Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels #5)(79)

One afternoon, Phoebe went in search of West and discovered him reshaping the topiaries in the formal garden, which had gone untended since the old gardener’s onset of rheumatism. Pausing at the threshold of a set of open French doors, she took in the scene with an absent smile. West had climbed an orchard ladder and was clipping the tree with shears at the direction of the old gardener who stood below.

“What do you think?” West called down to Justin, who was gathering twigs and branches into a pile as they fell.

The child viewed the topiary critically. “Still looks like a turnip.”

“It’s a perfectly recognizable duck,” West protested. “There’s the body, and this is the bill.”

“It has no neck. A duck needs a neck, or he can’t quack.”

“I can’t argue with that,” West said ruefully, turning back to clip more leaves.

Laughing to herself, Phoebe withdrew back into the house. But the image of it stayed with her: West, tending Henry’s beloved topiary trees, spending time with his son.

Thank God Georgiana was away for the winter: she would have been appalled by the way West’s presence had dispelled any lingering sense that this was a house of mourning. Not that Henry was forgotten: far from it. But now the reminders of him were no longer anchored to gloom and sadness. His memory was being honored, while a breath of new life had swept into Clare Manor. He had not been replaced, but there was room for more love here. A heart could make as much room as love needed.

In the mornings, West liked to have a large, early breakfast, after which he would ride out to some of the tenant farms. Phoebe had gone with him the first day, but it had quickly become apparent that her presence unnerved the tenants, who were overawed and nervous around her. “Much as I love your company,” West had told her, “you may have to let me approach them alone. After years of no direct interaction with any of the Larsons, the last thing they’ll do is speak freely in front of the lady of the manor.”

The next day, when he’d gone out on his own, the results were much better. West had met with three of the estate’s largest leaseholders, who had shared a great deal of information and shed some light on a particular accounting mystery.

“Your estate has some interesting problems,” West told Phoebe when he returned in the afternoon, finding her in the winter garden with the cats. He was in a buoyant mood, having been out riding and walking in the fields. He smelled like autumn air, sweat, soil, and horses, a pleasantly earthy mixture.

“I don’t think I want interesting problems,” Phoebe said, going to a tray table to pour a glass of water for him. “I’d rather have ordinary ones.”

West took the water with a murmur of thanks and drained it thirstily, a few drops sliding down the rippling front of his neck. Phoebe was briefly transfixed by the movements of that strong throat, remembering a moment the night before when he’d arched over her, his shoulders and back lifting as his muscles had bunched with pleasure.

“I saw some damned beautiful land today,” he said, setting the empty glass on the tray table. “Now I understand why your crop yields are better than I would have expected, despite the primitive farming methods the tenants use. But there’s no way to avoid it—you’re going to have to invest in miles of field drainage and hire a steam-powered machine with rotary diggers to loosen up all that heavy clay. None of your fields have ever been cultivated deeper than a wineglass. The soil has been trodden by horses and compacted by its own weight for centuries, so it’s a struggle for plants to sink their roots into it. The good news is, once the ground is loosened and aerated, that alone will likely double your production.”

“Lovely,” Phoebe exclaimed, pleased. “Is that the interesting problem?”

“No, I’m about to tell you that. Do you recall those puzzling entries in the crop book, in which some of the tenants give four different numbers for their crop yields?

“Yes.”

“It’s because many of your leaseholds are still laid out in an open-field system, the way they were back in medieval times.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means a farm like Mr. Morton’s, which I visited today, is divided into four strips, and they’re scattered over an area of four square miles. He has to travel separately to farm each strip.”

“But that’s absurd!”

“It’s impossible. Which is why most large landowners did away with the open-field system long ago. You’re going to have to find a way to put all the acreage together and redistribute it so each tenant can have one good-sized plot of land. But that won’t be as easy as it may sound.”

“It doesn’t sound easy at all,” Phoebe said glumly. “The estate would have to renegotiate all the lease agreements.”

“I’ll find an experienced arbiter for you.”

“Many of the tenants will refuse to take a plot that’s inferior to someone else’s.”

“Persuade them to start raising livestock instead of corn growing. They would make higher profits than they’re making now. Nowadays there’s more money in milk and meat than grain.”

Phoebe sighed, feeling anxious and irritable. “Obviously Edward and his father aren’t the ones to handle any of this, since neither of them saw fit to bring it up to me in the first place.” She made a face and looked up at him. “I wish you would do it. Couldn’t I hire you? Indefinitely? How expensive are you?”