“Oh,” she said breathily, unable to think of anything else but the desire to wrap herself around that chest.

Dare was not likewise struck dumb. “What the devil do you mean parading around in your night things, madam wife?”

“Chest,” she murmured, her eyes huge.

“Have you no sense?” He set down a black, lumpish thing—some part for the engine, the lucid part of her mind guessed—and glared at her.

“Bare chest.”

He reached for a rag and wiped the oil and grime from his hands. Such an action caused his arms and shoulders and chest to move in a beautiful ballet of muscles and tendons. Charlotte grabbed wildly for the back of a wooden chair that stood nearby.

“Well? What have you to say to me?” Dare dropped the rag and started toward her. “God’s teeth, woman, your feet are bare!”

“Not as bare as your chest.” She gasped as he scooped her up in his arms. “Oh. You’re so…hooo! Isn’t it hot for May, though? Did I disturb you at your work, Alasdair?”

“Catch your death wandering around the house in the middle of the night in nothing but a scanty bit of lawn and bare feet,” Dare grumbled as he started up the stairs. “Take that candle. Yes, of course I was working. What did you think I was doing?”

“But it’s after two, and you really should be in bed. With me.” She added that last bit just in case he wasn’t clear on the situation.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor and looked down on her, his face shadowed. “Charlotte, we’ve been over this.”

“Not to my satisfaction.”

He sighed, then bent and told her to set the candle down. She placed it a few steps above them as he sat down in the small pool of light cast onto the carpeted stairs, holding her firmly against his chest, his hands warm through the thin material of her night rail. She snuggled into him, stroking the sweat-dampened hair on his chest. Truly, such an act would have repulsed her on any other man, but Dare even sweated in an attractive manner. Could any man be more perfect for her?

“Charlotte, I don’t know what more I can say to make you understand how I feel. I want something more than just a physical relationship. I think you do as well. At least I hope you do, but until you know that for certain, until you know what you honestly want from this marriage, it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to engage in those activities a husband and wife normally engage in.”

“Arguing, you mean,” Charlotte said softly, placing a gentle kiss on the curve of his ear.

He chuckled. “You know what I mean, wife.”

Charlotte gave him a little smile. “You see, there is more to me than you had thought. I’m not just mind-meltingly beautiful. I can jest. I am interested in your machine, or I would be if you would explain it to me. I am economizing, and you’ll notice that I have not once complained this evening about that sorry state of affairs. I am learned in the ways of connubial calisthenics. I have a good speaking voice, and a legible hand, and could be of great help to you in your business if you will just allow me. I am, in short, the perfect wife for you.”