“Charlotte,” Dare scolded her. Whitney only laughed and shook his head at her.

“Don’t ‘Charlotte’ me in that tone, husband. We’re going to need every shilling we can get; after all, we will soon have extra mouths to feed.”

Dare’s mouth dropped open as he goggled at his wife. “Char—you don’t mean—”

She smiled, her dimples in their full glory as she modestly dropped her gaze, the fan of her dark brown lashes resting gently on the faintly pink-tinged cream of her cheeks. “Yes, it’s true.” Her eyelashes swept up, exposing the merriment in her eyes. “I’ve invited Crouch and the rest of Gillian’s servants to come up to Scotland with us to put that house of yours to rights. I hadn’t wanted to tell you in so public a forum, but…well…the truth escaped me.”

“Crouch! I won’t have it!”

“From what Dare has told me of the house,” she said to Patricia and David, “it’s a veritable nare’s messed.”

“This time you’ve gone too far, wife. Shooting me was one thing, but this is too much!”

She ignored him, just as he knew she would. “I very much look forward to making it a home so we can settle down and get to work on Dare’s next engine.”

“You are not bringing that thug Crouch and his gang of miscreants to my home!”

“I’m my husband’s assistant, you know. He couldn’t do any of it without me. He tells me so every night.”

“I forbid it, I absolutely forbid it!”

“We work very well together. We’re thinking of modifying the marine engine for river use next. Don’t you think that is an excellent project? It should make us quite a tidy sum, too.”

“Charlotte—” Dare ground his teeth for a few moments at the thought of his mare’s nest of a house put to rights with Weston’s servants, then gave in and wrapped his arm around his wife.

“Whatever would I do without you, woman?” he growled into her ear as the others quite accurately read the intention in his eye and politely moved off to examine a new type of propeller.

“You’d be a lonely, pathetic man whom no one talked to, and who ended up living alone without servants in a house with seventeen cats all of which were named William. When you died, the cats would eat you. Therefore, it is only fitting that you thank me now for marrying you and saving you from such a terrible fate, thus helping you to fulfill your destiny as England’s premiere engine maker.”

“Thank you, Mrs. McGregor, for saving me from being eaten by cats,” he dutifully said, then pulled her behind the pillar to kiss her properly. “Now, about this harebrained idea of yours to bring Crouch and all of the others with us to Scotland…”

Charlotte kissed the argument right off of his tongue.

About Katie

After writing several boring software books, Katie MacAlister switched to fiction, where she could torment her characters, indulge her penchant for witty dialogue, and fall madly in love with her heroes. Noble Destiny is second in the series of delightful Regency romances that launched her career (the first being Noble Intentions). A regular on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestsellers lists, Katie MacAlister has written thirty novels, including unforgettable paranormal, historical, and contemporary romances, which have been translated into numerous languages and recorded as audiobooks. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. Visit katiemacalister.com.