He gave her an innocent glance. “Just as long as you do it by hand.”

The smart-aleck remark surprised a laugh from her. Insolent rascal.

West Ravenel smiled slightly, his gaze holding hers, and for a moment her throat tingled sweetly at the back, as if she’d just swallowed a spoonful of cool honey.

By tacit agreement, they resumed walking. They caught up to Sebastian and Justin, who had stopped to watch a young cat wandering along the side of the path.

Justin’s small form was very still with excitement, his attention riveted on the black feline. “Look, Mama!”

Phoebe glanced at Mr. Ravenel. “Is she feral?”

“No, but she’s undomesticated. We keep a few barn cats to reduce the rodent and insect population.”

“Can I pet her?” Justin asked.

“You could try,” Mr. Ravenel said, “but she won’t come close enough. Barn cats prefer to keep their distance from people.” His brows lifted as the small black cat made her way to Sebastian and curled around his leg, arching and purring. “With the apparent exception of dukes. My God, she’s a snob.”

Sebastian lowered to his haunches. “Come here, Justin,” he murmured, gently kneading the cat along its spine to the base of its tail.

The child approached with his small hand outstretched.

“Softly,” Sebastian cautioned. “Smooth her fur the same way it grows.”

Justin stroked the cat carefully, his eyes growing round as her purring grew even louder. “How does she make that sound?”

“No one has yet found a satisfactory explanation,” Sebastian replied. “Personally, I hope they never do.”

“Why, Gramps?”

Sebastian smiled into the small face so close to his. “Sometimes the mystery is more delightful than the answer.”

As the group continued to the farm buildings, the cat followed.

The mixed odors of the stockyards hung thick in the air, the sweetness of straw, stored grain and sawdust mingling with the smells of animals, manure, sweat, and lather. There was the acrid bite of carbolic soap, whiffs of fresh paint and turpentine, the dust richness of a granary, the earthy mustiness of a root house. Instead of the usual haphazard scattering of farm structures, the barns and sheds had been laid out in the shape of an E.

As Mr. Ravenel led them past barns, workshops, and sheds, a group of workers and stockmen approached him freely. The men snatched off their caps respectfully as they greeted Mr. Ravenel, but even so, their manner was more familiar than it would have been with the master of the estate. They conferred with him easily, grins appearing as they joked back and forth. Phoebe was close enough to hear a comment about the wedding, followed by an impudent question about whether Mr. Ravenel had found a lady willing to “buckle to” him.

“Do you think I’d find the makings of a good farm wife in that crowd?” Mr. Ravenel retorted, causing a round of chuckles.

“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. She 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 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.”