A Most Naked Solution Read online

  Camden circled the house one final time, checking windows and ensuring the patrols were in place. He wished they’d been able to create a useful list of suspects. But while the list of her husband’s lovers Sophia had provided had been sickeningly extensive, all of the women were safely away in London—although it was possible one of them had hired someone. He’d have Huntford look into those when he arrived.

  Wicken joined him as he finished his circuit of the house. “Any news, sir?”

  Camden shook his head. “How long have you worked at Harding House?”

  “Nearly my entire life. Except those few years I served in the army as a young man.”

  “Besides Mrs. Ovard, did Lord Harding have relationships with any village women?”

  Wicken bent over to pull a weed from the gravel path. “Are there any he didn’t ruin?” He yanked the interloper out by the roots and crushed it in his hand. “This house has never been the main residence of the Hardings. They prefer their estate in Brighton. But they’d come out here about once or twice a year, and whenever they left, there’d be some local girl crying after his carriage. Showing up on the doorstep looking for promised things that we had no way of providing.”

  “Could you make me a list?”

  Wicken dropped the crushed weed from his hand and brushed dirt from his fingers. “I don’t reckon if I’ll be able to recall everyone.”

  Camden stepped around a large oak tree to see how close the branches came to the windows on the upper floors. A curtain twitched and Sophia’s face appeared in a window above him. She was dressed in something white. Or not dressed. Heat surged through him as he thought of her clad in nothing but her shift. “Perhaps Mrs. Haws would know—”

  “I’ll check with her, sir, and get right back to you. I know you’re busy, what with your work and watching out for her ladyship,” Wicken said.

  A scream echoed through the garden.

  Camden bolted into the house, shoving past the butler and grooms, taking the stairs two at a time. Why hadn’t he checked her room? He should have ensured her house was safe before allowing her into it.

  Another scream, this time ending in a sob. He followed the sound toward an open door at the end of the corridor. It matched the window he’d seen from below.

  “Get back!” Sophia’s voice was panicked but firm.

  As Camden reached her room, a maid stumbled from the door directly into him. He had to grab her to keep her from collapsing to the ground, but his attention was already focused inside the room and on whomever Sophia was warning away.

  But he couldn’t see anyone.

  “Who—”

  “Back away. Stay behind me,” she said again. But this time he realized she was talking to him just as she must have been talking to her screaming maid moments ago.

  He disregarded her command, stepping to her side.

  A quick writhing on the floor halted him. A snake. It stilled again, its beady eyes watching. A black tongue darted out, tasting. It twisted again. Restless. Agitated.

  “Get behind me,” he ordered Sophia.

  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “I think I said that first.” The maid moaned again from the corridor. “Louise has a dislike of all things reptilian.”

  So Sophia’s first urge had been to throw herself between the girl and the snake. Did it even occur to her that it should have been the other way around? How could he have thought her a murderer? She was too quick to protect those around her. Camden somehow knew that even if it had been her worst enemy in the room, she would have been the one to step in front.

  But even if Sophia didn’t realize she was worth protecting, he did. “Get a blanket from the next room. I’ll throw it over the snake and—”

  Wicken pushed past both of them, strode up to the snake, and snatched it up. Grabbing it behind the neck, he ignored the tail lashing around his arm. “How’d this get in here?”

  The maid shrieked as Wicken approached her. “It was in a bag under the bed!”

  Camden strode to the bed and retrieved a linen flour bag lying half-concealed under the bed. He spun toward the servants who had joined the commotion. “Who has been in this room?”

  The butler wrung his hands. “I don’t know of anyone, sir. Except Louise and the upstairs maid, of course.”

  “That would be me, sir.” Another maid stepped forward. “But I swear that wasn’t in the room when I cleaned this morning. And I didn’t notice anyone around her rooms.” She gnawed on her lip. “I don’t know who’d be trying to kill her.”

  “Scare,” Wicken corrected.

  “What?” Camden asked.

  “This here’s a grass snake, not an adder. Not poisonous.”

  Camden frowned at the news. This made no sense. “This seems more like a schoolboy prank.” Why would the attacks be decreasing in efficacy? Wouldn’t the person have become more desperate? More violent?

  Camden noticed the number of people in the doorway. “Aren’t some of you supposed to be patrolling the grounds right now? What if this was a diversion?”

  The butler stiffened and turned on the offenders, driving them back down the corridor.

  Wicken held up the snake. “What do you want me to do with it, sir?”

  Sophia answered. “Just take it out and let it go by the pond. There’s no reason to harm it.”

  Of course she’d try to save the snake.

  Wicken nodded and left, most of the servants following him.

  Louise still leaned against the doorway, cheeks pale, decidedly unstable.

  Sophia rested a hand on her arm. “Go rest for a few hours.”

  “But, my lady—”

  “I shall be fine. Rest.”

  The maid nodded. Hugging her arms tightly about her waist and muttering about slimy, scaly things, she swayed from the room.

  Sophia’s exhale shuddered from her. But before he could offer the comfort of his arms, she was laughing. “I’m such a fool. Perhaps I’d have been better off if my brothers tormented me with snakes rather than frogs. Those I can identify with remarkable skill.”

  Her dark blue eyes met his and he couldn’t help grinning along with her. A fine pair they made, ready to do battle with a garden snake. He’d spent most of his childhood locked in his room studying. His father hadn’t allowed much time for adventuring.

  She laughed until she pressed her hand against her stomach as if it hurt from too much gaiety.

  In that instant, two things occurred to Camden. One: they were very much alone in Sophia’s room. Two: her hand was pressing directly against the white fabric of her stays.

  His amusement ceased.

  Camden braced his hand against the bedpost for support. How the devil had he missed that small detail? The presence of a four-foot-long hissing creature, he supposed.

  Sophia lifted a hand to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. He knew he should be a gentleman and leave, but he couldn’t stop himself from drinking in the sight of her first.

  The soft mounds of her breasts cupped and uplifted by the support of her stays, quivering with her mirth. The almost impossibly tiny span of her waist.

  Bloody, bloody hell. He’d waited too long to leave. There was no way he’d be able to do it now. Heat rose under his skin, tightening his loins.

  With one move, he pulled her into his arms and brought his lips to hers, wanting to taste that joy. He wanted to catch each of her gasps, trap the warmth in her eyes, and forever banish the pain that lingered there.

  For a moment, she stilled in his arms, but then with a moan, she molded herself against him, her lips responding to his.

  He moved her until her back pressed against the bedpost, the primal need to get her into the bed overwhelming. His hand slid up her side and over the edge of her stays, the soft skin of her breasts rising to meet his hand. He could hear his own ragged gasps, but he was unable to control his body’s reaction.

  “You need to laugh more often,” he whispered against the pulse fluttering in
her neck.

  “Apparently so.” She shifted, her hips pressing against his, driving with a pleading moan. He cupped her cheek, his finger tracing her cheekbone and the delicate skin under her eyes. The pupils had dilated, leaving them dark with want, unfocused in their intensity.

  He found himself stepping back. Not breaking the connection with her skin, but allowing himself room to breathe, to think. He wanted those eyes focused on him, not carried away by passion—or at least not until he was sure she wanted this.

  “You kissed me first this time,” she whispered. “You want me.”

  “Yes.” She’d no doubt felt the proof of that quite clearly, but at the same time, a touch of unease knotted in his stomach. “Was this another experiment?”

  “No.” But there was a question to her word, a slight uncertainty.

  He had her hot and willing in his arms and yet somehow that wasn’t enough. She’d said in the coach she wanted to go beyond a kiss. Apparently, she was a woman of her word.

  “You offered yourself for experimentation.” She dragged a finger down the front of his jacket, stopping just short of the waistband of his trousers.

  He forced himself to take another step away from her, until he had fully escaped the intoxicating warmth of her body. Her hand dropped away. “What precisely do you want to try?”

  Everything. She wanted to strip him naked and press her lips to his chest. Kiss her way down his stomach until she could trail her tongue around his navel. But she couldn’t bring herself to say those words. “I desire you.” Couldn’t he just kiss her again? Why did he have to talk and confuse things.

  “But is this what you want?”

  Her aching body begged for completion. “You kissed me,” she reminded him again.

  “I want what’s best for you. I question whether it’s me right now.”

  “Why do you have to ask that?” Everyone had an opinion about her well-being, didn’t they? Or on what she was doing wrong. On what she could do better. On how they could keep her from ruining her own life.

  She was tired of it.

  “Can you honestly say you’re ready for me carry you to that bed?” He reached for her again, only to let his hands drop away without touching her. “I want to, you know.”

  “I want that, too.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Are you certain? Absolutely?”

  Already her head spun from kissing him. What if she coaxed things further? Her body wanted it; there was no doubt of that. But were her heart and mind ready?

  Camden’s finger traced the shell of her ear, then down her neck, dipping to the valley between her breasts.

  She shivered.

  “When you are sure, Sophia, then we will finish this.”

  A woman cleared her throat. They both spun. Louise stood in the doorway, mouth agape. “I remembered I hadn’t helped her ladyship dress.”

  Camden backed away. She supposed he meant to slink away while she was distracted, but she wasn’t about to let him give her condescending proclamations without a response. “We’ll finish this in the library.” She wasn’t entirely sure which this she meant.

  He nodded as he fled from the room. She had Louise rush her dressing, not even bothering with her hair. If it was mussed, it was Camden’s fault, after all. She finally replaced her slippers and hurried after Camden.

  A footman stopped her in the corridor. “Begging your pardon, but a constable from Bow Street has arrived. He claims he was hired by Lord Grey to investigate you.”

  Years of practice kept shock from showing on her face. He’d hired a Runner to investigate her. He hadn’t believed in her innocence after all.

  Was she always going to be the gullible fool, only believing what she wanted to believe?

  She’d thought Richard could fix her, that his charm and popularity could pull her from the shyness she’d always loathed. But in the end he’d only broken her more badly than before. “Put him in the parlor. Tell him Lord Grey and I will see him shortly.”

  After a few angry strides, she flung open the door to the library. “I’ll admit that I kissed you first. But then you kissed me, curse you. You kissed me and said those things while all the time you thought me a murderer. While you planned to send a constable to my house.”

  Camden backed away from the empty bookshelf he’d been studying. “I take it he’s here?” He flinched at her glare. “I hired him yesterday.”

  “What do you expect him to find about me that I haven’t already told you?”

  Camden’s brows lowered. “Nothing. I hired him before I believed you innocent. But now that he’s here, he can discover who is behind these attacks on you.”

  That rather tarnished her righteous anger. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I should have warned you, but there has rather been a lot going on this morning.”

  She couldn’t find fault with that statement. “In his mind I’m a suspect.” She’d managed to convince Camden, but could she convince a stranger? It had been easy to claim she’d take the blame to protect her father, but she refused to take the blame for anyone else.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The man standing in Sophia’s study wasn’t Huntford.

  The beefy, ferret-faced Runner sketched Sophia and Camden a quick bow and handed him a folded sheet of paper. “Your butler said I could find you here. From Mr. Huntford, sir.”

  Camden opened the paper.

  I am unable to leave London at this time. The new murder mirrors my sister’s. Williamson is one of the few investigators at Bow Street I trust.

  Huntford

  P.S. Keep him away from your brandy.

  Sophia offered Williamson a seat. The man had the build of a prizefighter and hesitated to sit in the dainty, upholstered chair, but he complied. The Runner already knew the basic details of the case from Huntford, and Camden filled him in on the rest, including the most recent attacks on Sophia.

  Williamson jotted down a few notes on a small pad of paper. “I have a few questions for you, Lady Harding.”

  “She’s no longer a suspect,” Camden growled. Huntford might think this man was trustworthy, but he didn’t want him anywhere near Sophia.

  Williamson rubbed at a pockmark on his cheek. “She is as far as I’m concerned.”

  Sophia placed a hand on Camden’s knee. “You had the same suspicions. I have nothing to hide.”

  Williamson grunted, his eyes shifting suspiciously. “I must ask about your relationship with your husband.”

  War had been hell, but it had nothing on the next half hour. Camden had thought his questions to Sophia had been blunt and overly personal. They were mere parlor talk compared to the things Williamson asked.

  Camden tried several times to halt the interrogation. Her cool recitation of the broken ribs and nose, black eye, and dislocated shoulder roiled inside him until he feared he’d vomit.

  Yet each time he tried to stop Williamson, Sophia would shake her head slightly and answer, her face as pale as paper yet perfectly composed.

  Finally, Williamson stood, his gaze averted. “I’m sorry to put you through that.” And it was clear from the deference in his tone that he meant it. She’d allayed his suspicions.

  But Camden had to unlock the muscles in his jaw before he could speak. “Her gardener, Wicken, is compiling a list of women in the village who had a past with Lord Harding. I’d start there.”

  They sent for Wicken, but he’d gone to the village to speak to Mrs. Haws.

  With a promise to report on his progress, Williamson left.

  Sophia sank down onto a chair, rubbing her arms as if she were cold.

  “You didn’t have to tolerate all those questions,” Camden said, hating that he’d been the one to bring all this on her. It was his fault all these wounds had been ripped open twice in one day.

  “I cannot pretend my past didn’t happen.”

  Camden dragged his hand through his hair. “I don’t want you to.”

  “Then
what do you want?” He could see the lines of strain around her mouth and the way her hands trembled on her sleeves.

  How could he even begin to answer that? “I don’t want Harding to be able to control you all over again every time you have to explain what happened.”

  “That’s not what happens.”

  “Isn’t it? You didn’t want to answer half the questions, yet you did. Why? Why didn’t you spare yourself?” Camden asked.

  “I’m tired of the lies.”

  “Or were you scared?”

  She rose to her feet and paced toward the windows. “I’m not a coward.”

  Hell, he thought her one of the strongest women he knew. He simply wished she’d use that strength to defend herself.

  Sophia’s butler bowed in the doorway. “One of your grooms delivered this, sir. He said it was urgent.” He handed him a folded sheet of paper, sealed with a red wafer and the Greek symbols of the Mathematical Society.

  Camden had already torn through the wax. It was from his father. He scanned the contents and swore. Ipswith had called an impromptu meeting of the Society. Camden’s father hinted that he thought his protégé would have revolutionary information to add to the knowledge of mankind.

  “Is everything all right?” Sophia asked. Even now, her concern outweighed her anger. Couldn’t she see how priceless that trait was? That she was?

  “Ipswith claims to have solved the quandary.”

  “Has he presented it yet?”

  “No.” But he wouldn’t have called a meeting if he wasn’t close. Nothing made mathematicians bitterer than being forced to socialize for no reason at all.

  Camden still had a chance to present his own solution first. If he found one.

  “I think you should go work on it.” Unfortunately, her anger hadn’t disappeared completely.

  “I should stay to protect you.”

  She crossed her arms. “My servants have it under control.”

  “Sophia—”

  “You’ve made your opinion of me quite clear.”

  “Apparently not. I think you’re brave.” But he was a blundering fool when it came to her—that much was clear. And he’d never stayed where he wasn’t wanted.