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“Or you’re not as clever as you thought,” James retorted. “What’s he doing in here, anyway?”
Rose looked. “Powell is the butler. He makes certain everything is where it should be. Even us,” she said. “And some of our findings.”
“Maybe it’s time for Powell to fall down the stairs, then,” James muttered.
“Don’t say that.” George frowned at their brother. “He’s stuffy and a bother, but he could’ve told the Pershings, and he didn’t.”
“Not yet he hasn’t, but we can’t be certain he won’t. Pershing’s already sniffing at me, damn it all. This is on you two.” James said some more curse words, the kind she and George weren’t allowed to say in the house. Rose almost told him that, but telling James what not to do had never been a good idea.
“We’ll just snabble them back,” George whispered.
“You’ll have to. We’ve got eight quid between us, and that’s not enough to rent a room for more than six months.”
Rose cocked her head. “George said you had twenty-five quid the other day.”
“Shut it, Rosie. I nearly had us fifty quid until that damned coachman drove in and took all my luck with him.”
She’d heard about people taking his luck before, mostly after she’d spent a good day dancing while James and George dipped into pockets. James would go out to buy them a real supper, and then come back hours later with bread—or nothing at all—and say someone had stolen his luck. “You went and played gambling,” she said.
He curled up his fist, looked over at Powell again, and opened his fingers. “You two are finding me stupid little things. I have to do something to turn our money into more money.”
“I already got you pearl earbobs like you said,” she protested. “And now all of our own things are gone. We have less than you.”
James leaned forward, turning his face to look at George. “Your things? My things. I’m the leader here. And if you’ve been keeping baubles back, I’m going to thrash you, Georgie. Do you hear me?”
George looked straight back at him. “I hear you.”
“Good. I want at least five quid worth of things by tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll just decide it’s time for us all to leave and we can go back to London. It’s not like the Pershings could stop me. You two belong to me. The sooner you understand that, the better.”
“If we go back to London and we get nabbed again, they’ll transport us,” George said, his expression grim. “Back there’s St. Stephen’s. And Newgate. You don’t want to go back to Newgate, James.”
James stood up. “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?” he said with his big smile.
Rose didn’t really want to go for a walk, because her legs were already tired from apple picking, but if James was going to yell, he should do it outside where he wouldn’t break the agreement with his slanging and cursing. She followed him toward the door.
“Where are you off to, Master George, Miss Rose?” Powell asked, turning to face them.
“Just going to get some biscuits,” James said. Then he reached sideways and with his hand brushed two vases with flowers in them off the side table. “Mind your own business, pantler,” he said, grinning as water and roses and glass went all over the floor.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Rose said, frowning. “Powell just finished those.”
“And now he ain’t snooping after us, is he? I almost had a painting from the attic this morning, until he came waddling up to look for some damned thing or other.”
With Powell gone they had to open the front door themselves, and then they circled around toward the garden. Rose hoped they weren’t going to one of the follies, because she’d already gotten lost in there once.
“Where are we going?” George asked.
James grabbed George by the arm and tucked him up under his shoulder. “To the garden, Georgie. Where nobody’ll be listening to us. Because we have a problem here, and we need to figure out a solution before it’s too late.”
That made sense, at least, and James didn’t look as mad as he did before. “We should pick some more flowers for Powell,” Rose said, pirouetting into the lead.
“Why don’t we start with you asking me that question again, Georgie?” James said, walking faster and passing Rose up again. George had to keep up, because James still had one arm around his neck and shoulder.
“Which question?” George asked, pushing against James’s ribs. “Let go, James.”
“The one about whether I wanted to go back to Newgate or not.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it. You said before that you weren’t ever going back there. If we’re not in London, it would be easier to not be nabbed and sent there, don’t you think?”