Dare gave her one of those looks that she had mentally termed his martyred look. She dismissed the leg question and fingered the thin chain around her neck, wondering if she shouldn’t double the potions. Perhaps just taking it once a day was not effective enough. Sometimes she didn’t see Alasdair for several hours after she’d drunk the rather pleasant-tasting brew. Mayhap it was wearing off before she saw him. She’d take an extra dose of it as soon as they returned home. It certainly couldn’t hurt her; it was a love potion, after all. No harm could come of an abundance of love, surely!

“Charlotte.”

She turned to look at her husband. He had one of his adorable eyebrows cocked. She was pleased to see that the tired lines around his eyes and mouth had diminished, no doubt because she had continued to pretend she was asleep when he crawled into her bed. He had looked so tired the last few nights, she could do nothing more than wait for him to fall into an exhausted sleep, then tuck him in and rest next to him, fighting the burn inside her that urged her to take advantage of his weakened state. “Yes?”

“Are you telling me that you have a dead bird’s leg under your gown?”

She blinked at him. “I thought we had already established that.”

He shook his head, running a hand through his hair in the manner she loved. She wanted to run her fingers through it, as well.

“I’m sorry, I thought I misheard you and felt it was better to correct the impression than to muddle on thinking you had part of a dead animal stuffed down your bodice. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’m sure it is all the thing for fashionable ladies to be wearing legs of dead birds between their breasts, but on the offhand chance it’s not, perhaps you’d care to tell me why you are?”

“Oh.” He wanted to know why? Drat. “It’s…for luck.”

His second eyebrow joined the first. “For luck?”

“Yes, it’s for luck. For…er…you.” She crossed her fingers behind her back. It wasn’t really a lie, not a bald-faced one. If the amulet and the potions and the love spells worked and she fell in love with her husband, his luck would improve. It was bound to. How could it do otherwise with her at his side? “It’s an amulet to…to promote the success of your engine.” Again, another half-truth, not quite a lie.

He tugged on the chain until a small blue glass ampoule emerged from the depths of her bosom. He squinted at it. Barely visible through the dark glass was the dehydrated leg of a small bird.

“For luck,” she said, meeting his blue-eyed gaze and suddenly feeling very warm despite the unseasonably chilly day. His eyes burned into hers, searing her, making her skin flush with the heat of his gaze.

“For…luck,” he said softly, his fingers brushing the valley between her breasts as he tucked the amulet back into her dress. Her breath caught, then came fast, her breasts straining against her bodice as he slowly withdrew his fingers, trailing them against her soft flesh in a manner that made her legs go weak.