The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever

to go into the other room to see if there are any dry clothes we can use.'

'Good idea.' Turner watched her back as she disappeared from sight. The rain had plastered her shirt to her body, and he could see the warm, pink tones of her skin through the wet material. His loins, which had been unbelievably cold from the soaking, grew hot and heavy with remarkable speed. He cursed and then stubbed his toe as he lifted the lid off a wooden chest to look for wood.

Dear God, what had he done to deserve this? If he had been handed a pen and paper and ordered to compose the perfect torture, he would never have come up with this. And he had a very active imagination.

'I found some wood in here!'

Turner followed the sound of Miranda's voice into the next room.

'It's over there.' She pointed to a pile of logs near a fireplace. 'I reckon Lord Chester prefers to use this fireplace when he's here.'

Turner eyed the large bed with its soft quilts and fluffy pillows. He had a fairly good idea why Lord Chester preferred this room, and it did not involve the somewhat portly Lady Chester. He immediately put a log in the fireplace.

'Don't you think we ought to use the one in the other room?' Miranda asked. She, too, had seen the large bed.

'This one has obviously seen more use. It is dangerous to use a dirty chimney. It could be clogged.'

Miranda nodded slowly, and he could tell that she was trying very hard not to look uncomfortable. She continued to look for dry clothing while Turner attended to the fire, but all she found were some scratchy-looking old blankets. Turner watched as she draped one over her shoulders.

'Cashmere?' he drawled.

Her eyes widened. She hadn't, he realized, been aware that he had been looking at her. He smiled, or really, it was more of a baring of his teeth. Maybe she was uncomfortable, but damn it, so was he. Did she think this was easy for him? She'd said she loved him, for God's sake. Why the devil had she gone and done that? Did she know nothing about men? Could it be possible that she didn't understand that that was the one thing guaranteed to terrify him?

He didn't want to be entrusted with her heart. He didn't want the responsibility. He'd been married. He'd had his own heart crushed, stomped upon, and tossed in a flaming rubbish heap. The last thing he wanted was custody of someone else's, especially Miranda's.

'Use the quilt on the bed,' he said with a shrug. It had to be more comfortable than what she'd found.

But she shook her head. 'I don't want to muss it. I don't want anyone to know we were here.'

'Mmm, yes,' he said unkindly, 'I'd have to marry you then, wouldn't I?'

She looked so stricken that he muttered an apology. Good Lord, he was turning into someone he didn't particularly like. He didn't want to hurt her. He just wanted to-

Hell, he didn't know what he wanted. He couldn't even think more than ten minutes into the future, just then, couldn't focus on anything beyond keeping his hands to himself.

He busied himself with the fire, letting out a satisfied grunt when a tiny orange flame finally curled around a log. 'Easy now,' he murmured, carefully setting a smaller stick near the flame. 'There we are, there we are…and- yes!'

'Turner?'

'Got the fire burning,' he mumbled, feeling a trifle foolish for his excitement. He stood and turned. She was still clutching the threadbare blanket around her shoulders.

'A fine lot of good that'll do you once it's soaked from your shirt,' he commented.

'I don't have much choice, do I?'

'That's up to you, I suppose. As for me, I'm drying off.' His fingers went to the buttons on his shirt.

'Maybe I should go to the other room,' she whispered.

Turner noted that she didn't move an inch. He shrugged, and then he shrugged his shirt off entirely.

'I should go,' she whispered again.

'Then go,' he said. But his lips curved.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it. 'I- ' She broke off, a look of horror crossing her features.

'You what?'

'I should go.' And this time she did, leaving the room with alacrity.

Turner shook his head as she left. Women. Did anyone understand them? First she said she loved him. Then she said she wanted to seduce him. Then she avoided him for two days. Now she looked terrified.

He shook his head again, this time faster, his hair spraying water across the room. Wrapping one of the blankets around his shoulders, he stood in front of the fire and dried himself off. His legs felt damned uncomfortable, though. He shot a sidelong look at the door. Miranda had shut it behind her when she left, and given her present state of maidenly embarrassment, he doubted she'd enter without knocking.

He peeled off his breeches with great haste. The fire began to warm him almost immediately. He glanced again at the door. Just to be on the safe side, he lowered the blanket and tucked it around his waist. It looked a bit like a kilt, actually.

He thought again about the expression on her face just before she'd run from the room. Maidenly embarrassment and something else. Was it fascination? Desire?

And what had she been about to say? It hadn't been 'I should go,' which was what she did say.

If he had stepped up to her, taken her face in his hands, and whispered, 'Tell me,' what would she have said?

3 July 1819

I almost told him again. And I think he knew it. I think he knew what I was going to say.

Chapter 11

Turner was so busy thinking about how much he'd like to touch Miranda- anywhere and everywhere- that he completely forgot that she must be freezing her backside off in the other room. It was only when he realized that he was finally toasty warm that it occurred to him that she was not.

Cursing himself up and down and ten times for an idiot, he stood up and strode to the door that she had shut between them. He yanked it open and then uttered another stream of curses when he saw her huddled on the floor, shaking with near violence.

'You little fool,' he said. 'Are you trying to kill yourself?'

She looked up, her eyes widening at the sight of him. Turner suddenly remembered he was barely dressed.

'Bugger it,' he muttered to himself, then shook his head in exasperation and hauled her to her feet.

Miranda snapped out of her daze and began to struggle. 'What are you doing?'

'Shaking some sense into you.'

'I'm perfectly fine,' she said, though her shivers proved her a liar.

'The devil you are. I'm freezing just talking to you. Come by the fire.'

She looked longingly at the orange flames crackling in the next room. 'Only if you stay here.'

'Fine,' he said. Anything to get her warm. With a slightly less than gentle prod, he pointed her in the right direction.

Miranda stopped near the fire and held her hands out. A low moan of contentment escaped her lips, traveling across the room and punching Turner right in the gut.

He stepped forward, mesmerized by the pale, almost translucent skin of the back of her neck.

Miranda sighed again, then turned around to warm her back. She jumped away an inch, startled by the sight of him standing so close. 'You said you'd leave,' she accused.

'I lied.' He shrugged. 'I haven't the least bit of faith that you'll dry yourself off properly.'