by Lisa Kleypas
“My daughter Agatha’s a big, strong-docked girl,” a huge man wearing a leather apron volunteered.
“She’d be a prize for any man,” Mr. Ravenel replied. “But you’re a blacksmith, Stub. I couldn’t have you as a father-in-law.”
“Too grand for me, are you?” the blacksmith asked good-naturedly.
“No, it’s only that you’re twice my size. The first time she ran home to you, you’d come after me with hammer and tongs.” Hearty laughter rumbled through the group. “Lads,” Mr. Ravenel continued, “we’re in fine company today. This gentleman is His Grace, the Duke of Kingston. He’s accompanied by his daughter, Lady Clare, and his grandson, Master Justin.” Turning to Sebastian, he said, “Your Grace, we go by nicknames here. Allow me to introduce Neddy, Brick-end, Rollaboy, Stub, Slippy, and Chummy.”
Sebastian bowed, the morning light striking glitters of gold and silver in his hair. Although his manner was relaxed and amiable, his presence was formidable nonetheless. Thunderstruck by the presence of a duke in the barnyard, the group mumbled greetings, bobbed a few bows, and gripped their caps more tightly. At a nudge from his grandfather, Justin lifted his cap and bowed to the cluster of men. Taking the boy with him, Sebastian went to speak to each man.
After years of experience running the club on St. James, Sebastian could talk easily with anyone from royalty down to the most hardened street criminal. Soon he had the men smiling and volunteering information about their work at Eversby Priory.
“Your father has a common touch,” came Mr. Ravenel’s quiet voice near her ear. He watched Sebastian with a mix of interest and admiration. “One doesn’t usually see that in a man of his position.”
“He’s always mocked the notion that vice runs more rampant among commoners than nobility,” Phoebe said. “In fact, he says the opposite is usually true.”
Mr. Ravenel looked amused. “He could be right. Although I’ve seen a fair share of vice among both.”
In a moment, Mr. Ravenel drew Phoebe, Sebastian, and Justin with him to the engine barn, which had been divided into a series of machine rooms. It was cool and dank inside, with narrow spills of sun coming from high windows. There were scents of dry stoker coal, wood shavings, and new pine boards, and the sharp notes of machine oil, tallow grease, and metal polish.
Complex machines filled the quiet space, all massive gears and wheels, with innards of tanks and cylinders. Phoebe craned her neck to look up at a contraption equipped with extensions that reached two stories in height.
Mr. Ravenel laughed quietly at her apprehensive expression. “This is a steam-powered thresher,” he said. “It would take a dozen men and women an entire day to do what this machine does in one hour. Come closer—it won’t bite.”
Phoebe obeyed cautiously, coming to stand next to him. She felt a brief pressure on her lower back, the reassuring touch of his hand, and her heartbeat quickened in response.
Justin had crept closer as well, staring at the enormous thresher with awe. Mr. Ravenel smiled, reached down, and hoisted Justin high enough to see. To Phoebe’s surprise, her son instantly curved a small arm around the man’s neck. “They load the sheaves in there,” Mr. Ravenel explained, walking to the rear of the machine and pointing to a huge horizontal cylinder. “Inside, a set of beaters separates grain from straw. Then the straw is carried up that conveyor and delivered onto a cart or stack. The corn falls through a series of screens and blowers and pours out from there”—he pointed to a spout—“all ready for market.”
Still holding Justin, Mr. Ravenel walked to a machine next to the thresher, a large engine with a boiler, smokebox and cylinders, all affixed to a carriage foundation on wheels. “This traction engine tows the thresher and gives it power.”
Sebastian came to examine the traction engine more closely, running a thumb lightly over the riveted seams of the metal shell around the boiler. “Consolidated Locomotive,” he murmured, reading the manufacturer’s mark. “I happen to be acquainted with the owner.”
“It’s a well-made engine,” Mr. Ravenel said, “but you might tell him that his siphon lubricators are rubbish. We keep having to replace them.”
“You could tell him yourself. He’s one of your wedding guests.”
Mr. Ravenel grinned at him. “I know. But I’m damned if I’ll insult one of Simon Hunt’s traction engines to his face. It would ruin any chance of getting a discount in the future.”
Sebastian laughed—one of the full, unguarded laughs he permitted himself when in the company of family or the closest of friends. There was no doubt about it—he liked the audacious young man, who clearly didn’t fear him in the least.
Phoebe frowned at the use of a curse word in front of Justin, but she held her tongue.
“How does the engine know where to go?” Justin was asking Mr. Ravenel.
“A man sits up there on that seat board and pushes the steering post.”
“The long stick with the handle?”
“Yes, that one.”
They squatted to look at the gearing leading to the wheels, their two dark heads close together. Justin seemed fascinated by the machine, but even more so by the man who was explaining it to him.
Reluctantly Phoebe acknowledged that Justin needed a father, not merely the extra time his grandfather and uncles could spare. It grieved her that neither of her sons had any memories of Henry. She’d had fantasies of him walking through a blooming spring garden with his two boys, stopping to examine a bird’s nest or a butterfly drying its wings. It was disconcerting to contrast those hazy romantic images with the sight of West Ravenel showing Justin the gears and levers of a traction engine in a machine shop.
She watched apprehensively as Mr. Ravenel began to lift her son to the seat board of the traction engine. “Wait,” she said. He paused, glancing at her over his shoulder. “Do you mean for him to climb up there?” she asked. “On that machine?”
“Mama,” Justin protested, “I just want to sit on it.”
“Can’t you see enough of it from the ground?” she asked.
Her son gave her an aggrieved glance. “That’s not the same as sitting on it.”
Sebastian grinned. “It’s all right, Redbird. I’ll go up there with him.”
Mr. Ravenel glanced at the workman standing nearby. “Neddy,” he asked, “will you distract Lady Clare while I proceed to endanger her father and son?”
The man ventured forward, a bit apprehensively, as if he thought Phoebe might rebuke him. “Milady . . . shall I show you the piggery?” He seemed relieved by her sudden laugh.
“Thank you,” she said. “I would appreciate that.”
Chapter 10
Phoebe went with the workman to a partially covered pen where a newly farrowed sow reclined with her piglets. “How long have you worked on the estate home farm, Neddy?”
“Since I be a lad, milady.”
“What do you make of all this ‘high farming’ business?”
“Couldn’t say. But I trust Mr. Ravenel. Solid as a brick, he be. When he first came pokin’ about Eversby Priory, none of us wanted nothin’ to do with a fine-feathered city toff.”
“What changed your mind about him?”
The old man shrugged, his narrow rectangular face creasing with a faint, reminiscent smile. “Mr. Ravenel has a way about him. A good, honest man, he be, for all his cleverness. Give him a halter, and he’ll find a horse.” His smile broadened as he added, “He be a sprack ’un.”
“Sprack?” Phoebe repeated, unfamiliar with the word.
“A lively lad, quick in mind and body. Up early and late. Sprack.” He snapped his lean fingers smartly as he said the word. “Mr. Ravenel knows how to make it all go together—the new ways and the old. Has a touch for it. Put the land in good heart, he has.”
“It seems I should take his advice, then,” Phoebe mused aloud. “About my own farms.”
Neddy looked at her alertly. “Your farms, milady?”
“They’re my son’s,” she admitted. �
��I’m looking after them until he comes of age.”
He looked sympathetic and interested. “You be a widder, milady?”
“Yes.”
“You should buckle to Mr. Ravenel,” he suggested. “A fine husband he’d make. You’d get some great rammin’ bairns off that one, certain sure.”
Phoebe smiled uncomfortably, having forgotten how frank country folk could be in discussing highly personal matters.
They were soon joined by Mr. Ravenel, Sebastian, and Justin. Her son was bright-eyed with enthusiasm. “Mama, I pretend-steered the engine! Mr. Ravenel says I can drive it for real when I’m bigger!”
Before the tour resumed, Mr. Ravenel ceremoniously escorted Justin to a shed containing cisterns of pig manure, claiming it was the worst-smelling thing on the farm. After stopping at the shed’s threshold and sniffing the rank air, Justin made a revolted face and hurried back, exclaiming in happy disgust. They proceeded to a barn with an attached dairy, a feed house, and a shed of box stalls. Red-and-white cows meandered in a nearby paddock, while the rest of the herd grazed in the pasture beyond.
“This is stock rearing on a larger scale than I expected,” Sebastian commented, his assessing gaze moving to the rich land on the other side of the timber rail fence. “Your cattle are pasture-raised?”
Mr. Ravenel nodded.
“There would be less expense involved in stall-raising them on corn,” Sebastian pressed. “They would fatten more quickly, would they not?”
“Correct.”
“Why let them out to pasture, then?”
Mr. Ravenel looked somewhat chagrined as he replied. “I can’t confine them in stalls for their entire lives.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Phoebe glanced at her father quizzically, wondering why he found the subject so absorbing, when he’d never shown any interest in cattle before.
“Mama,” Justin said, tugging at her elbow-length sleeve. She looked down to discover the black cat brushing against the hem of her skirts. Purring, the creature wound around Justin’s legs.
Phoebe smiled and returned her attention to Mr. Ravenel.
“. . . would be a better business decision to keep them in stalls,” he was admitting to her father. “But there’s more to consider than profit. I can’t bring myself to treat these animals as mere commodities. It seems only decent . . . respectful . . . to allow them to lead healthy, natural lives for as long as possible.” He grinned as he noticed the expression of a nearby workman. “My head cowman, Brick-end, disagrees.”
The cowman, a heavyset mountain of a man with piercing gimlet eyes, said flatly, “Stall-fattened beef brings a higher price at the London markets. Soft, corn-fed meat’s what they want.”
Mr. Ravenel’s reply was conciliatory; clearly it was an issue they’d discussed before, without a mutually satisfactory resolution. “We’re crossing our stock to a new shorthorn line. It will give us cows that fatten more easily on pasture grass.”
“Fifty guineas to hire a prize bull from Northampton for the season,” Brick-end grumbled. “It would be cheaper to—” He broke off abruptly, his sharp eyes focusing on the cow paddock.
Phoebe followed his gaze, and a shock of horror gripped her as she saw that Justin had wandered away and climbed through the paddock’s timber fence rails. He appeared to have followed the cat, which had scampered inside the enclosure to bat playfully at a butterfly. But the paddock contained more than cows. A huge brindle bull had separated from the herd. It stood in an aggressive broadside display, shoulders hunched and back arched.
The bull was no more than twenty feet away from her son.
Chapter 11
“Justin,” Phoebe heard herself say calmly, “I want you to walk backward to me, very slowly. Right now.” It took twice as much breath to produce the usual amount of sound.
Her son’s small head lifted. A visible start went through him at the sight of the bull. Fear made him clumsy, and he tripped backward, falling on his rump. The massive animal swung to face him in a lightning-swift change of balance, hooves churning the ground.
Mr. Ravenel had already vaulted the fence, his hand touching the top of a post, his feet passing over the top rail without even touching it. As soon as he landed, he ran to interpose his body between Justin and the bull. Giving a hoarse shout and waving his arms, he distracted the animal from its intended target.
Phoebe scrambled forward, but her father was already easing through the rails in a supple movement. “Stay,” he said curtly.
She clung to one of the rails and waited, quivering from head to toe, as she watched her father stride swiftly to Justin, scoop him up, and carry him back. A sob of relief escaped her as he handed her child to her through the fence. She sank to her knees with her arms around Justin. Every breath was a prayer of gratitude.
“I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .” Justin was gasping.
“Shhh . . . you’re safe . . . it’s all right,” Phoebe said, her heartbeat tumbling over on itself. Realizing Sebastian hadn’t climbed out yet, she said unsteadily, “Father—”
“Ravenel, what can I do?” he asked calmly.
“With respect, sir”—Mr. Ravenel was double-dodging and darting, trying to anticipate the bull’s movements—“get the hell out of here.”
Sebastian complied readily, slipping back through the rails.
“That goes for you too, Brick,” Mr. Ravenel snapped, as the head cowman climbed the fence to straddle the top. “I don’t need you in here.”
“Keep him circling,” Brick-end shouted. “He can’t move forward if he can’t swing his hindquarters around.”
“Right,” Mr. Ravenel said briskly, orbiting the enraged bull.
“Can you try to step a bit more lively?”
“No, Brick,” Mr. Ravenel retorted, running at an angle and sharply reversing direction. “I’m fairly sure this is as fast as I can move.”
More workmen had come running to the fence, all shouting and throwing hats in the air to draw the bull’s attention, but it was firmly fixed on the man in the paddock. The one-ton animal was astonishingly lithe, its glossy loose-skinned bulk stopping dead, shifting to one side and the other, then pinwheeling in pursuit of his adversary. Mr. Ravenel never took his gaze from the creature, instinctively countering every movement. It was like some macabre dance in which one misplaced step would be fatal.
Dodging to the right, Mr. Ravenel tricked the bull into a half-twist. Doubling back, he ran full-bore to the fence and dove between the rails. The bull pivoted and thundered after him, but stopped short, snorting in fury, as Mr. Ravenel’s legs slithered through the barrier.
Cheers of relief and excitement went up from the assembled workmen.
“Thank God,” Phoebe murmured, pressing her cheek against Justin’s damp, dark hair. What if . . . what if . . . God, she’d barely managed to survive losing Henry. If anything had happened to Justin . . .
Her father’s hand patted her back gently. “Ravenel’s been hurt.”
“What?” Phoebe’s head jerked up. All she could see was a cluster of workmen gathered around a form on the ground. But she’d seen Mr. Ravenel dive cleanly between the fence rails. How could he be hurt? Frowning in worry, she eased Justin out of her lap. “Father, if you would take Justin—”
Sebastian took the boy without a word, and Phoebe leaped to her feet. Gathering up her skirts, she rushed to the group of workmen and pushed her way through.
Mr. Ravenel was half sitting, half reclining with his back propped against a fence post. His shirt hem had been tugged free of his trousers. Beneath the loose fabric, he clasped a hand to his side, just above the hip.
He was breathing hard and sweating, his eyes gleaming with the half-mad exhilaration of a man who’d just survived a life-threatening experience. A crooked grin emerged as he saw her. “Just a scratch.”
Relief began to creep through her. “Neddy was right,” she said. “You are a sprack ’un.” The men around them chuckled. Drawing closer, she
asked, “Did the bull’s horns catch you?”
Mr. Ravenel shook his head. “A nail on the fence.”
Phoebe frowned in concern. “It must be cleaned right away. You’ll be fortunate if you don’t end up with lockjaw.”
“Nothing could lock that jaw,” Brick-end said slyly, and the group erupted with guffaws.
“Let me have a look,” Phoebe said, kneeling by Mr. Ravenel’s side.
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
He sent her a vaguely exasperated glance. “It’s . . . not in a proper location.”
“For heaven’s sake, I was a married woman.” Undeterred, Phoebe reached for the hem of the shirt.
“Wait.” Mr. Ravenel’s tanned complexion had turned the color of rosewood. He scowled at the workmen, who were observing the proceedings with great interest. “Can a man have a bit of privacy?”
Brick-end proceeded to shoo the small crowd away, saying brusquely, “Back to work, lads. Don’t stand there a-garpin’.”
Mumbling, the workmen retreated.
Phoebe pulled up Mr. Ravenel’s shirt. The top three buttons of his trousers had been unfastened, the waistband sagging to reveal a lean torso wrought with layers of muscle. One strong hand clamped a sooty, greasy-looking cloth a few inches above his left hip.
“Why are you holding a filthy rag against an open wound?” Phoebe demanded.
“It was the only thing we could find.”
Phoebe took three clean, crisp handkerchiefs from her pocket, and folded them to make a pad.
Mr. Ravenel’s brows lifted as he watched her. “Do you always carry so many handkerchiefs?”
She had to smile at that. “I have children.” Leaning over him, she carefully peeled away the dirty cloth. Blood welled from the three-inch wound on his side. It was a nasty scratch, undoubtedly deep enough to require stitches.
As Phoebe pressed the pad of handkerchiefs over the injury, Mr. Ravenel winced and leaned back against the post to avoid physical contact with her. “My lady . . . I can do that . . .” He paused to take an agitated breath, his hand fumbling to replace hers. His color was still high, the blue of his eyes like the flickering core of a heartwood fire.
