Oh, God, could life possibly get any worse?

“Matthew, what an unpleasant surprise to see you here.”

Yes, yes it could get worse. Dare spent a moment madly wondering if he couldn’t just scoop up his wife and dash away with her.

“Can I hope you mistook this for a gaming hell and will be leaving soon?” Charlotte tucked her hand into Dare’s arm and glared at her brother. He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing she were anywhere else but standing next to him. If the young man before him was really who he said he was…a groan slipped through his lips.

“There, you see, even Alasdair doesn’t want you here, and he’s much more polite than I am.”

“My dearest sister, I come to you with glad tidings.” Collins’s eyes were alight with vicious pleasure. Dare wrapped his arm around his wife and tried to steer her away from the news that he knew was going to devastate her.

“This is a celebration of my sister’s wedding,” he told the two men watching him avidly. “I would not have it marred by any of your glad tidings. If you would be so good as to call on me later this afternoon—”

“What are you up to, Matthew?” Charlotte resisted being herded away, looking between Dare’s face and her brother’s. “What devilment do you have planned now?”

“Devilment?” Collins spread his hands wide as if to show his innocence.

Panic welled up inside Dare. He didn’t want Charlotte to hear the news now, not like this, not in front of everyone. “Wife, I insist that you go and mingle with your guests.”

She wrinkled her nose at him in a manner that usually made him want to kiss her silly, but now just made him want to protect her from the hurt he knew was coming. “They are not my guests, they are Patricia’s, and I have no wish to mingle. I want to know what nasty little surprise Matthew has planned.”

“I am wounded that you would believe such a thing of me, sister, especially when I went to all the trouble of bringing with me one of your husband’s cousins.”

“Wife,” Dare said in his haughtiest tone, the one he hoped Charlotte would recognize as not allowing debate, or at the very least, become offended by and leave him in a snit, “you have a smut on your nose. Go attend to it.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t be ridiculous, my nose would never tolerate a smut to land upon it. Alasdair’s cousin, you say?”

Geoffrey McGregor, if it was he, took Charlotte’s hand and bowed over it. Dare snatched it back before the other man could press his lips to her knuckles. He leveled his sternest look upon her. “Charlotte, I insist you leave us. Go talk to Mrs. Whitney. You were saying only yesterday you want to help me with the engine—go talk to her about what a farseeing visionary I am.”