“And you and Char are the pets of Society?” Patricia teased. “How fitting that is!”

Dare shrugged, his eyes still on the graceful figure of his wife as she meandered down the length of the building toward him. “I gather that is so, although Charlotte seems to care little enough about it.” He shook his head briefly as he spoke the words. The truth was, he still couldn’t believe that Charlotte would turn her back so wholly on everything that had been her dream for so long, and yet, that is just what she had done. She had gladly thrown herself into helping him work day and night to make sure the engine was ready in time for the exhibition. Even after it had been completed—three days ahead of schedule—she had not returned to her old routine of paying calls and attending social functions. Instead she spent the evenings at home with him. A smile flirted with the corners of his lips as he remembered just how many of Vyvyan La Blue’s famed connubial calisthenics they had tried, the smile growing when he thought of how many remained as yet unexplored.

“You should have more faith in her,” Patricia said, apparently reading her brother’s mind. “Charlotte is madly in love with you, just as I hoped she would be. As long as she’s with you, she’s happy.”

He looked away from Charlotte just long enough to smile down on his sister.

“I have every faith in my wife, little one. She once bragged that she would be of enormous assistance persuading your new uncle into buying my engine, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t do just that.”

Patricia laughed and pinched his arm as his eyes lifted once more to watch his Charlotte. “Your engine sold itself, brother mine, although I will admit that both David and Uncle Whitney looked very full of themselves. No doubt Char is filling their heads with the worst sort of flattery. Even so, I will forgive her, for she has done the one thing I had never thought to see.”

Dare cocked an eyebrow in question.

“She made you fall in love with her,” Patricia said with another squeeze of his arm. “And now I can sail around the world with David and not worry about either of you.”

Charlotte and Elias Whitney, owner of the famed Whitney Shipyards—and now proud owner of the McGregor Marine Engine—came to a halt in front of them, Charlotte transferring herself from Whitney’s arm to Dare’s with a flash of dimples at the former.

“We have seen everything there is to see,” she told Dare with a familiar glint of pride in her lovely clear blue eyes, a pride that he knew was for himself. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve her, but every morning he woke profoundly grateful that she was his. “And Mr. Whitney agrees with me that your engine is by far the most superior of any to be found. I think you should have asked much more for it, Dare.”