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James Fletcher watched them leave. He was damned, all over again. Worse than before. Now he could admit that he’d overreached, thinking he could match up against a rich cove who knew the prime minister and could pay magistrates and solicitors to do whatever he wished—even if that meant locking someone up in Bedlam with the loonies.
Damnation. He wasn’t dim enough to think George might slip into the stable and save him, either. Not after he’d pitched him into the pond, even though that had just been to teach him a lesson. Rose might help him if he promised her a kitten or some such, but he couldn’t count on it. Useless little whiners, they were. No, he had only himself, and himself had already proven to be a disappointment.
Staying at Winnover Hall, eating beef and pork and pheasant, he should have let it be. George was right. He should have been patient and then at the end asked for a hundred pounds to help him look after the young ones. After that, he could have left them anywhere—back in London, or York, or wherever he was when he decided he couldn’t stand their questions or Rose’s fancies any longer.
The stout beak, Mr. Allen, remained in the stable, so he couldn’t just up and run. Especially with the irons around his wrists. He hated those things. “Don’t you want to get some tea?” he asked.
Snorting, Allen leaned back against the far wall. “You’re going to get me a fat bonus from Richard Birnie himself. You’re not very popular at Bow Street.” Mr. Allen took a look around them. “I will make myself comfortable, though. Tea with Shavely could take some time.”
Dragging the second stool closer to the wall, Allen sat down, tipping it back on two of its three legs. If James had been a bit taller, he might have been able to kick the stool out from under him, smash the buzzard in the face, and make off with the key to the irons. Even his size was against him today, though. Jesus.
Angling his beaver hat forward over his eyes, Allen folded his arms over his chest. Damn it all. It was so close to being a simple thing, getting away from Bow Street and the magistrate. Surreptitiously James tried to pull his hands free, but the irons were too snug. He’d grown some since the last time he’d worn the bloody things.
Something slammed into the back wall of the stable, so hard that hay drifted down from the loft. The beak leaped to his feet, nearly falling over after all. “You stay here,” he ordered James, and sprinted outside as the sound repeated. As he left, he kicked something into the near corner. Something that sounded metal.
Hardly daring to breathe, one eye on the doorway, James knelt down and felt about the dark corner. The key. The beak had dropped the damned key. Snatching it up, he twisted his left wrist until he could just reach the clasp. One second later, and he was free.
Setting the irons down, James crouched, stuck his head out the door, then ran for the woods as soon as he saw it was clear. He stayed hunched over, waiting to hear a pistol fire, waiting to hear a whistle or someone shouting, and to feel a hot lead ball burrowing into his back. But no alarm sounded, no one shot at him, and he kept running.
He couldn’t go to York now, because he’d mentioned it to the brats. Manchester would do him, or Sheffield, though somewhere like Newcastle would give him access to a port and the sea, and everywhere beyond.
Yes, Newcastle would do. And George and Rose could go ride their ponies until the Pershings sent them back to the orphanage, for all he cared. He was free now, and he meant to stay that way.
Billet slipped back into the kitchen. “He’s gone, Mr. Pershing,” the groom reported. “Headed north at a dead run. I doubt he’ll stop until he reaches Scotland.”
George took a breath, then went back to devouring biscuits. The grown-ups seemed to think he and Rosie would feel better if they had all the sweets they wanted, and he wasn’t about to argue with that. If he was supposed to feel bad about helping Mr. P and his friends scare James, though, he didn’t. Mostly he felt relieved. It was just him and Rosie again, like it was supposed to be. Easier, and no one else making them do things that put them at risk.
And best of all, James could take the blame for everything with him. For the jewels already gone, for the birds Rosie kept finding, and all the utensils and coins and vases and candlesticks. “Did you get the necklace and cuff links back from him?” he asked around a bite.
The farmer’s face flushed, and he dug into the pocket of the borrowed blue greatcoat that was too loose across his shoulders. “I beg your pardon, Mr. and Mrs. Pershing. Here they are.”
Mrs. P took them from the farmer, smiled, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Mr. Dawkins, and please don’t distress yourself. I would happily have parted with all of these things in exchange for having him gone. We owe you a great deal.” Her smile went away then, and she turned and looked at George and Rose again. “Though I’m sorry we couldn’t have managed things a different way.”
“If he’d been honest about his reasons for coming, we might have been able to help him find honest work,” Mr. P put in, taking his wife’s hand. He touched her a lot more now than he did when they’d first met the Pershings in London. She seemed to like it.
George shook his head. “He didn’t want to find work. He always just wanted what he could take from other people, and he never watched Rosie as close as he should have. Maybe I’ll miss him, but I don’t want to see him again. We just want to do our part of the agreement so you can find us a good family.”
They all smiled and nodded, because that was what they wanted to hear. So he and his sister would keep learning their lessons and hiding their baubles, and then when they’d visited the duke and saved Winnover for the Pershings, they could go where he wanted to go, and Rosie would be safe, and he wouldn’t have to be a long-haul boy or a pig farmer, or a despicable, blasted fellow who didn’t even care about his own family.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Emmeline cast a glance about the drawing room. Even with a good portion of her jewelry returned, something was still amiss. The room was beginning to look bare, with only the clock and a single candlestick on the mantel, and nothing left on the bookshelf nearest the door but a trio of books on birdwatching. Originally, they’d been complemented by an ebony carving of a raven, but that bit of decoration had gone the way of a great many portable objects in the house.
She had no idea how the children had managed to hide everything. It certainly wouldn’t all fit in both of their blanket chests together, and she doubted James Fletcher could have hauled about that quantity of items without being noticed.
And even more puzzling, none of the staff had said a word about the missing items. Not the maids, nor the footmen, and not Powell—who’d vigorously supported the removal of sticky-fingered James from the household. It could be possible he believed all the thefts had been James’s work, but the disappearances had begun well before his arrival.
Just as strange was the way some things vanished and then reappeared a day or two later. Regardless, the plan she and Will had conjured to ignore the thefts in the hope that in the wake of their brother’s departure the children would stop stealing hadn’t been at all successful.
Will strolled into the drawing room. He’d dressed for the evening, as she had, and his dark green and gray waistcoat brought out the green in his eyes to a rather startling degree. “Good evening,” she said, standing to offer him a curtsy.
He bowed. “Good evening, Emmeline. You look lovely. I would say that purple is definitely your color.”
She did like the way the purple and black formal gown glimmered around her, tight beneath her breasts with beading throughout the bodice and flowing out in a full skirt. That was why she’d chosen it for this evening and for the day of her grandfather’s party. “Thank you. Any sign of the children?”
“Not yet. I imagine it’ll be a while; I did hear Rose complaining that she needed more ribbons in her hair as I passed by her doorway.”
“I suppose it’s better to discover now how many ribbons she’ll require rather than wait until after we’ve traveled to Welshire Park.” That was the main reason for the formal dinner this evening; the children needed the practice of an entire meal. This was a rehearsal, and hopefully it would go well. Time was the one thing that kept marching forward regardless of their progress and the other brambles that kept landing in their path.