Yield Not To Misfortune (The Underwood Mysteries Book 5) Read Online Free PDF Page A

thought of the long-widowed Lady Hartley-Wells envying the naughty Lady Love and her Spanish paramour.  The lady was human after all – and her distrust of George Gratten was entirely understandable – he was a man who enjoyed the discomfiture of others when they had shown less than cringing respect for his position. Underwood had a fondness for the Constable, for despite his many faults, he had a fierce determination to see the law upheld and his loyalty was unswerving to those he considered his supporters in his role.
    As to his opinion of the woman who was calling herself Lydia Woodforde – well, to his annoyance he still could not quite draw a final conclusion. In this instance, only time would tell.
     
    *

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    “Miles Gloriosus” – A Boastful Soldier
     
     
    For the second morning in a sennight Underwood found himself accosted in his own hallway by a visitor. He decided there and then to vary his routine – it was becoming all too obvious that every one of his acquaintance was aware that they would not only find him at home, but that he would also be trapped into hospitality by his need to break his fast if they called on him before ten in the morning.
    This time it was Jeremy James Thornycroft whom he discovered being aided over the doorstep by Toby, who was one of the few in the household who was strong enough to tussle with the wheeled chair which the legless Waterloo veteran was forced to use.
    Jeremy James tended not to visit Underwood at home because it was such a performance getting to Windward House, which stood a mile or so outside Hanbury, so that Underwood could have the isolation he sometimes craved, but near enough to feed his hunger for civilisation when he was feeling sociable.
    It seemed the Major had accomplished this journey, not, as Underwood feared, by making his young wife push him over a mile down the rutted lane, but he had hired a carrier’s cart, which could transport the chair as well as the man.
    Toby had already sent the carter around to the back door, where he would be entertained in the kitchen until Jeremy was ready to take his leave.
    Underwood, who was still ragged at the edges from his enforced child care of the day before, would have very much preferred to have told his friend to take himself off until a more respectable hour, but was compelled to be polite, knowing the effort it had taken to reach the house. With a repressed sigh he swept his hand before him, indicating that Jeremy should precede him into the dining room and his rapidly cooling repast.
    “What can I do for you?” he asked, once he and his guest were served with coffee and he beheld a plateful of tempting breakfast delicacies such as devilled kidney and coddled eggs.
    “I need you to undertake a mission for me, Underwood,” said the Major, helping himself to bread and honey, though he had already eaten at home in Hanbury two hours earlier. Unlike Underwood he had never been able to shake off the habit of early rising.
    “Another one?” murmured Underwood thoughtlessly.
    Jeremy raised his brows, “What do you mean, ‘another one’? I’ve never asked you before.”
    “No, you have not,” Underwood sounded surprised, but in reality he was cursing his clumsiness in mentioning anything of the kind. It seemed he was incapable of keeping Mrs Woodforde’s secret for anything above twenty four hours, “I do beg your pardon, I must be thinking of someone else,” he added smoothly, trusting that his famed absent-mindedness would account for the slip and he would not be questioned further.
    “Who?” asked Jeremy James, who was nothing if not direct and as sharp as a tack.
    “Shouldn’t that be ‘whom’?” enquired Underwood, neatly evading the question by exasperating the old soldier with irrelevancies.
    “Never mind the lecture on grammar, Underwood,” he said briskly, “We all know of your superior intellect – I want to know if you are going to lend your famed intelligence to