Harrison Stirling! What was he doing here? And why must he come along now, when she looked like a fool, a pathetic, bedraggled fool? She let out an audible groan.

He dismounted, then bent over her. "Are you all right?"

Though his face showed the appropriate amount of concern, Jinx was not impressed. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and an oil-cloth cape, and though he was somewhat damp, he was not drenched, nor humiliated, as was she.

He crouched beside her and touched her shoulder. "Are you hurt? Can you stand? Here, let me help you."

Gritting her teeth, she brushed his hand aside. "If you will fetch my horse, I can manage the rest on my own."

By the time he returned with Daffodil, Jinx was upright once more. But barely. The rain had ceased its initial rush and had found a pace more to its liking. Had she been at home, she would have stood in a window enjoying the pleasant drumming against the glass. She would have listened for the gurgle of roof water angled with gutters and fanciful spouts into a veritable fountain, a project of her grandfather Benchley.

But here, on this sodden hill, in who-knew-where Oxfordshire, she took no pleasure at all from the rain. She was cold and drenched to the bone. She could hardly move, her clothes weighed her down so. Added to that, she was exhausted and mortified-and the day was not yet done!

If he laughed at her, or tried to browbeat her, or so much as raised one of his arrogant brows askance…

To his credit, he did none of those. "Are you able to ride?" he asked.

"Yes." But she could not quite haul her sodden self up into the saddle. "I can manage," she insisted, when he dismounted to help her. A second try and a third, however, yielded no different results. But still, she refused to beg his assistance.

Then she heard a muffled oath. Something about women and insanity, and she whirled to take umbrage with him. Unfortunately he was already upon her, reaching for her waist to hoist her into the saddle, she presumed. But once he clasped his hands on her waist, he didn't lift her at all. Instead, for an endless, breathless moment, they stood stock-still, facing one another much too close. Much too close.

The rain pelted them, cold and chuckling once more. His hands were warm on her waist. Warmer than made any sense. She felt the distinct outline of his wide palm and strong fingers. He stared down at her and she up at him, and suddenly everything changed. It was no longer about Colin and Alice. It was about him and her. He was impossibly handsome. Ridiculously tall. A man, not a boy. And he was going to kiss her.

Had she been logical she would have turned away, even though she was a Benchley and Benchleys were not above kissing in the rain. She believed in love among the unlikeliest of people. Her scholarly father had loved a butcher's widow. Her grandfather had wed a Gypsy.

But a marquis?

No Benchley of her lineage had ever been so unwise as to fall for a man that far above her in station.

But she was falling, like one of Newton's apples, hard and fast and unable to stop. He was arrogant and determined, but he could also be gentle and considerate. He was vengeful, but that was merely an extension of his loyalty to his family, wasn't it? She gazed up at him, blinking against the rain, mesmerized by the look in his dark eyes. Then he bent nearer her. Their lips almost touched-

And rain from the brim of his hat dumped into her face, very nearly drowning her!

"Oh!" she sputtered, coughing and wiping her face. She heard him curse-an exceedingly foul string of words he should not say in front of a lady-and she felt like echoing him. Then his grasp tightened and in a trifling she found herself mounted on Daffodil and staring down into his grim features.

"We'll find shelter somewhere ahead. Then you and I will have a heart-to-heart talk, Miss Benchley."

"About why you are following me?" she snapped back, determined that he never have the last word in an argument with her.

"About why you lied to me," he growled.

He mounted his horse and started forward, still heading north, she noticed. Well, that was something. But if he thought she would help him find Colin so that he could challenge him to a duel, he was more than wrong. He was completely mad.

"I didn't lie to you!" she shouted, urging Daffodil forward. Benchleys did not lie. They were too honorable to do that. "I never lie!" she vowed.

But commit murder? She glared at his unyielding back, so straight and arrogant-and dry beneath his cape. At least one Benchley she knew was tempted to commit murder. Sorely tempted.

Chapter Four

They sought shelter at a farmhouse, a substantial, though somewhat shabby, establishment. Jinx waited alongside the pigsty while Harrison approached the main house.

She didn't want to stay anywhere with him, yet the long hour's ride she'd just endured had taken its toll. Pride was all very good, but practicality sometimes took precedence. Like now. She wanted a bath, a meal, and a bed, in that order. Her only satisfaction was in knowing that Lord Hartley was not happy to be taking such mean lodgings for the night.

But the farmer's wife was certainly happy, Jinx surmised when the woman began to bow and curtsy, attempting both actions at the same time.

"We're to have the best rooms in the house," Harrison said when he returned.

"How much did you pay her for the privilege of putting her out of her own home?" Jinx asked, annoyed with him despite her eagerness to gain access to those very rooms.

"A sovereign, and I rather doubt she considers it a hardship," he retorted.

"Of course she doesn't. The sovereign you so carelessly toss about is worth a month's labor to folk such as she."

"I'm well aware of that, Miss Benchley. I'm also cognizant of the fact that she would have been grateful to receive one shilling."

Jinx glared at him. She wanted to stay angry with him but it.was hard, for to be honest, a sovereign was a very generous sum, and she well knew it. Still, she was not about to heap praise on him for it. "If you'll excuse me?" She urged Daffodil past him, toward the open stable.

But he caught the mare's bridle. "Not so fast, Miss Benchley. Her son will take the horses. You and I are overdue for a chat." Then without so much as a by-your-leave, he hauled her down from the saddle.

"I'll thank you to keep your hands off my person!" She jerked back from him, tilting her chin up to a fighting angle.

A boy edged up, curious but cautious. "Rub them down well and give them each an extra portion of bran," Harrison told the lad. "And bring the bags up to our rooms."

"I'm quite capable of carrying my own bag now." Jinx unfastened the portmanteau and started for the farmhouse. "If you wish to speak with me," she called over her shoulder to Harrison, "it will simply have to wait until I get out of these wet clothes."

"Gladly," Harrison murmured, watching her march like a bedraggled queen across the sloppy yard. Her skirts dragged, a pitiful muddy blue train. Her wet hair clung like a bronze curtain to her slender back. She was stubborn and haughty-and he'd give far more than merely a sovereign to see her out of her wet clothes.

The very thought of the creamy skin that lay beneath her muddy blue riding suit heated him like roofing pitch brought to a boil. She disappeared into the farmhouse, with their hostess fluttering about her as if she were visiting royalty.

What was it about Jinx Benchley that drew people as disparate as a farmer's wife and a marquis? He could not deny that the troublesome redhead had confounded him from the first moment he'd laid eyes on her. She had an air of self-possession that befitted a well-heeled matron, though she was neither well-heeled, nor a matron. She could not be above five-and-twenty, and he knew the Benchleys had limited funds and only a mediocre estate. Neither was her confidence dependent upon her appearance-which was a far cry from the accepted norms of beauty-nor on her position in society;-which was negligible.

That was not to say that she wasn't a proper lady, for she was a gentleman's daughter. But she was an odd bird, and from an odd family. He frowned in frustration and concentrated on the facts. And the fact was, aside from her unwarranted ego, Miss Benchley possessed no particular presence, save that attributable to any attractive female. Redheads were said to have volatile tempers-and volatile passions. He knew she possessed the former. But did she possess the latter?

"Bloody hell," he muttered as desire struck him with embarrassing results. Angry at his reaction to the troublesome wench, he grabbed his leather valise and strode purposefully across the drenched yard to the house. Chickens scattered out of his path.

Jinx Benchley's sexual appeal was not the point, he told himself. The woman obviously thought she could protect her brother from the consequences of his actions. Otherwise she would not be galloping north to find him. While he admired her loyalty and found her adventurous nature intriguing, that changed nothing. She knew where her brother was. He was sure of it. He had only to be patient, to beat her at her own game.

How difficult could that be?

Removing her ruined traveling suit was a lesson in frustration. The wet wool clung to the soaked linen beneath it, which clung to her shivering skin below that. She removed her grandmother's anklet with its tiny Gypsy bells. Her stockings peeled reluctantly from her legs, like a second layer of ice-cold skin, leaving her flesh prickling from the chill. Jinx wrapped up in a blanket as she awaited hot water and a tub, and only then did she examine her surroundings. The room she'd been given was spacious, albeit with a low, sloping ceiling. The rain leaked in over the window; a pot caught the drips with wet, rhythmic plunks.

This was not the owner's bedchamber, she decided. No doubt the high-and-mighty Lord Hartley claimed that. Holding the blanket secure with one hand, she pushed her clothes into one sodden heap. She needed a bucket for them, otherwise they would leave water marks on the old wooden floor.

The housewife came and, aided by a dairymaid, dragged in a huge tub. At the sight of it Jinx finally found something to smile about. It was almost as large as the porcelain tub her mother had installed in a special upstairs bathing chamber at home.

"Water's heating, miss," the woman said. "I'll have it ' up directly," she added, bobbing and bowing. It took six hot buckets and six cold to fill the tub. The woman even had a block of hard soap, and once Jinx slid into the steaming stew, she let out a groan of utter contentment. If only she could sleep here, immersed in warmth, cocooned from the cold and bitter realities of the world outside this tub. No Harrison Stirling hounding her. No runaway brother foolishly enamored of a woman he should not want.

She closed her eyes and began to lather her hair. When this was over and she returned home, she wanted to investigate the possibility of an upstairs stove with a large

water tank that could empty directly into the bathing tub. The water could be supplied to the heating tank from the roof gutters, she speculated. And perhaps she should consider a special drain to carry the used bathwater directly outdoors. That way Mrs. Honeywell would be saved the task of heating and fetching and carrying away. And that way Jinx could bathe as often as she liked-daily would be absolutely wonderful-and feel no guilt for the burdens it placed on their limited household staff.

She'd sunk down to her chin, and only her knees showed, pink and warm, above the faintly soapy surface. Her mind filled with details of plumbing and a system for hoisting firewood up to the second floor, when a firm knock disrupted her reverie. She sat up with a correspondent slosh of water. "Who is it?"

"Harrison. May I come in?"

"No!" She sank down again, down until her chin and ears were halfway beneath the water. "No," she squeaked. "I'm almost finished here and I'll be downstairs directly-"

The door opened, she shrieked, and then it closed with an ominous thud. For a moment, all was absolutely silent. But though Jinx's back was to the door, she knew he was inside the room. He was inside the room, and she was naked, and she had no idea what to do about it.

She did know, however, that to react passively would only encourage him to bully her further. Though it took more courage than she thought she possessed, she forced herself to sit up, just enough so that her head was completely out of the water. Then she shifted to one side, fixed him with her most lethal glare, and said with a completely false calm, "Get out of this room. Now."