Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels #5) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,32

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