Behind The Horseman (The Underwood Mysteries Book 3) (2 page)

“It is a strange feeling, holding someone’s life in your hands.  Your husband must know it well!”

She was alert now, at the mention of Underwood; his safety was almost more precious to her than her own.  Her huge, terrified eyes looked sideways at him, but she would see nothing of his face.  Besides being swathed in a black silk scarf, he had a hat pulled low over his eyes, and was also holding her clamped in such a position that she could barely turn her head to view him better.

He went on, almost musing to himself, rather than speaking to her, “He has held so many lives in his hands – and he wields the power like a god!  Why does he think he has the right to ruin lives, Mrs. Underwood?”  His own question seemed to make him angrier, for the knife moved fractionally closer, and the fingers became claw-like as they tightened against her cheek, forcing an involuntary and muffled cry from her.

“Am I hurting you?  That is a great pity.  I really have nothing against you, but to kill you would not hurt him as I want him to be hurt, would it?  Dying is not so very hard, you know, it is living on with despair eating at your very soul – that is real agony!  Is he in love with you, Mrs. Underwood?  Would your loss plunge him into wretchedness, or would he have married some flighty young thing within the year?  He has no shortage of lady admirers, does he?”

Of course she could not answer. But fury surged within her.  She had suffered months of desolation and doubt regarding her husband’s true feelings for her, and had only recently known for sure how much he cared for her.  To have all those horrible, negative emotions dragged back to the surface by the careless words of a man who was obviously insane made her livid.  All fear forgotten, she began to struggle frantically.

Suddenly she felt herself being rolled impatiently off him, the fallen twigs and rocky soil pressing uncomfortably into her stomach.  The peril she was in brought her quickly back to sense and tensely she lay still, despite the pain of half-lying on her unborn child.

“Stay there, madam, for five minutes, or I swear to God, I’ll slit your throat!  When I am gone, you may go home and take this message to your husband.  Tell him I will be back – and he will suffer as I have!”

For the first time Verity found her voice, “Who are you?  Why are you doing this?”

He laughed harshly, “Mr. Underwood is such a clever man, I’m sure he can work that out for himself!”  She heard him crashing away through the trees, the pounding of his footsteps growing fainter.  With an effort she dragged herself to her feet, brambles tearing at her, dusty leaf-mould dropping to the floor as she pulled her skirts free.

She began to quake, sobs shaking her whole frame, and unable to stop herself, she leant weakly against the rough bark of an ancient oak and vomited into the undergrowth.

*

CHAPTER TWO

(“Tu Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audentior Ito” – Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them)

As Underwood quietly closed the bedroom door, he was met by a concerned Gilbert, “Is everything well with her?” the vicar whispered, his face still pallid with the shock of Verity’s disclosures.  He was exceptionally fond of his brother’s wife – almost too fond, Underwood sometimes felt.  He knew Gil was asking, in his delicate way, if Verity had miscarried, and it was with undisguised relief he was able to reassure him, “There has been no lasting damage.  She will sleep now.  The doctor has given her a little laudanum.”  He gestured that his brother should precede him down the stairs, for he had no intention of allowing him to disturb the hard-won rest his wife now enjoyed.

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, much 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.