A Study In Seduction(44)

But of course she knew it was him. She knew it by the way her skin warmed, her heart thumping like a metronome. She knew it by the way his gaze slid over her as if he were a man starved and she a warm, soft muffin. And she knew it by the way her entire being flooded with something suspiciously close to joy.

She smiled. Ridiculous, really. The man had caused her nothing but trouble, and yet here she stood, unable to deny this sheer happiness at the sight of him. It made no sense, but at this stage in her life, she knew that emotions had little sense to them.

She couldn’t stop smiling, which only intensified Northwood’s scowl. “What is so blasted funny?” he growled.

“I’m not laughing.” Lydia stepped aside to allow him entry. “Come inside. You look as if you could use a good strong cup of tea. Or perhaps whiskey or brandy would suffice. We have—”

“Nothing, thank you.”

Lydia closed the drawing room door behind them, watching with curiosity as he reached into his coat and removed several sheets of creased, smudged paper. He thrust them toward her.

“Your bloody problem, Miss Kellaway.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You’ve solved it?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“I don’t understand.” Lydia took the papers and smoothed them out. Her original question was grubby almost beyond recognition, the other pages filled with a scrawl of numbers, letters, and numerous erasures. Heavy black lines crossed out several of the equations.

Northwood folded his arms across his chest, his jaw tightening. “I think I have the solution, but I can’t be certain.”

Lydia stared at him, knowing to her bones that it cost him dearly to admit his doubt about his own abilities. She ran her hand over the pages, imagining that they still contained the heat of his touch, the intensity of his thoughts.

“I… It will take me some time to figure out your—”

He pointed to a small secretaire near the window. “Do it now.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sit down, Miss Kellaway, and tell me if I’ve got it right or not.”

“Right this very moment?” The slight teasing note to her voice did nothing to ease his scowl.

“Yes. The parameters of your time frame end this evening. I intend to know who has won this particular wager before then.”

“Very well.” Lydia crossed to the table and sat, spreading the pages on the desktop. The back of her neck prickled with awareness when he moved to stand behind her.

She picked up a pencil and began reviewing the process of his solution.

“This page is next.” Northwood leaned over her shoulder and shuffled the pages into order. “This is the problem, isn’t it? I’ve got the cubic equation wrong.”

His arm brushed her shoulder as he pulled back. Lydia suppressed a tremble of response.

“No, this part is correct,” she said, attempting to concentrate on the task at hand. “But you didn’t need to actually calculate a, b, and c to determine the sum of their fourth powers. They are roots of x3 minus 6x2 plus 14x minus C equals 0.”

She removed a clean sheet of paper from a drawer and wrote several equations equaling zero. “And it would have been easier if you’d found the constant term P first. Like this.” She wrote out several more equations determining the roots of the numbers. “Then you can identify a, b, c as roots of this.” She wrote x3 − rx2 + ½(r2 − s)x + [½r(3s − r2) − t]/3 = 0 and tapped the paper with her pencil.

She turned the page to show him how she’d worked it out. His eyes flashed with self-directed anger. “That’s not what I did.”

“I see that. Fortunately, there is often more than one way to solve a problem.”

Lydia ran her finger over the scribbles and cross-outs that constituted his work. When she came to the last page, a black circle ringed the solution he’d reached. Lydia looked at the number 0 with a curious combination of dismay and elation.

Schooling her features into an expression of impassivity, she turned to look at him. He stood right behind her, his hands loose on his hips, his expression still dark as he stared down at his messy work.

“You’ve got it,” she said.

His gaze went to hers, his eyebrows lifting. “I beg your pardon?”

“You solved the problem.” Lydia tapped her pencil on the page. “The sum of the fourth power of the numbers is zero.”