A Place For Repentance (The Underwood Mysteries Book 6) (37 page)

              “You really think George will resist accepting the truth?” asked Verity anxiously.

              “I know he will,” responded Underwood wearily, “And if I had one ounce of compassion for Violette and Will, I would drag myself to town and insist he release the pair of them right this very second. However, I think we would all benefit from a night’s rest before I attempt to wrest the victor’s laurels from my old friend’s grasp. A night in the cells might teach Will and Violette to be a little more circumspect – and trusting of each other. If they had been sure each of them that the other was innocent, none of these lavish gestures of self-sacrifice would have been necessary.”

              “That is a little unkind, Cadmus,” said Verity.

              “Unkind or not, that is my decision. Now put those two little ones to bed while I lock the doors. Not another soul is crossing the threshold tonight, no matter how heart-wrenching their tale of woe!”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

WINTER, 1829

              Before a roaring fire in his book-lined study, Underwood was enjoying a rare hour of peace and quiet.

              It was the day before Christmas Eve and he was toying with the various excuses he could tender in order to avoid Lady Hartley-Wells’ annual soiree at Wells Place the following day. She had welcomed a few select friends to dinner on Christmas Eve for years, but the success of her party in the summer had rather gone to her head and she now planned to hold two major engagements each year; a ball in the winter and a grand garden party in the summer.

              For Underwood the celebration of Jeremy James Thornycroft’s birthday had been rather overshadowed by the finding of the corpse of Martha Jebson in the shrubbery, but since most people had remained unaware of this horror until after the event, it had not spoiled the general enjoyment.

              He felt very strongly that he would sooner have Will the apothecary extract one of his teeth than attend what promised to be a rumbustious affair, for the Wablers had suddenly become the old lady’s favourites and now she would not think of entertaining without them. Verity, however, had read the invitation with eyes sparkling in anticipation so he knew that nothing but the direst circumstance could excuse him.

              To make his impending nightmare even worse, the two Misses Northfleet had come home from their self-imposed exile to Harrogate, now that the town was clear of all Waterloo veterans but the Wablers, who seemed now to be paragons of virtue and self-restraint in comparison to some of the carousing that had frightened the ladies away in the first place.

              However, since he could not think of anything severe enough to save him from the enforced socializing, he closed his eyes and gave himself up to the bliss of a relatively silent house. He could hear nothing but the crackle of the fire, the sonorous ticking of the case clock out in the hall, and the musical chime when it struck the quarters. Delightfully there were no running feet, no shrieks or yells. Sabrina and Toby had taken his daughters out to search the hedgerows for holly, ivy and mistletoe to garland the house ready for the festivities.

Verity was in her studio putting the finishing touches to a portrait of Cressida Petch and Frederic Meadows for their wedding gift when they married in the spring. Freddy looked very Nelsonian with his eyepatch and Cressida had blossomed into a beautiful young woman, finally freed from all domestic tyranny by having a loving man by her side and the death of her affectionate, but extremely demanding Great Aunt Jemima Greenhowe. She and her brother Rutherford were now independently wealthy, but Rutherford was still set on returning to Australia the moment he saw his sister was safely wed.

There had been another wedding too, only a few days before, performed very quietly and circumspectly in Dacorum-in-the-Marsh by Lindell Draycott.

Will Jebson had barely waited six months after his wife’s murder to marry Violette. To try and avoid too much scandal, they had returned to the place where they had first met, but no one in Hanbury had judged them too harshly. Any show of mild disapproval was merely a nod to convention. Martha had made herself thoroughly unpopular with almost everyone and though Will and Violette had been accused of her murder, the confession by Flora Colfax also known as Lilith Sowerbutts, had eventually exonerated them both.

Of course Sir George had made Underwood work hard for their freedom, declaring that they had both made their own confessions and that the letter could be a forgery, but in the end he had to admit defeat. In the face of his own certainty of the integrity of his old friend Underwood – and lacking any real evidence of their guilt, he had to acknowledge that both Violette and Will had declared their culpability merely in order to save the other from the gallows and he had finally released the pair without a stain on their characters.

He still had his moment of victory, of course, for Underwood had held the assassin, wanted in at least five counties, in his grasp, and through sheer carelessness he had let her and her accomplice make their escape.

The Constable would hold that against him for many a long day and when he was feeling particularly irascible, he would relish the chance to remind his friend of his butterfingers!

So life in Hanbury had slowly returned to its sleepy, uneventful way and Underwood had promised his wife – yet again – that he would endeavour to stay out of trouble, and he would never again keep any secrets from her. Both of which oaths they knew were heartfelt but exceedingly unlikely to be fulfilled.

He must have dozed off because a light tap on the door startled him awake and he turned to see Verity peeping around the door.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, my dear, I can see you are busy,” she said, laughter lighting her eyes as she looked lovingly at him, his hair tousled from leaning against the wing of the chair in which he had been relaxing.

“Just resting my eyes, my love, after a hard morning of writing,” he answered, but his boyishly sheepish grin told her that he had been well and truly caught out.

“A messenger just brought you a package.” She held it out to him, wrapped neatly in brown paper and the size and shape of a book, “I thought we agreed we were not going to buy any more books until the New Year,” she added chidingly.

He would have liked to deny the accusation, but the truth was that he was not entirely sure he was not guilty. His one weakness was the written word.

She handed it over, saying as she left, “Tea in the parlour in a few minutes.”

“I’ll join you presently. Thank you.”

When she had gone he walked across the room and took his seat behind the big oak desk under the window as the light was better to read by.

There was nothing on the covering but his own name and address, no identifying bookshop stamp or frank to tell him from whence the thing had come and so snipped the string and opened it cautiously, aware that there might be hidden blades or noxious substances hidden within the folds. He had been investigating crime for so long now that his name was well-known and the threat of revenge was not an uncommon peril to him.

He need not have concerned himself. All that the package contained was a leather-bound notebook and a piece of white card, bearing, in neat copperplate handwriting, the legend;

             
“A promise is a promise, Mr Underwood,

                            With Fond Good Wishes,

                                          The Mother of Demons”

Lilith, the mother of demons, it could not be anyone else but Flora Colfax. She had remembered her undertaking to explain her actions to him.

With something approaching trepidation he opened the notebook and began to read;

‘I’ve sometimes wondered what leads some of us kill others – for gain perhaps, for revenge, for love? But not I!  No, I began to kill for survival – and I continued to kill to help others around me survive …’

THE END

SUZANNE DOWNES COPYRIGHT 2015