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

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.

Underwood and Gil both treated her with a cautious deference, for she was an unknown quantity – and they fully intended that she should remain that way, but they had never imagined she and Verity would quickly become fast friends.  Verity was always kind and understanding, and this quality of not judging often attracted people to her.

Unfortunately Ophelia made the error of assuming that the brothers were as undemanding and broadminded as their relative, and had swiftly earned their unremitting enmity, though for two very different reasons.

When she had blithely informed the puzzled Underwood she was ‘in touch with the other side’, she had prompted first irritation, then startled disbelief.

“The other side of what?”  he had inquired testily, “The river, the county, the Pennines?”

She had graphically described the nature of the divide to which she referred, kindly offering to send a message to deceased loved ones, and both Underwood and Gil had been horrified.  Underwood, because he did not believe there was any such divide, and certainly no one on the other side of it with whom he wished to swap greetings; Gil because he did believe – and felt that God, in his wisdom, had erected barriers which man was not meant to try and cross.

Verity tried to defend her friend, pointing out that her beliefs were harmless enough, and sometimes brought a great deal of comfort to the bereaved, but Underwood, for once, was firm, “It is nothing short of cruel to perpetrate such hoaxes!  The woman should be thoroughly ashamed of herself!”

Gil naturally agreed and thereafter the atmosphere was decidedly frosty when they were brought together.  Now they lost no time in excusing themselves and left Ophelia and Verity alone.  The latter was not entirely sorry.  Ophelia was the one person in whom she could confide her fears fully, and this she proceeded to do, though she drew a firm line when Ophelia offered to ask her spirit guide to reveal the name of her assailant.  This was playing with fire, in more ways than one, as she very well knew.

Gil wandered off to greet Lady Hartley-Wells and Underwood made his way towards a group of young men, from whom much hilarity was rising.  Jeremy James Thornycroft was at the centre of the crowd, as Underwood had suspected he might be.  Whenever there were roars of raucous laughter, one could almost guarantee Thornycroft would be in the midst of it.

“Just in time, Underwood, you can defend my honour from this horde of rapscallions.”

Underwood leant casually against a marble pillar and folded his arms,

“Honour?  You don’t know the meaning of the word, Thornycroft.”              The younger man grinned amiably and shifted his weight more comfortably in his wheeled chair, “Damn your hide!  Will you listen?”

“Certainly.  Listening shouldn’t cost me anything.”

“We have a wager …”

“Ah,” said Underwood, as though light had dawned, “I did not think it would be long before that word raised its ugly head.”

Elliott, who had lost his right arm in the same battle in which  Jeremy James  had lost his legs, interrupted, “Gad, Underwood!  You are not natural.  How the devil can you resist the lure of parting Thornycroft from his money?”

“Quite easily,” came the sardonic reply.

Jeremy embarked on a long explanation of how he intended to beat the whole crowd in a horse race, and Underwood, barely listening, looked covertly at the eager young faces around him.  Without exception every one of the five, Thornycroft, Elliott, Swann, Meadows and Dickson, had lost his youth and health on the battlefields of Europe, yet there was not one scrap of bitterness or depression.  They had known the risks, taken them gladly, and borne the consequences with a valour which Underwood was not sure he possessed.  He found their humour and zest for life nothing short of miraculous, considering the burdens they all bore.

He was being brought back into the conversation and was forced to lay aside his introspection.  From the little he had heeded, it seemed Adeline had had designed and made a special saddle which was going to enable Thornycroft to sit a horse once more.  He declared that once he had mastered the knack, he was going to challenge all comers to a race around the town.

“By God, I’ll beat the lot of you,” he was saying.

“That won’t be difficult,”  was the grimly humorous riposte from Elliott, “I don’t have a right hand, Meadows is missing his right eye and needs spectacles for the other, Swann’s short his left leg and Dickson’s got less thigh than you.”

“I included Underwood in the challenge,” countered Thornycroft, with great dignity, “He’s able bodied.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me ride,” intercepted the grinning Underwood,  “I’m the worst horseman in Derbyshire, so don’t drag me into your madness.  I’m quite sure Adeline intended that you should trot sedately about town, taking the air, not tearing up and down the highroad, frightening the dowagers.”

“Nothing frightens the dowagers,” said Thornycroft decidedly, “And Adeline is a sweet girl, but she really cannot be expected to understand what makes a man’s blood run hot and wild.”

“If she’s like every other woman, she thinks it is she who does that,” murmured Underwood wryly, causing another explosion of laughter.

Elliott spoke to Underwood under cover of the merriment, “I see Miss Knight is back in town,” he said, nodding towards Verity and Ophelia.

“Has she been out of town?”  asked Underwood, without any interest whatsoever.

“For over a week,” admitted the lovelorn Elliott.

“Really?  I had not noticed.  Why not go over and welcome her back?”

Elliott took the hint and presently Ophelia was drawn from Verity’s side.  Underwood noticed and took his leave of the former soldiers with a grin and a friendly warning, “I think you really ought to know, there is a faction forming with the express purpose of having you gentlemen forcibly ejected from Hanbury.  Your shocking behaviour has finally worn out the sympathy of the elders of the town.”

Thornycroft laughed, “They can form as many factions as they want, old friend, but when all comes to all, they know we’re harmless.”

“Or armless, in Elliott’s case,” grinned Swann.

“Behave yourself for a few days,” cautioned Underwood, “By the way, Jeremy, just how much did you take away from Rogers the other day?”

“Plenty!”

A small smile adorned Verity’s face as Underwood rejoined her, “How are the ‘Wablers’?”  she asked, using a name for the soldiers which she really ought not to have known.  It was a vulgarism, a contemptuous terms used by the cavalry to refer to foot soldiers – a rank to which these brave cavalry men were now effectively reduced.

“Who on earth told you that sobriquet?”  asked Underwood, faintly shocked.  Her smile broadened, “If you think we ladies are ignorant of the vulgar tongue, you are entirely wrong.”

“Well, you ought to be,” he said emphatically, “And don’t use it in front of Gil!”

“Who, the ‘devil-driver’?”  she asked with a giggle.

“You seem to be feeling a little better.  Miss Knight does have her uses then?”

She did not bother to answer this, imagining it was only going to initiate a lecture.  They were quiet for a few moments, each busy with their own thoughts, then Underwood murmured, “I wonder how they knew?”

“Who knew what?”  asked Verity, puzzled.

“Miss Knight’s parents.  How could they possibly know she was going to grow up to
be
an Ophelia?”

“Well, she says she can see into the future – perhaps they could too.”

Underwood gave a derisive snort, but made no comment.  Verity smiled and added, “Mayhap she grew up as she did
because
she was named Ophelia.  I imagine she felt she had something to live up to, with a name like that.  After all, you were named after a character in Greek mythology and became a Classics master.”

He had not viewed the matter from this angle and it evidently gave him food for thought, “We had better choose our child’s name with care,” he counselled.

“I always intended to,” smiled Verity.

              “Elliott appears to be smitten,” said Underwood presently, after watching the young man struggle to bring the lady her water – no simple task for a man with only one arm.

“I think that a great pity,” remarked Verity, sadly.

Underwood raised a brow, “Surely Miss Knight would not reject him because of his injury?”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t think so.  But she is very much in love with another.”

“And are we to have the pleasure of meeting him?”

“I doubt it.  He is married already.”  This shocking revelation drew no response from Underwood, and Verity glanced sideways at him, to gauge his reaction, “You do not seem to mind very much,” she commented carefully.

“Why should I mind?  What Miss Knight chooses to do is no affair of mine.  It is rather for the wife of her lover to ‘mind’, isn’t it?”

“Some men might object to their wife having a woman such as she for a friend.”

“It is not in my nature to object to very much in life, my dear.  I have found it to be rather a waste of time.  One can object until one turns blue, but it rarely has an effect on the outcome of anything.”

“Then I may continue to see her?”

“Good God, yes!  What do you take me for?  I ask only two things.  One is that you do not confide this information to Gil, I fear the shock would kill him!  The second is that you do not involve yourself in any action which might bring scandal to your door.  I ask this, you understand, not for myself, but for you.  You have attained an enviable reputation in this place and I have no wish to see you destroy it.”

“I promise I will not,” she answered, much relieved that he had taken the news so calmly.

“Do you not think it might be kinder in her to discourage Elliott?”

“I don’t think she realizes she is encouraging him.  There is something oddly innocent about her at times.”

Her husband very much doubted that Ophelia Knight was in the least innocent about anything at all, but he kindly refrained from saying so, but he could not resist one tiny criticism.