She tugged her scarf over her head. At least she was not totally soaked. Yet.

The road turned and she urged Daffodil up the incline. The game little mare was as tired as she, but she responded with renewed effort. They had nearly surmounted the hill when the animal lost its footing in a patch of slick gravel. Daffodil nearly went down, and if she had, it might have been disastrous. But the horse managed to stay upright. It was Jinx who could not keep her balance.

She grabbed wildly for the saddle horn, but it was useless. With a shriek of frustration and a whoosh of skirts, she landed hard in the middle of the sodden road. Added to that ignominy, the clouds chose at that very moment to spill their unhappy bounty.

It was as if the storm mocked her, she fumed, lying flat on her back, trying to catch her breath. First the clouds tittered, then they chuckled. Finally they guffawed, buckets and buckets of drowning laughter raining down upon her.

Jinx turned her face aside and covered her eyes with one drenched arm. Nothing was broken. She'd scraped one palm and her bottom would surely be bruised. But other than that she was unharmed. Yet she continued to lie there, pelted by the storm, wallowing in a trough of self-pity. How had she come to such a pathetic pass as this?

A streak of brilliant light and a violent crack of thunder startled her out of her misery. Daffodil snorted and shied, and before Jinx could grab for the reins, the mare was off, tail raised like a flag as she skittered over the crest of the hill and vanished from sight.

"No. No!" Jinx scrambled for footing, trying to give chase. But her soaked skirts were too heavy, even without petticoats. She slipped and stumbled again, cursing the horse, the weather, and most of all, her idiotic, love-struck brother.

She didn't hear the rider until he was almost upon her, and when she whirled about, she lost her footing again. Down she went, this time in a thicket of heath. At least it cushioned her fall, but her most comfortable riding suit would never be the same. "Bee's knees," she swore, wiping rain from her brow. Then sheltering her eyes from the driving rain, she looked up from her humiliating position-and nearly swooned!

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.