Devil's Daughter

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 on 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 loosebox 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 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.