[O] Underline ONLY the first character of a word?

[Michael Hannon]

Greetings.  I've "inherited" an HTML document that uses the construct:

    <u>e</u>vent

for instance, to underline the initial 'e' in the word.  The context is
something like:

    <b>e</b>    <u>e</u>vent

to show that the choice of option 'e' corresponds to choosing an "event".

In preparation for a revision of the document, I'm trying to create a *.org
file that will duplicate as much of the original style of the HTML document as
possible (i.e., when exported to HTML).

I haven't been able to find a way to underline just the first character of a
word.  For instance,

    _e_vent

doesn't produce what I want.  I tried:

    _e_ vent

and that underlined the 'e' but, of course, left an unwanted space.

Is there some way to do this?  A better way?

Thanks,

-- Mike