A Most Naked Solution Read online

  “I don’t have one. Well, I suppose I have a parlor somewhere, but no one eats there.”

  “Oh.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose, leaving a streak of ink. “I don’t suppose you could pretend to sleep for a trifle longer? I had hoped to get in a few hours of work before playing host.”

  “No need. If I might borrow your coach, I am returning home.”

  She finally had his full attention. He pushed away the paper he’d been working on and looked at her. “Have the roads dried?”

  “The storm cleared and the sun is shining. I imagine the roads are in much better condition.”

  “But are they dry?” From anyone else, the words would have seemed mocking, but she knew it was merely the way his brain functioned, carefully classifying information, clarifying any ambiguity.

  So she conceded. “I am not entirely sure, no.”

  “Then I shall send a groom to determine the condition of the road. After all, if our coaches are stranded side by side, there will be no end to the scandal.”

  Like the one she’d created by spending the night at his home.

  “I have requested my servants be discrete about last night,” he said, reading her face.

  Which was indeed kind of him. But she found herself strangely unconcerned. She was a widow. And while the gossip would fascinate Weltford for a few weeks, they’d eventually move on. Especially when there was no further gossip to fan the flames.

  And she had no reason at all to wish for more gossip.

  “Thank you, and thank you for your hospitality.”

  He shrugged and shuffled through his papers. “You’re most welcome. Thank you for your assistance last night.”

  Her stomach rumbled. Not in a dainty way that they could both pretend to ignore, but in a loud outraged bellow. She clapped her hands over her stomach but it was too late to take the embarrassing sound back. “I’ll go politely back to my room and ring for a tray.”

  Camden was grinning, a wide, full grin that revealed perfect white teeth and creases in his cheeks. He pointed to the plate on the desk. “This is my second one. I swear I haven’t touched it. You are welcome to it.”

  Oh, heavens. She had already barged into his house—she couldn’t steal his food, too. Although the bacon did look divine . . .

  “Come now, you filched my tarts last night. Why should breakfast be any different? We weren’t expecting you to be up for several more hours, so you know it will take them a good while to cook your meal. And you spent the night in my bed. The least you can do is share breakfast with me.”

  “In one of your beds. Otherwise you’d be far more exhausted this morning.” She primly sat in the chair facing the desk and pulled the plate closer to her, relishing the fierce pleasure in her chest. Apparently, all her wit hadn’t abandoned her this morning. She’d forgotten how much satisfaction she’d always gotten from besting her brothers. They’d often worn the same shocked expression. They thought her quiet and demure. She relished reminding them there was more to her than that.

  How could she have forgotten how good it felt? Ecstatic, like she’d found a trunk of jewels packed away in a musty attic.

  Which made her the musty attic, but she refused to dwell overly on it.

  She ate a few bites of eggs, content with his silence.

  “I find myself constantly surprised by you.” He sounded a bit wary, as if he wasn’t a man fond of surprises.

  “I have gone from suspect to houseguest to breakfast thief in a rather short amount of time.” She lifted her gaze from her plate to find his deep russet eyes serious.

  “Do not forget mathematical assistant.”

  No, how could she forget that, when it had been one of the most pleasant nights of her life?

  “I find myself vexed that I cannot tell if I truly think you are innocent or if I just wish it so.”

  He still suspected her then. She should have known, but his easy banter had banished those memories. “Why are you convinced I killed my husband?”

  He shook his head slightly. “I’m not, entirely.”

  Yet she was still being considered. She could sense it in his hesitation. “Do you have any reason to suspect me, other than the fact that I was married to him?”

  “That gives you motive. A strong one, from what I hear. Perhaps it even justification?”

  She pushed her plate away. “I will not lie to you. There were many times I wanted him dead.” She stared at the fork resting on the edge of the plate. What did she tell him? What did he already know? “He”—she inhaled, the rest of her sentence escaped on her exhale—“hurt me badly.”

  “How badly?”

  Had he really just asked her that? But with the shock came an immense relief. Everyone else tiptoed around the issue, never discussing it, never mentioning it. Even when her brother Bennett had stayed with her after Richard’s death, he never asked. Everyone smiled and told the lies they had been instructed to tell. Sometimes she almost thought she’d imagined the horror of her marriage. But she hadn’t. She had the scars to prove it. Both on her skin and those under it.

  Most probably assumed her abuse was an intensely personal thing. It was. But she hated when people wouldn’t meet her eye. Or worse, discussed her when they thought she couldn’t hear, no matter how well meaning they were intending to be.

  So she answered. “For the first few years it was with words. Faults he found with me. I was never good enough.” She exhaled. “And I was young and naive enough to believe him. Then over the last year, his words weren’t doing enough, so he began using his fists to show me how I disappointed him. How pathetic I was.” She held Camden’s gaze as she spoke, his calm acceptance keeping the pieces of fractured glass in her chest from shattering completely. She didn’t think he understood. No one could—perhaps that was another reason they didn’t try. But neither did he offer platitudes.

  “How often?”

  “It depended. Sometimes months would go by. Sometimes days.” That was another thing she didn’t think anyone could understand. Sometimes there would be these days when Richard would be kind and charming like he’d been when they’d met. She would think perhaps he had meant it when he said he’d change. But those days had been worse than the violent days, because they gave her enough hope that he could keep leading her on.

  A vein in Camden’s neck throbbed, and suddenly she understood there was nothing calm about his acceptance. His hands gripped the desk so tightly his knuckles had whitened. The muscles along his jaw corded until she could see individual strands.

  Her throat was suddenly hot, swollen. Each breath scoured her lungs. “Come on then,” she said, bracing her hands on the edge of the desk. “Ask. Ask the question no one else has dared to voice.”

  “Why did you stay? Surely your family would have taken you in and protected you.”

  Now that he’d voiced the question, her mind blanked. How could she explain? How could she explain how everything vital had been stripped away until she was nothing but a frightened shell? How could she explain her shame over the bruises fading on her arms from where he’d grabbed her? Or say how much she hated herself?

  She’d wanted to go back to her family. Longed to go sit in her bedroom and watch out her window as her mother tended her roses. Wanted to hear her sister Claire’s chattering nonsense. Needed to sit in a patch of sunlight in her room with a book in her lap.

  But she wasn’t that girl anymore, and she wouldn’t have been able to explain how she’d let that girl be destroyed.

  “I believed him until I almost couldn’t remember any other life. He was my husband. I didn’t want everyone to know what a failure I had been.” Somewhere deep inside, she’d thought Richard a broken version of her father and brothers. That he was what he was because she’d failed him. That she should have been able to be a better wife to please him and make him well.

  But now she knew that men like Richard were a whole other species entirely. She’d realized it after her brother Benne
tt had found her injured and swooped in full of fury and grief. How could she not have seen what a pale version of a man Richard was compared to her brother?

  Compared to Camden.

  She redirected the conversation back to the original topic before he had a chance to respond. “But as miserable as I was, I didn’t hire those men to kill him.”

  His lips thinned, as if from biting back words. Finally, he said, “Tubs said the killers claimed a woman hired them.” His gaze examined her, burning over her skin, probing for guilt.

  But she had nothing to give him but shock. “A woman?” There was a cruel irony somewhere in this. He’d betrayed her with his mistresses and one of his women had finally been brave enough to betray him in the most elemental way possible.

  But who would believe her innocence? She had nothing but her word. If she were in Camden’s place, she would have suspected herself. And she feared the right jury would deem it enough evidence to convict. “Why haven’t you had me thrown in prison?”

  “Several things point to your innocence. Someone tried to kill you yesterday. I have to wonder if it’s the same person who killed your husband. Also there’s the method of the murder. Perhaps if you were defending yourself, or someone else, I could see you harming Harding. Yet I cannot picture you coldly hiring two killers. So tell me, Sophia, how do I choose which set of evidence to believe?”

  “Perhaps you simply need more evidence.”

  Damnation, but he believed her. Huntford would probably call him a fool again for telling her the details Tubs had given him, but the look of astonishment on her face had been genuine. No alarm had tainted it. “Where do you suggest I look?”

  He was grateful when she resumed eating. She’d weighed almost nothing when he’d carried her to her room last night. She chewed thoughtfully as she considered his question, and he stared at the delicate line of her jaw, the narrow grace of her throat. Hell, he couldn’t imagine her surviving a single punch, let alone multiple beatings.

  But then her appearance was deceiving. Her recitation of her treatment at her husband’s hands had taken more courage than most men possessed. She might not know that it lurked within her, but now he did.

  Rarely did he meet a person who would take his bluntness without prevarications and lies. Or great offense.

  Sophia had given him honesty.

  He wanted to push the limits of that honesty. What would she say if he asked if he could kiss her lips? There was something simmering between them. An awareness. A connection. And for a moment by her door last night when he’d been tempted almost beyond sense, she’d wanted it, too.

  Or at least he thought she had. Hell, his friends were right—he did need to get away from his studies more.

  “My husband had numerous affairs. Perhaps it was a former lover or mistress.”

  Again, the urge to shoot the bastard surprised him. Although the army had taught him to use violence with great efficiency, it wasn’t normally his first impulse.

  But he would have made an exception for Harding.

  Huntford had better arrive soon to take over this investigation. Camden was growing less fond of it by the second. But he didn’t have the luxury of waiting, not when her life might still be in danger. “Do you know the identities of any of them?”

  She set down her fork again. “A few—”

  Rafferty spoke from the doorway. “There’s a cart here to pick up Lady Harding.”

  “We will claim her ourselves, thank ye very much.” Wicken barreled past Rafferty, a determined look on his face.

  “You were asked to wait outside.”

  Wicken snorted. “I intend to ensure her ladyship leaves this house safely. Some madman shot at her yesterday and then we get word that she’s somehow become stranded at this house, in need of clothing, all without ever calling for the carriage to come here. We”—he nodded to the groom that had appeared behind him—“mean to make sure she is able to get home where she belongs.”

  Rafferty drew himself even straighter, a feat Camden wouldn’t have believed possible. “I assure you that Lady Harding’s arrival at this house was entirely voluntary and any insinuation otherwise—”

  Sophia rose to her feet, stepping between the two men. “Wicken, thank you for your prompt arrival, but Rafferty is correct. I desired to speak to Lord Grey but became trapped by the storm.”

  Wicken frowned, searching her for any hidden injuries. When he was apparently content, he bowed to Camden. “Begging your pardon, sir. In that case, we have information for you.”

  Camden raised an eyebrow at the switch in topic, but nodded. “Information?”

  Wicken tapped the side of his nose. “Indeed, sir.” He leaned back out of the doorway. “Haws!”

  The tavern owner inserted himself in the group of people blocking the door.

  “Tell him, Haws,” Wicken said.

  Belatedly, Haws pulled the battered hat off his head. “I had no idea when I spoke to you yesterday that anything had happened.”

  “What had happened?” Camden asked.

  “Why, that Lady Harding had been shot at. I would have told you at once. I want no harm to befall her ladyship. And I want it to be clear that I had nothing to do with it.”

  Camden shoved the graphs and numbers in front of him to the side. “Told me what?”

  “That my rifle was stolen yesterday.”

  Sophia’s eyes flew to Camden’s. He tried to ignore the small spurt of satisfaction that it was his opinion she sought. “When?”

  “Careless old mule,” Wicken muttered, even though he must have had Haws beat by at least a decade.

  Haws folded his arms. “I’m not careless. Most of the time it’s right by my feet under the bar. But I took it out Wednesday morning to clean it like I do every week. I set it on the bench by the kitchen door while I got my supplies. When I returned, it was gone. Mayhap about nine in the morning?”

  Plenty enough time to for someone to steal the weapon and sneak to Sophia’s house. “Who knows when you clean the gun?”

  Haws stroked his hand through the bristles on his chin. “Can’t rightly say. I do it every week. Anyone around the livery stable would have seen me.”

  Then everyone in the town was a suspect. “Who in the town wants you dead, Sophia?” Camden lowered his voice so it reached her alone.

  She shook her head slightly. “I didn’t think I had enemies.”

  “You do have one,” Wicken interrupted.

  Apparently Camden’s question hadn’t been as quiet as he thought. “Who?”

  “Eugena Ovard. That evil harpy of a housekeeper.”

  “Why does she hold a grudge against you?” Camden asked.

  When Sophia hesitated, Wicken spoke. “Ovard was close at one point with his lordship when he were young, if you catch my meaning, sir. It were when she was a housemaid and he a lad. Grew bitter over his lordship picking a wife, not that she should have believed the promises he’d made. A man like that uses promises like cheap ale. But Ovard went out of her way to add to the master’s cruelty to her ladyship, to punish her. Told him lies about her. Ordered the servants not to tend her when her ladyship was hurt.” Wicken grunted. “Not that we listened.”

  Mrs. Ovard had been quick to cast blame on Sophia, too. Covering her own crime, perhaps? Jealousy would give her a strong motive. “I’ll pay her a visit,” Camden said.

  Sophia stood. “I’ll go with you.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Like hell you will,” Camden said.

  Wicken cleared his throat rather forcefully in the doorway. Sophia watched as the color climbed up Camden’s throat. But his gaze held firm. “You’ll go home, where you are safe.”

  “I wasn’t safe there yesterday,” Sophia pointed out. This wasn’t an argument she wanted to have in front of everyone else, but she wasn’t about to back down simply because he expected her to obey. She knew the people of this town far better than he did. Especially Mrs. Ovard. Sophia needed to be there so she would know
what the nasty woman was telling Camden. She’d borne her slander during three years of marriage, and she wasn’t going to let her ruin the first tentative friendship she’d had in years with lies.

  Or worse, the truth.

  “You’re welcome to stay at my house until I have assured you are safe.”

  “I’ve had experience with her. I can be of assistance.”

  Camden tapped his fingers on the desk. Finally, he stood. “Rafferty. Have the coach brought around.”

  “You should be leaving on the cart with me, Lady Harding.” Wicken’s brows drew tight. “You shouldn’t have to face that woman.”

  “She doesn’t frighten me. Not anymore.”

  “She frightened all the others. Still does.”

  “Come, Wicken.” Haws patted the man on the shoulders. “She don’t need your protection. Lord Harding’s as dead as they get. He won’t hurt any others.”

  Finally Wicken’s shoulders drooped. “I have your word she won’t come to harm, Lord Grey? I want your word as an officer. The word of a gentleman don’t count for much.”

  Richard would have struck a servant for such an insult. Camden instead nodded, the lines of his face serious.

  Wicken, Haws, and the groom shuffled out.

  The room was suddenly silent. Camden walked around the desk and moved to her side. They’d been alone ten minutes ago, yet it was different to have started off alone with a man than to be left alone with one. If she reached out, her fingers would brush his chest. She wanted to rest her cheek against it to claim the memories she’d missed last night during her sleep. Her heart hammered so loudly she inched away so he didn’t hear.

  “Why are you letting me come?” she asked, needing something to distract her from his crisp, male scent. From the crease between his brows she’d memorized.

  After all, he hadn’t renewed their acquaintance by choice. He’d had years to do that, and she’d never heard from him. He’d only sought her out because he thought her a killer. She might have changed his mind, but that didn’t mean he desired her.