A Most Naked Solution (5 page)

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

R
age blurred the edges of Camden’s vision, mixing with the rain to obscure everything but the woman in front of him. He’d spent the entire bone-aching ride convincing himself she was innocent. Reinterpreting every detail until it exonerated her.

Now he’d found her in a dark village street, standing over the inert form of his only witness.

His breath escaped in harsh, shallow breaths. His anger had nothing to do with the fact that she was out unprotected in the middle of the night. Or that she’d somehow lost her bonnet and wet rivulets of hair clung to her face, making her appear more waif-like and fragile than ever. She didn’t even have a blasted shawl.

Except Camden couldn’t to himself.

It had everything to do with that. Which only angered him further. Why did the first woman to catch his attention in months have to be a murder suspect? “Do you at least have a coach?”

She shook her head, her chin lifting to a stubborn angle, or at least it would have appeared so if she didn’t look like a drowned kitten. “I walked here. I can walk home.” She spun and began striding determinedly down the street.

Like hell she would.

He caught her shoulder.

Sophia screamed, striking out wildly against his hand. Her other fist would have connected with his nose if he hadn’t jerked out of the way.

He caught her arms and held them to her sides. “What the devil, woman—”

But her eyes weren’t focused on him. They were blank, terrified.

He tried to hold her as gently as he could, but her thrashing made it difficult. “Lady Harding.” Was she mad, then? Is that why she didn’t seem a murderer? Was she lucid one moment and insane the next? Was this why the villagers were so quick to protect her? “Sophia!” Her eyes suddenly connected to his. Her face drained of color. Her wild struggle ceased. Camden loosened his hold and stepped back.

She whirled around and ran.

Camden started after her, but a hand clamped on his arm.

“I heard the scream from the tavern,” Mrs. Haws said, wincing as Sophia slipped and stumbled on the cobbles as she fled. “Leave her be.”

Someone had shot at her that morning. Mad or not, he couldn’t let her find her way home unescorted in the middle of the night.

But Mrs. Haws wouldn’t let go of his arm. “I’ll send Mr. Haws to watch after her.” She exhaled heavily. “If you want to know what she’s hiding, come with me.”

Camden hesitated for a moment, then turned away from Sophia’s retreating figure, never more aware of the damp that had seeped through his coat or the weariness in his bones. He fetched his horse and settled him in the stable before going to the tavern.

Mr. Haws, grumbling about his lonely bed, left as Camden entered. Mrs. Haws motioned to a table by the fireplace. Before Camden had removed his hat, coat, and gloves, she’d returned with a steaming bowl of beef stew, a loaf of bread, and a slice of currant pudding. She arranged them on the heavy oak table in front of his chair.

Sitting, he raised an eyebrow. “This is a little different than having ale thrown in my face.”

Mrs. Haws’s round cheeks darkened. “Well, we appreciate all you do for Weltford, Lord Grey. Surely we do. But we have a special place in our hearts for Lady Harding.”

Camden braced himself for the explanation that was about to come next. If Sophia was mad, could he send her to trial, where she’d surely hang? As hungry as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to touch the food. “You said you had something I needed to know about Lady Harding?”

Mrs. Haws twisted her hands in her apron. “Now I don’t tell you this to gossip. I’m not that kind of woman.” She paused, contemplating her next words until Lord Grey thought he’d go mad himself.

“Lord Harding was the cruelest son-of-a-horse-bastard that ever disgraced this town. If it wouldn’t be unchristian, I’d spit on his grave.”

Camden had no idea what to make of that. It was as if he’d added two plus two and gotten an apple. “I know Lord Harding was unfaithful.” He’d met Harding several times around the village; he’d been pleasant, charming. Camden hadn’t thought there was much substance to him, but neither had he sensed any malice.

Mrs. Haws collapsed in the chair across from him, kneading her hands together like dough. “The poor chick.”

“He hurt her.” He’d meant for the words to be a question, but he knew the truth even as he spoke them. When he’d grabbed Sophia’s shoulder on the street—Camden cut his gaze to the fire. Now he knew why he’d recognized the blank stare on her face. He’d seen soldiers driven deep into their minds by fear. Some never to return. What had her husband done that she knew that place?

He braced his arms on the table. Had she really thought he’d hurt her, too?

“Many times. He might have had an angel’s face, but his soul belonged to the devil himself.”

Camden’s hands clenched into fists. He should have broken Harding’s dainty nose. In fact, he should have crushed him, could have. Harding hadn’t been a large man. But Sophia was even smaller.

Would it have been wrong of her to kill him to end that cruelty?

The thought staggered him. He hadn’t even considered the fact that the killing might have been justified.

Was that why her family had swooped in and kept things quiet? Why everyone in the town seemed happy to lie?

A log popped. The sparks that escaped up the flue were as scattered as his thoughts.

Camden wasn’t one to tarry over decisions, cluttering things with emotions. If she was guilty, then she was guilty; if she was innocent, then she was innocent.

“You know for a fact that he hurt her?” Camden asked.

Mrs. Haws nodded. “I saw the bruises myself. Wrapped a broken rib once, too.” She shook her head. “The Hardings weren’t here in Weltford a lot, but when they were, it was because he’d marked her up so badly that he didn’t dare let the
ton
or her family see.”

Camden stood, escaping to the darkness by the window, thankful for the near silence in the empty tavern to organize his thoughts. His fists ached at his sides.

He’d served in war. He’d seen countless men hewn down. He knew that some deaths were unavoidable, and some even justifiable.

Was it possible for her to have served out her sentence in advance?

Yet the law would expect him to step in if he found her guilty.

He rested his hand against the sash. Rain spattered against the glass in icy
plinks
.

Perhaps he needed sleep after all. Surely with a few hours’ rest, he could make sense of all this. His prized reason and powers of discernment would return. He retrieved his coat and hat from the table. “Thank you for the information and hospitality.”

Mrs. Haws rose to her feet, tugging on her apron. “Just see as you don’t go judging her too harshly before you know all the facts.”

Camden nodded, pulling on his hat. “I hope I never do anything without all the facts.”

He had to coax his poor Archimedes out into the rain with a few carrots. He patted the horse’s neck as they slipped under the punishing clouds again.

By the time they’d reached the edge of the town, the Berkshire sky had torn open completely. Archimedes’s hooves sucked wetly in the mud with each step. The wind whipped Camden’s coat about, allowing the rain free access to his breeches.

He soothed his horse, repeating simple equations to calm the animal and keep himself awake. Camden was so intent on explaining the simple beauty of the quadratic equation that he almost missed the sodden man passing by on the side of the road.

“Haws! I thought you were following Lady Harding.”

Haws glowered from beneath a floppy farmer’s hat. Water slid off the wide brim in a steady stream. “I did.”

Sophia’s house lay in the opposite direction.

“She changed direction about halfway and went to your house instead.”

If Archimedes hadn’t shifted under him, Camden feared he might have continued staring with a befuddled look on his face for an embarrassing amount of time. Why the devil had she decided to see him? Unless she planned to confess? “Is she still there?”

Haws grunted, turning up the edge of his hat so his glare would reach Camden uninterrupted. “She made it to your house. As concerned as I am about her, I wasn’t about to wait around to see if she left.”

Camden squinted through the rain to where the lights of his house flickered in the distance.

Perhaps she’d gone to his house because it was closer than hers.

Except it wasn’t.

Camden gritted his teeth and urged the horse forward.

After several more miserable minutes, he reached the front steps of his home and was grateful to hand off his reins to a sleepy-eyed groom.

His butler opened the door. He must have been roused from his bed by Sophia, but somehow managed to appear as impeccable as ever. Perhaps the man slept like that—stiff and unmoving, his clothes not daring to wrinkle. But Camden kept his thoughts to himself. Rafferty understood his humor even less than most.

“I have taken the liberty of placing Lady Harding in the study. I have sent one of the grooms to Harding House for replacement clothing.”

Blood that had been icy a moment before melted in a flash of heat. Then what the devil was she wearing—or more importantly,
not
wearing—now?

C
HAPTER
N
INE

S
ophia wrapped the blanket more securely around her shoulders, staring down at the muddy, ruined slippers she’d removed and set next to the fireplace. She’d run from him. She couldn’t believe she’d run from Lord Grey like a frightened child.

But it had all happened before she even understood what her body was doing. She wasn’t thinking. All she could see was Richard’s mottled face.

She was supposed to be over this. She’d had three months. She’d been determined to let her fear go. Why wouldn’t it obey her? It was her emotion. It should be hers to control.

Yet she couldn’t. Not entirely. She still woke up in the middle of the night screaming, fighting off hands that could no longer hurt her. One day last week, she’d broken down sobbing in the middle of breakfast. And even though she knew it wasn’t grief, she had no idea what it had been.

Now she was at Lord Grey’s house at two o’clock in the morning. All so she could prove to herself, and to him, that she wasn’t mad or a coward.

Hearing footsteps in the hall, she stood. She’d explain herself, then leave. Whatever he thought of her after that was up to him. She wouldn’t go down that path again with anyone. She’d had enough of that with Richard.

Sophia’s smile faded as her husband brushed past her as they entered their rooms. “Did you not enjoy the musicale? You were splendid in the yellow waistcoat.”

Richard’s sharp bark of laughter surprised her. “Enjoy myself? How could I when you made an utter fool of me?” The handsome man who’d wooed her was gone, obliterated by the hideous rage she’d seen flashes of over the past month. It twisted his face and aged him by a dozen years. Since then, even when he was charming, she couldn’t help but see it just under the surface.

But now he’d directed it at her. Sophia swallowed, trying to think of what she could have done. In their six months of marriage, he had never spoken to her thus. She had done everything she could to make herself worthy of him. “I don’t think—”

“You spent the entire evening chatting with those awful, dowdy women in the corner. Is it a wonder that Lord Charles ignored me?”

Sophia flushed. She had spent most of the evening with Catherine and Melanie. Not that she’d call either of them dowdy. They were her friends. They had spent most events together since their come-outs. Then again, she supposed they weren’t the most fashionable ladies of the
ton
.

She hadn’t intended to embarrass him.

He suddenly pulled her into his arms. “You’re my wife. You belong at my side, not cowering in a corner.” She blinked back a tear as he kissed her neck. “Do you think your father would be where he is today if your mother hid herself away?”

She’d be better next time. “Perhaps I can speak to Catherine and Melanie at the park or somewhere private?” she asked.

Richard nodded, his eyes pitying. “Perhaps. I don’t mean to be harsh. I want you to be a credit to me.”

The door opened, scattering the memory. The cheerful light cast by the candles should have softened him, but Lord Grey somehow managed to look more shadowed and imposing than he had in the street. Rain clung to strands of his hair, glittering and cold. “Why are you in my house?”

“I have been interfering with your investigation.” As soon as she spoke the words, a weight dislodged from her chest.

Lord Grey ran his hands partway through his dark strands of hair, leaving them clamped on either side of his head. “I must warn you to think carefully about what you are going to say. My position as justice of the peace may force me to act.”

He’d been chomping at the bit earlier in the day. Why the hesitation now? She met his eye and he glanced quickly away. She knew that reaction.

He knew about Richard. That was the only possible reason. Mrs. Haws must have told him. How much did he know?

She felt her cheeks heat with shame and wanted to pull the blanket up until it covered her head. Confound it all, Richard had been the evil one. Why must she be the one to carry his guilt? And why was so much of her loathing directed at herself?

Her hands tightened on the blanket. She didn’t like that he was looking at her differently than he had an hour before. She didn’t like the pity or the caution, as if she might break. She might not be strong yet, but she definitely was no longer fragile.

She hated that he couldn’t see the strength that she’d worked so hard to build. For each step forward, she got yanked back three.

She intended to make up those lost steps no matter what. “I didn’t kill him.” She took a deep breath, loosening the grip she had on the blanket so blood could return to her fingers. “My husband. I wasn’t the one who hired those two men.”

“Then why interfere?” he asked, prowling closer. A wet lock of hair flopped down across his forehead and her fingers itched to brush it away.

She could feel his gaze straight through the blanket to her wet, clinging gown beneath. Where would his eyes land if she wasn’t wearing the blanket? On her hips? On her breasts? Nowhere at all? “I thought I knew who was behind the murder.”

“Who?” He stopped inches from her, so close she had to crane her neck to see his face clearly.

She wasn’t about to plant any ideas he didn’t already have. “It wasn’t who I thought. That’s why I’m telling you of my actions now.”

“You have no proof of your innocence other than your word.”

“That is correct. But I also give my word I will no longer be interfering. And I’ll instruct the others to cooperate. In truth this time.”

He studied her until she was sure he’d had time to count every freckle on her nose—

Her rice powder! It would have washed off in the rain. He really could see every freckle—well, let him suffer then. In fact, she resolved to never hide them again. Perhaps she’d even go out in the sun without her bonnet and get a dozen more!

Take that, Richard
.

Lord Grey rested a finger against his chin. “I cannot decide if you’re devious enough to claim that to hide further interference.”

She supposed she deserved that, yet it still stung. “You can search all you like for proof of my guilt. It doesn’t exist.”

“Doesn’t it?” He stretched his hands toward the fire. She found herself unable to look away from the splotches of faded ink along his first finger. The slight rosy color along his knuckles from the cold.

She felt an unfamiliar desire for him to touch her. She could imagine those hands skimming along her neck and down to her breasts. Always pleasure. Never any fear of pain. “No.” She wasn’t sure whether her answer was in response to his question or to her own thoughts.

He brushed the back of his finger against her cheek in a caress so light, so fleeting that she wasn’t entirely sure if he
had
touched her or if she’d imagined it. “I hope for your sake that it does not.”

His hand hovered an inch from her cheek. If she shifted she could press her cheek against it. She cleared her throat. “It’s getting late. You should be going.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re the one in
my
house.”

That surprised an exhale of laughter from her.

“You think I’m humorous?”

She paused, disconcerted. “I suppose I should be the one to go.”

“That would simplify things.” But then he stilled. “I’ll take you.”

She shook her head. “I will accept the loan of your coach. But I won’t impose on you more than that.”

His hands gently cupped her shoulders. “You were shot at this morning. Have you forgotten?”

No. Lord Grey’s body on top of hers—protecting her—was proving a rather difficult thing to forget. “I sincerely doubt anyone wants to kill me enough to be waiting out in this.” She glanced toward the ribbons of rain snaking down the windows.

“I’m not willing to risk that.”

His words cut a slice in her heart. Once, when she was a child, her nurse had lanced a blister on her hand and it had felt like this—stinging, terrifying, and yet cathartic.

“Lady Harding’s groom has arrived.” The butler spoke from the doorway.

She’d forgotten the open door. Not that she’d been about do anything that she couldn’t have done with an open door. “I’ll be on my way then.”

The butler cleared his throat. “No, my lady. Just your groom has arrived. Your coach became mired in the mud. When they tried to free it, it broke an axle.”

“Is everyone unharmed?” she asked.

“Indeed. The coachman walked the horses back to Harding House while the groom came the remaining distance on foot to inform us.”

“And he suffered no ill effects from the storm?”

The lines on the butler’s face softened slightly. “The housekeeper has him well in hand, my lady.”

“The roads are impassable?” Lord Grey asked.

Only then did it occur to her the further implication of the butler’s report.

“I am afraid so, sir. I have had the blue room prepared.”

Lord Grey nodded as the butler bowed and backed from the room.

“I can make it home on foot. After all, the groom made it here.”

“The groom whose survival you just inquired about?”

It was hard to maintain her fierce glare.

“Besides, I’m exhausted, and in all ungentlemanly honesty, I was dreading having to escort you out into the storm.”

How could she argue with that? Besides, she was a widow. She didn’t have a reputation for other people to worry about. “Perhaps the butler can show me to my room?”

Lord Grey shrugged. “I can show you. It’s only a few doors down from mine.”

The words hung there in the air. Heavy, near-tangible things.

“Thank you,” she finally managed to say, pretending that five seconds hadn’t just elapsed since he’d spoken.

There was another moment of awkwardness when Lord Grey offered her his arm, only to belatedly remember she was still clutching a blanket around her.

He grimaced. “As you can see, I’m not precisely known for my social graces, Lady Harding.”

She found it refreshing. Richard had known every single blasted rule. And punished her for every lapse. She was glad there were others who had to stumble about a bit like her. “At this point, Lord Grey, I think you might as well call me Sophia.”

He placed a hand under her elbow as she picked her way up the stairs, careful not to trip over the blanket. “And you may use call me Camden, if you so desire.” He led her down a corridor, stopping at the door at the end of it. He gestured to the other seven doors. “As you can see, Rafferty did try to put you as far away from me as possible—unless you would have preferred the nursery upstairs. But I hear the servants have been having trouble with bats.”

“I appreciate your hospitality.” She tried to guess which room was his. Most likely the first one they’d passed. The carpet was a bit more worn. “Good night, Camden.”

For a moment, he didn’t move. His dark gaze lowered, caressing her lips as she longed for his mouth to do. Her lungs ceased to inhale, yet her body didn’t care. All that mattered was whether that narrow, sculpted mouth dropped to hers.

While ridding herself of Richard’s taint, she’d given a little thought to the type of widow she wanted to be. Pious and charitable? Dashing and extravagant?

Now she added another option to the list: wanton.

But Camden stepped back, allowing air to once again reach her brain.

She grabbed the door handle and hurried inside, shutting the door behind her.

After a pause, she heard Camden’s footsteps as he strode down the corridor. Before she could think better of it, she opened the door a crack and peered out.

His room
was
the first one at the top of the stairs.