“He’s…he’s probably working on his engine. He does most evenings,” Patricia offered, a questioning expression on her face. Charlotte was grateful it wasn’t pity. She didn’t think she could take pity at that moment.

“His engine? Oh, his little hobby. Where does he keep that?”

Patricia blinked a couple of times before shaking her head and stepping forward, smiling at Charlotte as she squeezed her free hand. “Dare works on his engine in what used to be the butler’s pantry. It’s belowstairs, at the front of the house, where it catches the morning sun. Wills will show you the way.”

Charlotte murmured a polite thanks and was turning away when she paused to frown at the boy in her grasp, setting him to trembling and sniffling again before she turned back to Patricia. “I cannot help but notice that your maid is a female.”

Patricia looked between her maid and Charlotte. “Yeeeees,” she drawled, confusion plainly writ on her face.

Charlotte’s nostrils flared for a moment as a militant glint lit her eye. Then she nodded and headed off to the stairs, Wills in tow.

Five minutes later she was escorted by a remarkably cheerful Batsfoam into a small, dank room so far distant from the living areas of the house it seemed to be buried in the bowels of the earth. The room stank with the nose-wrinkling acid smell of burnt oil, mildew, dirt, and blacking, but what caught Charlotte’s attention as she ducked to enter the low wooden door was not the smell, or the sight of a mammoth black machine that took up most of the available space, or the tables ringing the room, filled with strange tools, filthy rags, and pots of substances she couldn’t begin to fathom. No, what caught and held her eye was the sight of her husband of five hours bent over a shaft sprouting out the side of the machine. He had stripped down to just his shirt and trousers, a fact Charlotte greatly appreciated as she stood blocking the doorway, her gaze happily feasting on the sight of material stretched tight across the long, muscled length of his leg. Not to mention the lovely contours of his behind. Charlotte took one look at that behind and instantly her womanly parts started clamoring for attention.

His attention.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

Dare straightened up at the interruption and looked over his shoulder. His handsome face bore a familiar scowl, but Charlotte was too busy looking from his bare arms and neck to the large expanse of magnificent chest clearly visible through the shirt glued with sweat to every curve and contour to notice the scowl. A subdued cough at her back reminded her where she was, along with the latest round of grievous injuries done to her by the annoying, if mouthwatering, man in front of her. She tightened her hold on Wills and shoved him through the door ahead of her, looking around the small, dusty room as she did so.