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."

"Not until you and I have had a little talk."

"If you wish to speak to me, you will gain no satisfaction by behaving like a ruffian. I refuse to speak to you under such unseemly circumstances."

The unconscionable wretch only deflected her glare with a smug grin and advanced farther into the room. He dragged a straight-backed chair into the middle of the floor, then, straddling it backward, faced her across a mere three feet of distance.

It was such an arrogant male gesture, she wanted to throw the soap at him. And yet that same arrogance, the very maleness of his behavior, sent a shiver of both fear and awareness through her. She sank deeper into the water, crossing her arms over her chest and cursing herself for a full-fledged fool. Toad eggs! What was she to do now?

"I do not negotiate with ruffians," she muttered, averting her gaze.

"You have no choice but to negotiate with me, Jinx."

"From one presumption to the next you leap! I am Miss Benchley to you."

He chuckled. "I have difficulty with such formalities when I'm in a lady's bedchamber, especially when she's-"

"No woman who welcomes the likes of you into her bedchamber could possibly be termed a lady."

"Some are. Some aren't." He grinned. "Which are you?"

The water had begun to cool. Now, however, it felt warm again. Hot. Positively steaming. He was enjoying himself entirely too much!

Jinx weighed her options. She could hold this conversation with him while sitting in the bathtub. She could refuse to speak to him at all, so long as she was sitting in the bathtub.

Or… She could get out of the bathtub.

He expected her to refuse, to speak with him, and then eventually, to give in, and it galled her to let him best her that way.

So she considered the alternative. Did she dare exit the tub, allowing him to see her naked, even if only for a moment or two? She was not an excessively modest person, and yet…

Ego won out over modesty. She sank completely under the water, rinsing the last of the soap from her hair-and gathering her courage. Then, not giving herself time to reconsider, she surged to her feet, stepped out of the tub, and snatched up the towel lying across the bed. She was covered in a moment, at least her torso was. Her arms and legs remained bare, but she could deal with that, she told herself. Finally, she steeled herself and turned to face him.

"Now, what was it you wished so urgently to discuss?"

Harrison closed his gaping mouth with a snap. Had she just done what he thought she'd done? Jinx Benchley sat on the bed. She was wrapped in a generous length of toweling, and as he watched, she reached up and began to apply another towel to her dripping mane of copper-colored hair.

She was the picture of composure, a lady at her bath. But the image of her smooth pink skin, a narrow waist, and dimpled derriere, were burned into his brain.

He'd bullied her, but she'd turned the tables and bullied him right back. Quite a feat. But he was not calm enough yet to fully admire her ability to outbluff him. He was too overwhelmed by the desire to unwrap the towels that hid her luscious body. He wanted to see the rest of her, the breasts he'd not really glimpsed, the softly rounded belly. The feminine vee between her legs.

"Lord Hartley?"

Harrison blinked, only belatedly coming back to awareness. As he watched, she stood and, still wrapped in the towels, slipped her arms into her wrapper. Then turning her back to him, she did a little jiggle, and from beneath her wrapper, the towel fell to her feet. She tied the wrapper in place, then finally turned back to face him, completely covered, neck to wrist to toes. But she was still naked beneath that one layer of cloth.

She planted her fists on her hips. "Now what was it that was so important I must waste a perfectly good tub of water?"

Indeed, what had been so important? He couldn't remember.

Maybe he'd only hoped to catch her at her bath and see some portion of her unclothed. But never in the wildest of his fantasies had he expected her to be so bold as to rise gloriously naked from her bath, like some Venus on her shell of a bathtub.

Perhaps she was not the innocent maiden he'd assumed her to be.

His eyes narrowed. "I confess, you have taken me quite by surprise, Miss Benchley. Unfortunately, I was so stunned I did not entirely appreciate your little display. Would you consider repeating it?"

A faint blush rose in her cheeks. So, she was not so blase in her behavior as she pretended. He found an immense satisfaction in that knowledge. He went on. "You see, Miss Benchley, all I truly wanted was to discuss the matter of our wayward siblings. But if you have another sort of… discussion in mind, I'd be more than happy to join you on the bed."

She popped up from that bed like a fox who'd just stumbled into the hound. For all her bravado, Harrison was reassured that she was still an innocent. She had a boldness to her, and courage of a sort seldom seen in a woman. But that smooth pale skin had not yet known the touch of a man. He would swear on it.