In his study, their voices raised to a normal level, Gil felt freer to question Underwood about Verity’s unpleasant experience, “Was she able to furnish you with a description, Chuffy? Toby is preparing to go out and scour the town just as soon as we know who attacked her …”
“I fear Toby will have to delay his departure indefinitely,” interjected Underwood impatiently, “Verity knows nothing. She was seized from behind and never saw the man’s face. All she could tell me was that he was as tall or slightly taller than myself, and she thought he sounded young, but of course she could not be sure. He spoke in what was evidently a disguised whisper. He was immensely strong, throwing her about as though she were a manikin, and try as she might, she could not resist.”
Gil closed his eyes in distress, bringing his hand up to his forehead and shuddering at the images this comment conjured, “Don’t, for pity’s sake! I can’t bear to think of what might have happened to her. This madman must be caught quickly.”
“No one is more aware of that than myself, Gil. But with so little information to act upon, I can do nothing.” Underwood’s tone was harsh, but his words were reasonable enough, considering the emotions under which he laboured. He was not a violent man, on the contrary, he abhorred violence in all its forms, be it verbal or physical, but at this moment he would gladly have risked the gallows just to have five minutes alone with the man who had terrified and threatened his wife.
“But the words he uses,” pursued the vicar remorselessly, never stopping to think how his comments might cut into his brother, who already felt wholly responsible for the incident, “that surely shows he is known to you. He has some grudge against you.”
Underwood drew in a deep breath and said, with infinite patience, “My dear fellow, do you have any notion how many people than encompasses? It could be one of several hundred disgruntled students, who felt his life was ruined when he failed his finals at my hands, or who might have been sent down and blames me for it. God knows there were enough in my twenty years at Cambridge! If not a student, then anyone connected with the three murders I have investigated in the past two years, not to mention the dozens of minor felonies I dealt with prior to that. The list is endless – and, more frighteningly, though the man claims to know me, it does not necessarily follow that I know him. He may be acting for a friend or relation who feels their life has been adversely affected by actions of mine. Gil, we have to face the unpalatable fact that Verity’s attacker could be anyone at all – and finding him will be like searching the proverbial haystack for a needle!”
Gil, determined to protect Verity, refused to see sense or bow to Underwood’s logic, “But if he bothered to disguise his voice, he must be known to Verity too. That must narrow down the list.”
“Not at all. It could simply indicate that he intends to make himself known to her in the future. The population of Hanbury is a constantly changing one. This man could have been watching our movements for days or even weeks. He might be someone we know well, someone with whom we are barely acquainted, or someone whom we have yet to meet.”
Gil looked even more distressed, “Then what are we to do? I feel I can never leave Verity unattended again!"
“My dear Gil,” answered Underwood, not without a certain wry quality to his tone which was entirely lost upon his brother, “though I appreciate your concern, you really must try to recall occasionally that Verity is my wife – and my responsibility! Pray leave her care in my hands.”
“But, Chuffy …”
Underwood held up his hand, effectively halting any further protests, “Gil, I said leave it to me. To begin with, I shall be asking Toby to reconsider his acceptance of employment with you. If we are to move to Windward House, Toby will be coming with us.”
Gil’s relief was palpable. The mental vision of the tall, broadly-built black ex-pugilist, who adored Verity, was enough to inspire confidence even in the jittery vicar, “Yes, yes, of course. It would be a brave man who took Toby on – and he would much rather work for Verity than for me.”
“Bearing in mind that you had no work for him and created a position merely to keep him off the streets, I imagine it is a solution which satisfies all parties.”
*
Underwood had slowly grown accustomed to being hailed loudly on the street. It was something which had rarely happened to him in Cambridge, since it was mostly students who knew him, and who wouldn’t want to be seen talking to their tutor in public. The rest of the Cambridge populace were of a rather more reticent demeanour than those who visited Hanbury. He could only suppose it was the fault of the transitory lifestyle. It seemed to release inhibitions, knowing that one was not going to be in a place for any great length of time. The spinsters, the maiden aunts and chaperones tried hard to quell this distressing inclination towards levity and familiarity, but they had very little success.
It was, therefore, no surprise to hear his name called across the street on the bright October morning following Verity’s assault. He turned swiftly to confront the caller, all his suspicions roused when it proved to be a young man, tall, good-looking, and with muscles rippling beneath the broadcloth of his perfectly fitted, obviously expensive, coat.
“I knew I could not be mistaken,” said the young fellow heartily, as he dashed across the road in front of a farmer’s cart, and held out his hand to the bemused Underwood.
That gentleman, who had no finesse at all when it came to disguising puzzlement or irritation, ignored the proffered hand and frowned darkly at the newcomer, “Who the devil are you?”
The man roared with laughter, evidently not in the least put out by this display of rudeness, “By Jupiter! You haven’t changed a jot, sir. Still as blunt as ever. It is Rogers – Godfrey Rogers. You surely cannot have forgotten the infamous Rogers?”
“Rogers?” Underwood continued to peruse the youth until light slowly dawned, “By Gad! It is Rogers. I wish you boys would understand how great a change the years create. I have yet to meet one of my old boys who does not expect me to immediately recognize the spotty youth in the manly features they now possess.”
“I resent the implication of skin eruptions, Mr. Underwood. I swear my skin was as smooth as a peach,” answered Rogers, with great good humour.
“Balderdash! All young men have horrible physiognomies.”
“What, even yourself?”
“I was never that young,” countered Underwood, with dignity, but a half smile and a twinkle in his eyes, “What brings you to Hanbury? You look in rude health to be visiting a Spa.” This was not strictly true, for now the boy was nearer to him, Underwood detected an unhealthy pallor to his skin, and the dark rings under his eyes spoke of excesses which were beginning to take their toll. Rogers was heading for trouble unless he drew in the reins, judged Underwood silently.
“Oh, I’m not here for my health. M’father turned up his toes and I’ve come back to take up the burdens of a landowner. We have a little place just outside town.”
Apart from being appalled by this lack of respect and affection in the boy’s reference to his late father, Underwood was also mildly irritated at the dismissive way he spoke of his country seat as a ‘little place’. To his certain knowledge, the property of the recently deceased Mr. Rogers was a large and successfully run estate, very close, as it happened, to his own newly acquired house, so it was with a rather forced heartiness that he said, “Planning to live the life of a country gentleman, Rogers?”
Rogers snorted with contempt, “How very amusing, Underwood. Do you really think I am going to bury myself in this dead and alive hole? Mater can imagine the return of the prodigal son if it comforts her, but I fear she is in for a sad disappointment. My only interest in Hanbury Manor is the price it will fetch when I auction it off.”
“Good God!” the exclamation was wrenched from the genuinely shocked Underwood, who had met Mr and Mrs Rogers some months before, without knowing of their connection with his erstwhile pupil, and thought them a charming pair, m
uch devoted to each other and their lovely home.
“Oh, please! Pray don’t show your age by being appalled by my youthful lack of respect for three hundred years of family history. If that great, ugly pile of stone had housed several generations of Rogers’, then it is high time some other family was given the chance to create their own tiny slice of immortality. Frankly I need the money far more than I would ever need an architectural monstrosity.”
Underwood was well aware that far from being a monstrosity, Hanbury Manor was renowned for its beauty, but he did not bother to argue. It was a shot in the dark, for he really did not remember Rogers at all well, but he remarked wryly, “Still have a weakness for the cards and the ‘bones’, my dear Rogers?
Rogers had the grace to blush uncomfortably. Underwood, he felt, was showing an astuteness which he had not expected, along with a deplorable lack of tact. It was an intensely false smile which he finally forced to his lips, “Enough of me, Mr. Underwood. Why are you in Hanbury? The gout? Or something worse?”
Offended, as he was meant to be, at the suggestion of gout, Underwood replied coldly, “I’m not a visitor, I live here.”
“Really? Gad! How do you stand it? The tedium of the place would have me witless within a sennight.”
“Surely not so long as all that?” murmured Underwood sweetly, adding swiftly, and with a strong determination not to be rattled by the odious boy, “Oh, we have our entertainments. As a matter of fact, we are about to become near neighbours – for as long as you are here. I have just purchased Windward House.”
“What a pity you did not wait a while. You could have had the Manor for a very reasonable price.”
“A little large for my purposes …” Underwood left the sentence unfinished. He had now had his fill of Rogers and desired nothing more than escape, but it was not to be quite that easy. Rogers had come to town alone, and it was not a state to which he was accustomed. He could not be said to have friends; his was not a personable character, but no one who spent money and gambled as lavishly as he did was ever going to find himself without companions. The truth was Underwood’s was the first friendly face he had seen and he did not intend to soon lose the connection.
“Well, now we have met, we must pursue our acquaintance whilst I am stranded here. What about a drink?”
The vicar’s brother had never wanted anything less than alcohol at that hour of the day, but looking into Rogers’ falsely ingenuous face was stirring faint memories.
He vaguely recalled the college officials being extremely scathing about the boy. There had been some scandal attached to his being sent down, and Underwood had been loosely involved. Damn his cursed memory! Why could he not call to mind anything more than the sketchiest of details?
The Dean’s room had seemed very dark against the bright sunlight outside. The Dean himself, pale and serious. Rogers being hauled from the room by a couple of hefty scouts, hurling threats and abuse – but why?
Impatiently Underwood had to dismiss his thoughts. It would all come back to him, probably unbidden in the middle of some sleepless night – but in the meantime he must not let Rogers know of his suspicions. Underwood fully intended that the man who had so terrified his wife and risked the life of his unborn child was going to pay highly for his sins. If that man was Rogers, it would be fatal to warn him off before the necessary proof could be garnered.
C. H. Underwood was not a man who was much prompted or driven, either by ambition or thoughts of revenge. He had controlled and saved his passions in the past for things he felt deserved them. Music, literature, art, sculpture, these were things worth striving for and nothing, he knew, was ever really worth dying for. He had watched many of his students march off to war, full of patriotic fervour, their only desire to be the man who killed Bonaparte and free England for the English. Underwood, whilst admiring their valour, rather wondered where the Welsh, Scots and Irish came in, and never felt the slightest desire to join them. He loved his country, of that there was no doubt, but he imagined the French also loved theirs!
Then he had married Verity. At first he had not even realized he was in love with her, for, fresh from ending an engagement to the lovely Charlotte Wynter, he had thought he could never love again. Verity had simply been there, beside him through all the misery, asking nothing, giving all, sweet, amusing, unwavering; his every thought understood, his every desire anticipated. Until she had grown weary of giving, without reward, and had left him. The day he thought she was never coming back was the day he had finally understood the real meaning of misery.
Now she was the centre of his world – and the man who had hurt her was going to suffer deeply for it!
It was with all this in his mind that he looked at Rogers and said mildly, “Why not? A drink would be very welcome – but don’t, for Heaven’s sake, ever tell my brother I entered an inn for anything other than coffee at this time of the day.”
“Does he have some objection to your drinking?” asked Rogers, confused by this plea.
“He’s the local vicar,” explained Underwood succinctly.
“Ah! Suddenly everything becomes very clear.”
*
It was much later in the day when Underwood found his brother alone, “I met young Rogers today, Gil.”
“I heard!” said the vicar severely. He had, in fact, heard very little else all day but the scandalous event of his brother entering a public house in the company of the notorious Rogers, who had broken his poor mother’s heart, in the morning! If Underwood had not initiated the conversation, then Gil would certainly have done so.
“What do you know about his being sent down from Cambridge?”
This stopped Gil in mid-tirade. He looked totally blank, “Nothing. I did not know he had been sent down – surely that is your province?”
“Yes, of course it is, but unfortunately I cannot, for the moment, recall any of the details.”
“Well, I cannot say the news surprises me. He has done little to recommend him to society since Cambridge, so I imagine he was no different before.”
“You intrigue me, tell me more.”
“Well, as you know, I never encourage gossip, but …”
“Yes, yes, we all know you are the soul of discretion and morality, Gil, now get on with it.”
Gil was inclined to take offensive at this interruption and wanted to refuse to go on, but Underwood’s sudden interest in Rogers piqued his curiosity, so he went on,
“I suppose he confided that he intends to sell Hanbury Manor?”
“He did. Actually he offered it to me.”
“You should be glad you did not take him up on it. Mr. Rogers is about to sustain a very nasty shock. His mother fully intends to go to law to stop him selling. She contends that even though there is no entail, he cannot be said to own the estate, but merely holds it in trust for future generations of Rogers’.”
“Will she win such a case?”
“It is very doubtful, but it could take years to be decided. The courts of England, like the mills of God, grind slowly! And she has some very powerful friends.”
Underwood laughed unkindly, “Oh dear, poor Rogers. He has been jingling the coins in his pocket in anticipation of vast profits. I left him in a very heavy card game with Major Thornycroft and his cronies – and, as you well know, Jeremy James never loses.”
“He had better not, or Adeline will flay him alive. He has been banned from cards and dice in exchange for a horse.”
This news startled Underwood, for Jeremy James Thornycroft was a Waterloo veteran who had lost both his legs in the Peninsular Wars, “Good God! What the devil use is a horse to Jeremy?”
“I’ve no idea. Now, about your sojourn in the Hanbury Arms this morning …”
*
CHAPTER THREE
(“Personna Non Grata” – An unacceptable person)
Verity needed every vestige of courage she possessed to step out of the safety of the vicarage, but she was determined to do it. If she did
not, the she knew he had won, that unknown man. His whole object had been to frighten her; to leave those invisible scars which never heal. He had inflicted those wounds, but she would never let him know it. If he was watching them, as Underwood suspected, then let him see her back to normal; little him see how little she cared for his threats and his bluster!
Of course that was not the whole story. She simply had to get out of the house, for one more day of Gil’s incessant fussing would drive her to the borders of insanity. She had once thought that her husband’s insistence of having personal freedom was cold and unfeeling; but oh, how she understood his need now!
Entering the Pump-rooms was worse than she had ever imagined. As heads turned to observe her advent, she found herself over-sensitively aware of not just friends and relations, but of strangers too. Which one of them had it been? Who had done that ghastly thing to her? Would he approach her now, smiling his false smile, asking solicitously after her welfare, knowing all along that she was a gibbering wreck inside? She found her legs trembling so violently she could scarcely put one foot in front of the other. Suddenly she felt Underwood’s hand under her elbow, the warmth from his fingers inspiring a strength which was both unexpected and comforting and with a tiny smile she glanced up at him, “Thank you, Cadmus,” the words were barely audible, but he heard her and returned the smile, “You are doing tremendously well, my love,” he encouraged her quietly.
She had never been more relieved to reach a seat. Underwood made no further comment, but he was horrified to see how white her face had become. He left her in Gil’s care whilst he went to fetch her water, rather wishing he had a brandy to put into it.
Her colour was a little restored when she sipped her water, and Underwood began to visibly relax. Not for very long, however. An interested stir by the door heralded a new arrival. It proved to be Miss Ophelia Knight, Hanbury’s latest resident eccentric. She floated towards them, her arms outstretched, and for one horrible moment the two brothers thought she was about to embrace them. They shrank in their seats, their faces pictures of acute embarrassment. Verity almost laughed aloud. They were so terrified of young, demonstrative women! She wondered vaguely what they imagined was going to befall them at the hands of such creatures – though she had to admit that with Ophelia, they were not entirely unjustified in their caution, for she seemed quite capable of doing anything which might spring to mind. She had stirred quite a scandal when she had arrived in town, for she came quite alone. Unmarried and relatively young women simply did not live alone, ever; and in the middle and upper classes, not even old ladies lived without at least a woman servant to bear them company everywhere they went. She had been quite deliberately cut by several dowagers, but when this treatment elicited no response, she gradually became accepted, and even a little admired for her spirit.
Behind The Horseman (The Underwood Mysteries Book 3) Page 2
