A Noble Pair of Brothers (The Underwood Mysteries Book 1)

by Suzanne Downes

  Mr. Underwood was scarcely aware of her departure; he was debating whether to break the rule of a lifetime and knock a drunken, and elderly, man off his feet. He not only felt sorry for Charlotte, who he thought had shown great spirit in the face of adversity, but he was excruciatingly embarrassed on his own account. Obtuse he may have been, but it had not occurred to him for a moment that his brother was correct and that Charlotte was nursing a tendre for him. He had given her no encouragement, no reason to think he might be even slightly interested in her. If he had thought of her at all, it was as a child, and talk of marriage, in any case, was unutterably tasteless.

  He found Maria by his side as he stood, still undecided what to do next, and had to lower his head slightly in order to catch the whispered words she spoke to him,

  “Charlotte is so terribly distressed, Mr. Underwood. Could I presume upon your good nature to beg you go and speak to her? If you do not, I think she will never be able to face you again!”

  Looking down into her pale grey-green eyes, so full of suffering and patience, he could not find it in his heart to refuse, though in truth he desired nothing more at that moment than to leave the house, the village, the district and never to return. How had this nightmare happened? It was none of his doing, so why the devil should he be required to put it right?

  “Where will she be?” he asked tersely. He was doing as she asked, but he felt no compunction to be polite about it.

  “The old nursery, I think. That is where she usually hides, since she shares her bedroom with Isobel, and it is so rarely used now. Go to the top of the stairs, turn to the left and go to the end of the corridor. It is the last door before the turning for the attic stairs.”

  Before he left the room, Underwood permitted himself one last, contemptuous glance towards his host, but it proved fruitless, for Sir Henry’s head had fallen forward onto the table and he appeared to be quite insensible.

  *

  CHAPTER TEN

  (“Hinc Illae Lacrimae” - Hence those tears)

  Despite his concern that his leaving the dining room would be remarked upon by all, Underwood need not have worried. His exit was noticed only by his brother, for all the others were intent upon removing Sir Henry from the table, and, more importantly, the vicinity of the port decanter. His son and son-in-law, with an air of resignation which told of many such similar incidents, each took an arm and with small ceremony, hoisted the older man to his feet – no mean achievement, for in spite of his lack of height, Sir Henry was, nevertheless, portly and completely incapable of supporting his own weight.

  The Rev. Mr Underwood watched the proceedings with great interest, but without making any attempt to offer his assistance. Let the Wynter men sweat and grunt together like hogs in trying to get Sir Henry on his feet, but the very thought of even setting a hand on the now snivelling, dribbling magistrate was thoroughly repulsive to the vicar, who could see that his family were quite unmoved by the maudlin apologies and expressions of regret and affection, apparently being used to the violent swings of mood in their parent.

  As the only person present not related to the clan, Gil found the whole scene nauseating and found his heart wrung with sympathy for the daughters of this pathetic piece of human wreckage. He had, in the past, witnessed Sir Henry slightly inebriated and had found him merely coarse and offensive. This display he found appalling and he was honest enough to admit that he now regretted not taking his brother’s advice and refusing the invitation.

  This thought reminded him of his sibling’s unenviable task in coping with the tearful Charlotte. He experienced a pang of guilt when he recalled how very reticent his brother was with women, and his complete avoidance of the sex. He could imagine no more exquisite a torture for him than to have to dry a woman’s tears and listen to her admissions of love.

  How he would survive the mortification Gil had no idea!

  *

  The situation upstairs, however, was not quite so grim as the vicar was imagining. The one fact he had overlooked was that his brother was accustomed to dealing with the problems of the youthful – and to him that was all Charlotte was, merely young and misguided. Nature, being nature, meant that more often than not those problems involved love – both requited and unrequited, so he was used to hearing impassioned outpourings of longing for entirely unsuitable idols, and upon two very memorable occasions had been concerned (though not surprised, having been in the Public School system for a good many years!) to find himself the object of desire. He was not shocked by either of these incidents, for he was very well-acquainted with Greek and Roman history and could barely be shocked by anything after having had a classical education, but he had had to handle them extremely delicately, so he was not quite as new to this predicament, nor as ill-equipped to deal with it, as his brother naively supposed.

  He found the room to which he had been directed with very little trouble and upon tapping on the door; he entered immediately without waiting for an invitation from within. Experience had taught him that a knock usually elicited the response,

  “Go away!” and there then followed a tedious process of cajolery and assurances of good will before access was ultimately allowed.

  Having successfully gained entry, he closed the door behind him and stood leaning against it.

  Charlotte sat at the far side of the room, on a cushioned window seat, and had evidently been staring out onto the moonlit garden. She turned her head swiftly when she heard the door open and having been expecting one of her sisters, gave a horrified gasp when she saw him. Despite being lit only by a crescent moon and a single candle, which guttered on a table beside her, Underwood could see her face quite clearly, and was more than sorry to see the evidence of great distress etched upon her features.

  “Do I intrude, Miss Wynter?” he asked, with infinite kindness. She responded by turning her face away and murmuring in strangled tones, “Oh, go away, please!”

  Mr. Underwood would have been only too happy to oblige, but he knew he had hardly fulfilled the task imposed by her sister. However, he was at a loss how to continue. Usually, having gained entry, the other party desired nothing more than to pour forth their troubles into his ears. He didn’t recall ever having been ordered away before. He hesitated momentarily, then said, “Very well,” as he reached for the door handle – there was little else he could do.

  “Mr. Underwood!”

  He turned back to her, “Yes?”

  “I’m so sorry! That was unforgivably rude. Please come in.”

  He crossed the room and stood before her, “Do you mind if I sit here with you for a few moments?”

  She shook her head, frantically searching her person, vainly as it happened, since she was wearing an evening dress, which was conspicuously pocketless, at the same time, assiduously avoiding meeting his eyes. Correctly assuming she sought a handkerchief, he gallantly presented her with his own, rather spoiling the effect by remarking, “That’s the second handkerchief I’ve lost to you. I hope I brought enough with me to see me to the end of my visit!”

  He took his seat on the opposite side of the window and added, “It’s terribly cold in here. Is the fire laid?”

  “No, this room isn’t used any more. It’s the nursery.”

  He was already aware of this, having been told as much by Maria, and his swift glance about the gloomy room confirmed it. He could barely discern items of nursery furniture which loomed in the semi-darkness; a dolls house, a rocking horse, tiny tables and chairs. It had the sad deserted air of a room long since abandoned, even that vague, musty smell which he usually associated with old, empty churches.

  Odd how that aroma disappeared when services were being held, but surged back the moment the congregation left.

  “You had better take my coat.” He did not wait for the standard refusal, but accordingly suited word for action, draping it about her shoulders and leaving himself in shirtsleeves and waistcoat. So swift was the movement that she did not have time to protest, tho
ugh if the truth were known, she had no real desire to do so. She was clad in a low-cut evening dress of white satin, overlaid with lace, with short, puffed sleeves, as befitted her unmarried status, and was only too glad to nestle into his still-warm garment, imagining his arms about her instead of merely his coat.

  “You are very kind, Mr. Underwood.” Her voice was still dangerously quavering and he thought it imperative to ensure that no further tears were shed – at least not in his presence. What she did when he was gone was no affair of his!

  “Kind? I hardly think so! I appear to have caused a furore at the dinner table – for which I must apologise most sincerely. It was not only foolhardy, but unforgivable to have roused your father’s wrath.”

  “No,” she said bitterly, “It is he who is unforgivable! How could he be so rude to you – and humiliate me so! And before you, of all people! I shall never, ever forgive him! Everything I told him was in the strictest confidence!”

  Underwood could not help reflecting, rather cynically and not at all sympathetically, that she had chosen a poor receptacle for her heart’s deepest secrets, but his reply was couched in much more diplomatic terms, “Do not judge him too harshly, my child! He probably thought he was acting in your best interests. Secrets will get out – and when they do, they have an awkward habit of becoming the object of gossip, conjecture and unkind laughter! After all, ‘Amor et tussis non celantur’”

  The Latin quotation, as he had intended, had the effect of making her forget her tears in the intrigue of wondering what it meant. She was still child enough to be thus easily distracted.

  Raising her damp-lashed, green eyes to his face she said, “I know you will think me very ignorant, but I’m afraid I have no Latin – I assume it is Latin?”

  “Indeed it is – and I certainly do not think you ignorant! On the contrary, I usually find it unmannerly in the extreme for a person to use a language which he knows his listener does not understand, but on this one occasion I shall allow myself the liberty, since that particular quotation expresses my feelings on the subject perfectly.”

  She managed a small, watery smile, “And what does it mean?”

  “Literally translated, ‘Love and a cough cannot be hid’. A truth which, I think, you must agree to be entirely indisputable.”

  Her eyes never left his, “Are you trying to tell me that you already knew of my … feelings for you?”

  “Well, I am not intimating that I thought you had a chill!”

  She began to laugh, a little nervously, “I never knew such things could be said in Latin. I always imagined it to be a very staid language!”

  “Good God! Why? The Romans were a scandalous lot – and even they caught colds, especially after they invaded England!”

  The laughter died from her eyes and her gaze dropped, “I must have been very obvious! Was everybody very amused by my silliness?”

  Mr. Underwood was a kind man, but a scrupulously honest one. He knew her sensibilities had already been seared by her father’s faux pas, so he felt he could not add to her burden by admitting that everyone, with the exception of himself, had been privy to her secret, and mostly extremely amused by her choice of swain! He was experienced enough to know that first love (there he was making a vast assumption, but who was to gainsay him?) could be a strong and painful emotion, not to be treated lightly, or to be despised, however unlikely or ineligible the object of desire.

  “I must say, I take great exception to the word ‘silliness’ – it rather suggests than any woman would have to be an inmate of Bedlam to give me a second glance!”

  She blushed and whispered breathlessly, “Oh no! I did not mean any such thing!” He heaved a mental sigh of relief at having successfully avoided answer her question directly. The strain of reassuring her, but keeping her at a distance was beginning to tell on him. It was astoundingly difficult to talk of love without saying something which could be disastrously misinterpreted.

  He watched her as she toyed with his handkerchief, noting how long and slim were her fingers, and how the candlelight sent sparks of fire from her hair. Since the first sighting of her on the stallion, he had not really taken note of how very lovely she was, how smooth and pale her skin, how bright her hair, the length of her dark lashes against the curve of her cheek, the perfection of the shape of her mouth.

  The tiniest of frowns creased his brow. Not that way, Underwood! he warned himself silently.

  “And what of you, Mr. Underwood? Where do you stand in all this?” her voice was barely discernible and for the first time he found himself without a ready answer.

  He had come to seek her merely because he had been asked to do so, and because he did not like to think of any creature wallowing in misery. He had thought of her as a confused child and he had fully intended to crush her pretensions with gentleness but firmly for all that. To him she had simply been like one of his younger students, albeit of a different gender, a youth in need of advice and firm handling. It unnerved him to be suddenly confronted with a lovely young woman.

  He shook his head slightly, as though to dislodge such irrelevant thoughts from his mind and rising to his feet, he began to pace the room, rubbing his hands together in an effort to warm them. He had not realized how cold the room was, so slowly had the chill crept into his bones.

  “I? I am not on the marriage market, Miss Wynter!” he assured her suddenly, and rather brutally, then regretting his harshness he added more gently, “I’m too old and set in my ways to be thinking of romance. My life is half over, yours is only just beginning.”

  “If you really cared for me, you wouldn’t use that against me!” she said softly.

  “How can I know if I care for you? I scarcely know you – and you know me not at all! You have no idea what you are asking!” He drew in a deep breath and attempted to change the subject, “Miss Wynter, if I might be permitted to say so, I think you need, very badly, to get out of this house. Is there nowhere you could go? Some other relative perhaps? Is there no one in your mother’s family who could take you in?”

  She shook her head in swift and certain denial, “My only escape from this house will be through marriage.”

  He had stopped pacing now and stood by the empty fireplace. Without thinking he laid his hand on the mantle and rested his head against it, “Pray don’t look to me for deliverance! You don’t understand, Charlotte. Nothing is as simple as it seems. When I say my life is over, I mean it quite literally. Something happened to me which I cannot forget. I couldn’t lay the burden of my dark moods on any woman – certainly not on one as young and pretty as you.”

  “You are right, I don’t understand. Won’t you tell me what happened?” The anguish in her voice made him lift his head and look towards her. In the darkness he looked pale and ghostly, his blond hair barely catching the light of the candle, his eyes lost in the shadows of his face. He looked suddenly old and lost and she was frightened, “Don’t stand there! I can’t see you properly and it makes me afraid!”

  He straightened himself and came back to her, “I’m sorry.” She did not know if he was apologising for scaring her, or for his rejection of her, but it hardly mattered.

  “Don’t ask me to alter things, my dear. My life is settled, my future decided. There is no place for change now,” he stopped abruptly, aware that he sounded as though he were trying to convince himself and not her at all. His frown deepened and he closed his eyes as though in pain, “I have work to do.”

  “I would not hinder you!” she whispered, “I would be there to help you.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her, his eyes raking her face as though for some flaw which might aid his escape, “On the contrary, Miss Wynter, you would take away my work completely. If I should marry, I would have to resign. Women are not welcome in the male-orientated world of the University, and I have no other way of earning a living.”

  “Is that really the truth?”

  “It is.”

  “I see,” she rose to her
feet, “Then we may as well say goodbye now.” She moved very close to him, her eyes looking deep into his. He could feel the warmth of her body, smell the sweet, clean fragrance of her. It had been many years since he had been in such close proximity to a young woman and he told himself that it was scarcely surprising that he found he was not entirely impervious to her charms. He was a man, after all, and not exactly in his dotage.

  “Charlotte…” he realized that he wanted very much to kiss her, but he could not. Something about her stopped him, as surely as if there had been a physical barrier between them. Her youth and beauty called out to him, but he knew he could not take advantage of that, especially in the face of his determination to carry this no farther. To succumb to temptation would be the action of a selfish rogue, but for all that, he knew he did not want to entirely lose her now. Was he being a fool to continue mourning for Elinor, tormenting himself with blame for her death?

  “Not goodbye!” he heard himself saying, almost with despair, “Would you thrust me completely from your society simply because I ask you to take some time to think about things? You are much too young to make decisions which are going to affect the rest of your life?”

  She seemed to read much more into his words than he ever intended for her eyes glowed with happiness and he found he could no longer bear to look at her. Underwood, he told himself sternly, you are a weak-willed idiot, and you deserve whatever comes of this! Closing his eyes he bent slightly and raised one of her hands to his lips. He kissed it with all the fervour he longed to expend on her mouth. He felt her free hand touch his hair, shyly, hesitantly and he knew he had been right not to overwhelm her with his suddenly discovered feelings. She had obviously never been so close to a man before.