A Most Naked Solution (6 page)

C
HAPTER
T
EN

T
he bed was soft. The sheets were clean and smelled of lavender. She was so tired her brain felt numb.

Yet she could not sleep.

Sophia paced to the window and watched the puddles in the garden fill, then empty, depending on the speed of the rain.

Richard’s hand cracked across her cheek. Black dots swam across her vision as she fell to the floor.

She scooted away, ignoring the broken mirror shards that sliced into her hands. She wanted to sob, to scream. But she had become too numb to all of this and her tears hardly ever spilled down her cheeks anymore.

This time he didn’t stop with a slap. His boot hit her hip.

“Why—what—?” She tried to search his face for signs of drunkenness, as if that could explain this all away. But she knew she wouldn’t find an explanation.

“You can’t hold a conversation now, either.”

“You cannot hit me.”

“Why? Is your father going to come? Your brother? They want nothing to do with you, apparently. We haven’t received a single invitation from them in weeks.”

They had, actually, but she had burned them all. She had pushed her family away—too ashamed of what she had become, too afraid to let Richard near any of them. Too afraid of what she would say to them that would make her even weaker. Now there was no one to protect her.

“You are my wife. I own you. God, king, and country say I can do what I will with you.”

She tried to block as his foot kicked toward her ribs. She screamed as the blow hit her arm. She curled over, unable to stop herself from retching. The door. She had to get to it.

He grabbed a fistful of her hair. “The Earl of Statton refused my invitation to the club today. You know why? If you’d conversed with him like I told you—”

“I tried.” The words whimpered from her throat. She tried even through the earl had been angered because Richard had broken his promise about supporting his bill in the House of Lords. Surely he’d seen her try, but she knew he would already have reworked the situation in his head, twisting the facts until they were what he wanted to see. “Please.” She’d been careful for so long. It had been months since he’d laid a hand on her. She’d smiled and talked until her cheeks ached, wore only what he chose for her, only spoke if it was to praise him.

But she could only talk to people for so long until she could no longer hide the emptiness inside.

“Tried and failed.” He flung her away. She clattered back against her dressing table, sending a bottle of perfume crashing to the floor. The smell of jasmine choked the air from the room.

“I thought I was getting a wife who would be a boon at my side. An equal.” He slammed his fist into the wall by her head. He blinked slowly, then knelt at her side, gently wiping the blood from her mouth with a handkerchief, cradling her cut hand in his reddened one. “You can be, you know. Will you try?” His voice cracked and tears brimmed in his eyes. “I don’t want to be this beast you’ve turned me into. Help me.”

Sophia jerked away from the window, shuddering. If only she’d been brave enough to flee after that—

No. She wouldn’t go down that path again. She couldn’t change her choices. She’d made her decisions. Hating herself only robbed her of every ounce of strength she’d reclaimed.

She opened the window, sucking in air so cold it felt brittle and inhaling the smell of wet cornfields and shorn grass. With a shaking finger, she caught a drop of rain that hung heavy on the sill and flicked it to the garden below.

The rain had nearly stopped. The ripples in the puddles were now little more than tiny quivers. Perhaps she should walk home.

Her shoes.

She’d left them in the study. Sophia drew in a deep breath of the icy air. She couldn’t walk home alone tonight. She wasn’t a complete ninny.

But neither could she stay in this room alone with her thoughts any longer. Perhaps she could retrieve her shoes rather than waiting for a maid to find them. Then at least she could put them in front of the fire in her room so they’d be dry enough for her to brush off the mud in the morning.

She crept from her room. When she reached Camden’s bedroom, she paused and listened. She didn’t hear anything within.

Keeping her footfalls light, she hurried down the stairs. When she reached the study, she yanked the knob and darted in.

Into a room still lit bright with candles.

With Camden sitting at his huge mahogany desk, papers strewn all about him.

He yanked off his spectacles and shoved them in the drawer of his desk. “If you’re planning to rob me, the silver’s in the butler’s pantry.” He’d removed his coat and cravat. The top button of his shirt was undone.

She pointed rather lamely to the brown, misshapen lumps that had once been her shoes. “I thought I should try to save those.”

“You could have called for a servant.”

“I didn’t want to disrupt your household further. I thought you’d gone to sleep.” She tried not to sound accusatory. After all, it
was
his house. But he did look bone weary, dark smudges lingering under his eyes.

“I have work to do.” Camden pointed to a tray perched on the edge of his desk. “Tea?”

She shook her head and took a step backward, but her foot crunched on something. She looked down to see a crumpled paper. She picked it up before thinking better of it.

“That one is worthless,” Camden said, but he didn’t try to stop her from opening it.

She could see bits of equations, numbers and letters, and partial graphs. “What are you working on?”

“I am trying to figure out how the roots of these blasted polynomial equations relate to each other. If it’s possible to form a general equation to find them.” He said it quickly, as if he didn’t expect her to either listen or understand.

She strove to make sense of his scribbles. “Why?”

He traced a disjointed collection of dots on the page. “That is the question I ask myself daily. There’s a general formula for solving quadratic equations, but no one has yet found one for the quintic.”

She picked up a page. “Didn’t Ruffini show a general formula was impossible?”

He gaped at her, his hand hovering over the page. “He came close, but his work contains a large gap. How did you know his work?”

“I did more when I was eavesdropping on your lessons than stare at your lips.”

Which of course was a terribly forward thing to say.

“Did you stare at anything else?” His leer was so exaggerated that she couldn’t help the small gust of laughter that escaped her.

“I made you laugh.” He tipped his head, as if studying her. No, it was more than that—it was like he was savoring her. “I like it when you laugh.”

Her mirth stuck in a throat that was suddenly too dry. What did she say to that? Tell him how much she liked it, too? “Do you want help?”

“With what?”

She gestured to the pages spread on his desk.

He opened the drawer and pulled out his spectacles. “You wish to help me with my studies?”

She ducked her head, feeling a fool. “Never mind.”

“Oh.” He cleared his throat and put his spectacles back on. “Of course not,” he concluded, his hand rubbing the back of his neck with a slow, weary motion.

He couldn’t possibly be disappointed.

“Unless you needed me—”

“It’s fine. I understand this isn’t how normal people choose to spend their nights.”

He
was
disappointed. “I would like to help if I wouldn’t be a hindrance.”

Some of the exhaustion dropped from his face. “You’re not just humoring me?”

“No.” Her father was very forward-thinking, insisting his daughters be well educated in languages, science, and mathematics. And when she’d been infatuated with Camden, she’d begun to learn on her own, reading books and treatises so that if she ever happened to meet him in the corridor she could astound him with her knowledge. But even after he’d failed to respond to her letter, she’d kept reading. She liked the simplicity of the numbers. The sheer precision of it all.

He studied her again, eyebrows lowered as if waiting for her to expose her jest.

So she added, “And how can I pass up the opportunity to stare at your lips again?”

He yanked his spectacles off. “I find myself a trifle surprised.”

“At the staring or the offer of assistance?”

Those glorious lips curved. “Both. I find when I mention mathematics, it causes a mass departure from my presence. Or perhaps that is caused by my charming personality.”

Sophia had no desire for charm. She knew what evils it could hide. She preferred bluntness and honesty and a man who was comfortable spending the night in his study. “What do you need me to do?”

He leaned forward in the chair, his eyes searing her. His voice was low and husky. “I need—” He dragged his hand over his face. “You’re in your night clothes.”

She tugged the dressing gown tighter. It was simple wool. It must belong to the housekeeper or one of the maids. At least it was long enough to hide her bare feet. She edged them back from the hem just to be sure. “Since my gown has been taken away to be cleaned, my other option would have been far more shocking.”

Camden’s hand tightened into a fist around his spectacles. He thrust a sheet of paper at her. “Read these columns of numbers. They’re coordinates. And sit.” He pointed to a plush leather chair across the desk from him.

Their fingers brushed as she took the paper, sending sensation swirling up her fingers into her arm. She had to swallow twice before she was able to speak. “Sixteen, ninety-four.”

Camden settled his spectacles on the bridge of his nose again. He dipped his quill in ink and picked up a ruler. Leaning over his page and after meticulous measuring, he drew a small dot on his paper.

He glanced up, his dark eyes expectant. She read the next numbers. Soon they had fallen into a comfortable pattern.

After a while, she helped herself to a cup of tea and one of the cakes from the tray next to it. She started to lift the lemon pastry to her lips, only to glance up and find him watching her, his lids heavy over hungry eyes. “That is my favorite.”

“Oh.” She held it out to him. “I’ll pick another.”

And suddenly she couldn’t escape the thought of him leaning across the desk and taking the tart from her fingers with his mouth. Of tasting the treat on his lips.

But he shook his head, his focus on her mouth. It wasn’t until he dropped his gaze back to his paper that she was able to breathe again.

She finished reading off her list, but Camden continued with his work. She supposed she should leave, but she loved watching how his lips pursed to a firm, tight line. How he’d push his spectacles back up his nose with the back of his wrist.

Sophia allowed her spine to soften and sink against the upholstered leather. Her fingers traced along the arm of the chair absently for a few minutes until she realized the pattern her fingers followed matched the creases on his forehead.

She rested her elbow on the arm of the chair and propped her chin onto her fist. Then she tucked her feet under her. A slight smile pulled at her lips. Richard would be rolling over in his grave at her lack of manners. How she wasn’t chatting and charming and ensuring the man across from her was enchanted. She could sit with him in silence and feel comfortable.

That peace wasn’t something she’d ever felt before, not in the home of her diplomat father, and definitely not with Richard.

But she’d found it here.

C
amden rubbed the back of his neck. A faint pink light colored the room. Dawn. He hadn’t expected to get anything done. But he’d preferred it to sitting in his room with Sophia asleep only a few doors down.

Now she was asleep only a few feet away.

And he’d accomplished far more than he would have imagined. It was as if her presence inspired him and awoke parts of him long dormant and unused.

Could one have a mathematical muse? Or were the words inherently contradictory?

He was a beast for not waking her. She was curled in the stiff leather chair, her head tucked into the crook of her arm. Her neck would surely be aching when she woke.

But he liked having her there. Both her soft voice as she read and now the soft cadence of her breath.

Yet he didn’t want her to regret spending the night with him.

He dropped his face into his hands until images of her wrapped around him in his bed dissipated, not trusting himself to touch her until then. When the parts deep within him ceased aching, he stood and scooped her into his arms.

She stirred, murmuring something he couldn’t hear, but then her face nuzzled against his chest and she quieted.

He walked slowly to her room and laid her gently in the bed. He drew the blankets over her to ward off the early morning chill and brushed a lock of her silken blond hair from her face. This close, he could see a small bump along the bridge of her nose where it had been broken before.

He barely choked back the urge to draw her into his arms again and will away every horrible thing that had happened to her.

After he’d returned home from the war with a bullet wound to the thigh, he’d almost visited her. He’d been desperate to refresh the image of the young woman he barely remembered, but whose words meant everything. It had been easier to convince himself that she’d written him the letter on a whim. She’d still been a young woman in the midst of her first Season. He’d been sure she’d find someone better. When he’d seen a notice that she’d married a few months after he returned, he thought he’d made the right choice.

What had his uncertainty cost them both?

He stepped back, watching her sleep for one more instant before he retreated to his own room.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

S
ophia stretched in the bed, groaning at the stiffness in her neck. Her arms reached up across the soft down of the pillow, her toes dug down farther under the sheets.

This wasn’t her bed.

She blinked her eyes open and found herself staring up at a frothy white canopy. Camden’s house. How had she gotten back to bed? He had carried her. A fleeting memory of warmth and coat buttons pressing against her cheek returned.

Her cheeks burned at the thought of being held against his chest. And she hadn’t even been awake enough to enjoy it.

Although she was in the blue room, there was nothing masculine about it. Ice-blue paint covered the walls, but the furniture was all dainty white French pieces with silver accents. Did he have a female relative he’d designed it for, or had it simply come that way when he’d purchased the house?

She suspected the latter, although he had surprised her last night. Who knew the man had a sense of humor?

She wanted nothing more than to stay in bed. Late mornings were the only thing she’d picked up during her marriage that she wasn’t desperate to part with. She found her day went much better if she avoided as much of the morning as she could.

But she was an unwanted guest, so she couldn’t justify lying in bed any longer. Besides, considering how late they’d retired, there was a good chance Camden would still be abed.

She had enjoyed the time she’d spent with him in the study far too much last night. She didn’t want to meet him in the light of day and discover the pity had returned to his eyes. Not yet, anyway. Last night had been her every girlhood fantasy come true, albeit with less kissing. Perhaps it was selfish, but she wanted to have a few hours to enjoy that memory before crashing back into the reality of her life.

She also liked to think that she’d been rather bold and daring—and perhaps a bit witty—under the cover of exhaustion and candlelight. She liked leaving Camden with that impression rather than the awkward, exhausted disaster she was this morning.

When she climbed from the bed, she saw the black dress and stays she’d been wearing laid out for her. One of the parlor maids had helped her out of it last night, but she didn’t want to add to the poor girl’s work this morning, so she slipped them on and fumbled with the buttons on her own.

She swept her hair up into a simple knot on the back of her head. Drat. She still didn’t have shoes. She checked the room again to ensure she hadn’t missed them. But she didn’t see them. The maids either hadn’t found them yet or they were still trying to salvage them. Well, she’d go home without them. They were ruined, anyway.

She found her way downstairs. She’d find a footman, ask to borrow a carriage, then be on her way. She’d send a polite note of thanks later.

In a house this size, she would have thought she’d be tripping over servants, but she didn’t see a single one. She followed the faint scent of bacon. There had to be a footman or maid tending to the food, didn’t there? Sophia saw a maid walking away with a covered tray. She almost called out but didn’t want to add to the gossip by shouting down the corridor.

Why hadn’t she just rung the bell pull in her room? Because the butler would have certainly informed Camden when she asked for the coach.

She could catch the girl, if she hurried. Although she’d have to pass directly in front of Camden’s study. But what were the odds he’d actually be there?

She quickened her step past the open door.

“Sophia?”

She froze and turned like a guilty child toward Camden’s voice. He was already at his desk, papers and a large plate of breakfast arranged in front of him.

She exhaled. Really, there was no way to escape, but she tried. “I was looking for the breakfast parlor.”

His attention was still on the papers in front of him. It was unfair that he could looking so delectable and well rested while she was arrayed in yesterday’s ruined dress with circles under her eyes.

“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 Bennett 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.”

D
amnation, 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.