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His cheeks reddened a little, and he ducked his head. “Oh, she pointed at me.”
“You must tell me. What happened?”
Blue eyes met hers. “I’ll have to let you know.”
Goodness. Had that been a flirtation? Had he just flirted with her? Heat flooded her face, and she made a show of standing and picking an apple to give herself a moment to think. A groom. If he hadn’t been as handsome as Apollo and clever to boot, she wouldn’t have been having any kind of conversation with herself about him, but he was, and so she was.
Hannah cleared her throat as she sat again. “Is this where you want to stay?” she asked.
“Here at Winnover, you mean? I like it here, and the Pershings are kind and generous—and they have high expectations. It makes me hold my head a little higher, knowing they’re pleased with the work I do.”
“I know what you mean.” And yes, even though some of the work she did was exacting and tiring, it was also appreciated, and she was well compensated for it. In addition, there was the satisfaction in giving a sound “no, thank you” to the Society ladies who had tried to lure her away from Mrs. Pershing and into their employ. “I feel very lucky, sometimes.”
“Aye. Lucky.” Now he smiled at her, and she wanted to just look at his mouth and imagine how his lips would feel on hers. The idea that this wasn’t a daydream, that he was actually squatting on the ground beside her, talking to her and looking at her with those… eyes, was both glorious and terrifying. What might happen next? What did she want to happen next? What…
Hannah shook herself out of her hazy thoughts. Around them birds sang in the trees, insects buzzed lazily, a few frogs croaked from the edge of the pond, and in the distance, she could hear cows mooing. Quiet, idyllic, and pastoral. Quiet. She shot to her feet. “Where are the children?”
Tom Billet straightened beside her. “Little damblers,” he muttered. “You look by the pond. I’ll check in the direction of the road.”
“Do you think they’ve run again? Oh no. I’ll be sacked!”
“They haven’t run,” he countered. “They went somewhere.”
“How do you—”
“Whatever they’ve got in their heads, I’d wager a month’s pay they wouldn’t do anything that would get them sent back to the orphanage. That doesn’t mean they aren’t up to something, though.”
“But what would they be up to in the apple orchard?” Gathering her skirts in her hands, she hurried toward the pond. “Miss Rose! Master George!”
“Something they don’t want us to know about,” he said as he veered off to the left. “They’re close by; I’d wager on it.”
While she didn’t know what a dambler was, she imagined it had something to do with being rascals or rogues, which the Fletcher children were. They were also darlings, and while she couldn’t quite reconcile the two sides of them yet, she was certain that she didn’t want anything bad to happen to them. At this moment she was also annoyed that they’d either arranged for her and Tom to distract each other while they scampered off, or their departure had managed to interrupt the most interesting conversation she’d ever had. Little damblers, indeed.
Rose peeked around the edge of the fallen tree. “They’re still making moon eyes at each other,” she said, sitting back to blink her lashes.
“Good. Let me know when they notice we’re gone.” Keeping his voice at a whisper, George continued digging beneath the log. It was a little too close to the house and the stable to make a perfect stash hole, but it was out of Powell’s territory. James had his own hiding place, about which he hadn’t enlightened them. So this was only fair play. They needed a place to put things, and the orchard provided its own excuse for frequent visits.
When he decided he’d made the hole deep enough, he pulled a sackcloth out from under his shirt and lined the bottom of the hole with it. “Give me your things,” he whispered.
His sister sat sideways, lifting her skirt to dig into the top of her stockings. The buttons, beads, and green ribbon she handed over weren’t precisely valuables, but they meant something to her. Carefully he set them on the cloth. “Is that all you brought?”
“Just a minute.” Twisting, she pulled a pair of silver spoons and a fork from the hem of her dress. A carved bird followed those, though he had no idea where she’d hidden that. “That’s all I could fit. Are you sure James won’t be mad?”
“He doesn’t want birds, anyway. And if he gets nicked or runs, we need to have our own treasures. Are they still talking?”
As she checked on Hannah and Billet, George pulled the blue john stone bowl from his pocket and set it into the hole. Powell could look for it all he wanted, but the butler would never find it this time. His other pocket held more silverware and some coins, along with the yellow rock with the mosquito inside it that he’d found at Pershing House and rediscovered in the Winnover library. It wasn’t a lot, but they’d only one day to nick things for a brother who wanted gems and silver and was going to be mad already because they’d been avoiding him since yesterday afternoon, and furious after they told him they’d been robbed of their stolen goods. All that with a household staff that knew they’d all been outsmarted once. Grown-ups hated being tricked, especially twice.
“They’re standing up,” Rose hissed in her version of a whisper. “And they didn’t even kiss!”
“Hush, Rosie. Help me cover this up.”
He folded the cloth over their treasures, then piled dirt on it. Rose added some fallen leaves and twigs, until he was fairly certain no one would walk by and notice anything unusual. Then he took his sister’s hand and, keeping low, hurried toward the road that led to the village.
“Remember, you saw a bunny and chased it, and I chased you,” he informed her.
“That’s silly of me, but very well.”
They entered a small glade, and he let her hand go. “This is a good spot. You think the rabbit went in there,” he said, pointing at a thicket, “and you’re not listening to me telling you that we need to go back to the apples.”