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?
A few stragglers were stood milling about outside the church exchanging gossip, but it did not seem Edna was the sociable type for she headed straight for the church door. Her head held high Mina followed her example. She heard a few sharply indrawn breaths as she and Edna proceeded down the aisle of the church, but Mina made sure to keep her gaze straight ahead. Edna made for a pew halfway down and Mina slipped into it after her, sitting next to her on the wooden bench.
Despite her impressions on her wedding day, St. Werburgh’s church was not in fact a cave, but rather a small grey stone church with few pretensions. Its porch was probably its most decorative part of it either that or the colorful stained-glass windows. During the service Mina found herself wondering several times at the significance of the images on the windows which were festooned all about with geese. She recognized Reverend Ryland’s ponderous tones and wondered what he had made of the impromptu wedding service he had been impelled to perform.
Looking back on it now, that whole evening had all the qualities of a bad dream and she couldn’t quite believe she was even married. Glancing down, she found she was rubbing the bare third finger of her left hand where a wedding band would traditionally be worn. She didn’t even have a brass one, let alone a gold. She still had Mama’s of course, she thought, as Papa had not had the heart to sell it. Should she take to wearing that in the cause of respectability?
On the walk back to the inn she quizzed Edna about the geese and was told vaguely that they were sacred to St. Werburgh.
“She had a whole flock at her convent. Then some fool up and ate her favorite goose and most put out about it, St. Werburgh was,” said Edna. “For they was under her protection and he had no right. So, she gathered up the bones and resurrected the goose from the dead. Grayking his name was. He’s the one with the black ring around his throat on the main window. You may have observed him?”
“I did not, but I shall make sure to next Sunday. Most interesting,” Mina murmured as they turned into the inn. “The stained glass looked very fine.”
“Lord Faris paid for it,” Edna sniffed. “You may have observed the Vance family box pew up the front? Decorated with the family coat of arms?” Edna prompted.
Mina admitted she had noticed it. She recognized the crest from Jeremy’s carriage.
“Precious little they ever sits in it!” Edna said darkly. “His lady wife,” she spoke the words with vicious disdain. “Has visited The Harlot more times than she has St Werburgh’s!”
“Viscountess Faris has been to the inn?” Mina was frankly shocked to hear this. Her impression of The Merry Harlot was that the place was rough and ready and entirely unfit for polite company. “In search of her husband I suppose, for I cannot imagine any other reason.”
“Least said about it the better,” Edna enounced with disgust.
Mina frowned. Though her husband might be related to Lord Faris, it was on the wrong side of the blanket and would not be acknowledged by polite society. “Is Lady Faris from a local family?” she asked, feeling some curiosity toward her half-brother’s wife. She remembered Jeremy had made some disparaging comment about her during their journey but could not what recall for the moment what it had been.
“Met her in London he did and bought her back here a bride,” Edna’s expression was disapproving. “Nasty fast bit of goods she is too! For all the fact her father was an earl!”
“They have a child I think?”
“Young Master Vance been sent away to school, poor mite. Probably for the best. Precious little moral guidance he’d receive at home and that’s a fact!”
Mina felt a flicker of interest. She supposed young master Vance was a nephew of hers of sorts. Not that the connection was likely to be recognized now she was a publican’s wife. “I see,” she murmured placatingly. They had reached the kitchen door by now and reaching for it, Mina was surprised to find it wrenched open for her.
Nye stood looming in the doorway. “About time,” he said with a frown,
