eyes squeezed shut before she realized she was not going to get a wink of sleep. With an exclamation, she sat up and reached for the matches, lighting her candle. She would read the highwayman story, she told herself. She had only managed the first few pages before dropping off the previous night.
Still, try as she might, she found it hard to immerse herself in the story tonight. Other thoughts kept intruding, then too there was the background noise from the yard below. Though she could not make out any precise words being shouted she could hear the hoots and jeers drifting up to her window though it was shut fast against the cold night air. She pulled her nightcap down about her ears and to that added her shawl which she draped over her head also, to muffle out the sound. Then she rested her elbows against her raised knees and glued her eyes to the well-worn pages of her periodical.
By sheer dogged determination, she managed to wade her way through the words on the page, though she took in truly little of the story. She wasn’t sure how much later it was that the bedroom door was flung open and Nye came in, stripped to the waist, a candle in one hand and a cloth in the other which he held to his eye.
She sat up straight in astonishment. Surely it wasn’t as late as all that? She lowered her shawl from her head. She fancied she could still catch snatches of conversation in the courtyard below.
He limped across the room. “Need to sleep,” he said, lowering himself down onto the bed with a stifled groan. Watching him Mina almost winced herself. He was a mass of cut and sore flesh. His left eye looked to be the worst, a deep welt above it which looked only freshly healed.
“What are you doing up here at this hour, Nye? They’re surely still drinking the bar dry?”
“Dottie’s taken over the bar,” he said briefly, collapsing back onto the pillows.
“Dottie?”
“The brunette came with Jones, the promoter. She’s run several bars in her time. She knows what she’s doing, and she won’t stick her fingers in the strong box.
“Well, you look terrible,” she said, remembering she was still cross with him from earlier. She shifted over to make room for him as he was already crowding her with his much larger body.
He gave a crack of laughter. “And you’re all heart,” he said, reaching over and snatching the book from her hand.
“Nye-!”
He threw it across the room. “Get over here,” he said seizing her under the arms and dragging her body across his. Mina froze a moment and then started to struggle.
“Ow!” he objected. “Keep still. Or I’ll give you something to squirm about.”
“Get off me, you brute!” she huffed, even though she stilled her limbs out of consideration for his injuries.
He gave a grunt and relaxed back against the pillows again, dragging the cap from her head and tossing it over the side of the bed so her hair spilled down over his shoulder.
Mina squeezed her eyes shut. It was extremely undignified spread-eagled in this fashion! She felt her face warm at the feel of all his hard muscle. All he was wearing was a pair of long underwear. “This can’t possibly be comfortable for you—” she started reasonably.
“It is, so shut your yapping and go to sleep.”
“You rude beast!” She braced her arms on either side of him to lever herself off, but his hands seized her immediately keeping her in place. One at the top of her thigh and one at her waist.
“All I want to do is sleep,” he growled. “But if you want to make it into something more, then I’ll happily oblige.”
To her alarm she felt something stirring against her thigh. “No,” she burst out, for the inn was full to the rafters.
“Then give me what I want.”
She pondered this a moment and forced herself to relax back against his hard body.