“But…but your manly instrument! It’s erecting all over the place! Just look at it; it wants me!”

Dare refused her invitation to gaze upon his groin. Charlotte would have insisted, but she had to admit he looked as if he were at the end of his patience.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to bed you.”

“That’s…that’s…surely that’s not legal, is it? You can’t not bed me!”

He didn’t even bother to look at her as he spoke, the beast. “I can, and I will. Go to bed, Charlotte. I have work to do here, and you can’t be of any help unless you know how to increase the efficiency of a marine condenser.”

She gritted her teeth against the desire to tell him just what he could do with his inefficient condenser, but she told herself a good wife did not think such thoughts, no matter how much her pigheaded, obstinate, foolish husband might try to goad her into it.

Besides, a sudden vision had come to her, a vision of a book in blue leather with lovely gilt letters and marbled endpapers. Vyvyan La Blue, she was certain, would have a thing or two to say about husbands whose manly instruments erected at will and yet whose masters refused to put them through their paces. Vyvyan always had something to say, and the connubial calisthenics described had always looked so appealing.

“Very well,” she said, her chin high as she skirted the machine. “I shall retire for the evening. Good night.” She stretched up on tiptoe and placed a chaste kiss on his cheek.

He mumbled a good night that turned into a yelp as she boldly placed her hand on his crotch. His instrument twitched in response to her caress. She smiled a very, very smug smile as she turned and left the room without another word.

All would be well. He wanted her, his manly instrument was twitching as it should be, and as for all the rest of his outrageous statements…well, that would sort itself out in time.

Seven

Wearily, Dare climbed the three sets of stairs leading to his bedchamber, his mind filled not as it should be—with a solution to the problem of the obstruction of the free passage of heat from the boiler to the water of the cold cistern—but with thoughts of the warm, vital, utterly enthralling woman who was now legally his. There wasn’t a person in the whole British Empire who would bat an eyelash if he were to march straight into her bedchamber and claim those marital rights due him as her husband. Certainly Charlotte wouldn’t complain, he thought with a tired chuckle as he turned down the hallway toward the bedchambers. She all but stripped him in his workroom, and the way her body melted against his indicated she wasn’t immune to his touch. If she only knew the power she held over him…he shook his head, thankful she had no idea of the effect she had on his heart and soul. He glanced downward and ruefully added body to the list.