By the King's Design (32 page)

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Authors: Christine Trent

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On second thought ...
Wesley scooped all of Thistlewood's papers out of the satchel and stuffed them into the primary secret compartment above the hollow where his journal entry was hidden. It was far better that Thistlewood's papers not be found in the lodgings he shared with Belle.
Satisfied, he tucked the remaining pages of his journal back into the wall, blew out the candle, and headed down the ladder. He'd need some sleep in his own bed before the afternoon's activities.
Wesley didn't notice Put sitting at a window in the Horse and Groom, watching him leave.
He was also too tired to detect another, unfamiliar face staring down at him from the upper floor of the tavern.
 
The snow stopped long before Belle closed the shop and trudged home, weary from an unusual day of customer complaints about fabric shortages and late deliveries. She knew she needed to talk to the ever-absent Wesley about it, but what was the point?
No light shone from under his door and all was quiet. He must be out carousing again. She went upstairs, tossed her bonnet on her bed, and settled down in a chair next to the window to read in the quickly waning winter daylight. With less than three pages read of
Ivanhoe,
the latest novel by Mr. Scott, she lit a lamp on the table next to her. The reflection from the window created a comforting circle of light.
She sensed a motion outside the building, but it was too dark now to see anything. The front door opened; was that Wesley? She put her book down and took the lamp out to the landing to check.
It was indeed Wesley, who looked haggard and filthy. He carried a long length of rope slung over one shoulder.
“Brother?” she asked. “What's wrong?”
He looked up at the landing and gave her a rare, lopsided grin. “Nothing for you to worry about. Had to help a friend move some furniture and it was heavier than I thought it would be.”
“This took all day?” Drat, she'd just decided not to bother confronting him. Couldn't she ever hold her tongue?
He sighed wearily. “Yes, Belle, it took all day. I'm off to bed now. The rest of my week is very busy.”
But he remained still, staring at her as though just seeing her for the first time. To her surprise, he tossed the rope down, leaped up the steps two at a time, and pulled her close into an embrace, kissing both her cheeks and tugging on one of her curls.
“Sister, sometimes I don't like you very much, but I do love you. Remember that, if in the future I don't see you anymore.”
Belle gripped both his arms. “Wesley, sometimes you frighten me, but right now you terrify me. Why are you talking to me like you're about to plunge yourself into the Thames?”
“Not to worry. I just wouldn't want anything to remain ... unsaid. . . if circumstances come between us.”
“What do you mean? Wesley, please, whatever you're planning to do for the king, stop it. It's dangerous and foolhardy, and you'll only end up sorry. I beg you, Brother. Please. I ... I'll ... I'll do as you wish. I'll share the shop with you. Just stop what you're doing.”
His smile this time had no joy in it at all. “I don't think there will be time for a draper shop in my future, Belle. I'll be too busy.” He kissed her one last time and went downstairs to retrieve his rope and return to his room.
Belle put her fingers to her cheek, still moist from his lips.
Too busy? Doing what?
 
She had little time to consider it. After falling into a troubled sleep, Belle rose the next morning to find that Wesley was already gone for the day. She opened the shop, and had hardly made her list of activities she wanted to complete for the day when the door banged open, sending in a bitter blast of cold air.
She looked up from the counter to find Putnam Boyce in her shop. He turned and locked the door behind him, and set the “Closed” sign in the window.
Belle came around from behind the counter. “What, exactly, are you doing, sir? This is a place of business.”
“I have to talk to you, and it's serious.”
Although Put was wearing a better-tailored coat than last time, he looked starched and uncomfortable, as usual.
“Mr. Boyce, I have many concerns on my mind right now, so if you'll kindly unlock the door so that I can welcome customers—”
“You can worry about your customers later. Where can we talk privately?”
“I hardly think it's proper for us to—”
“Lord, woman, but you try my patience. Is that a room back there?” He nodded toward a door at the back of the shop.
“Well, it's more of a storage closet.”
“Come.” Put unceremoniously swung her around and marched her to the back room.
“How dare you!” she sputtered.
“There are far more daring things going on than you could ever imagine. Where's a lamp? Ah, here we go.” Put lifted the oil lamp she kept on a hook by the door next to a shelf holding a tinderbox. Opening the box, he struck a piece of flint against the firesteel, letting the sparks fall onto the char cloth and lighting the lamp with the burning cloth. He replaced the lamp on its hook. “Stop tapping your foot, Miss Stirling, and pay attention to what I have to say.”
She did so grudgingly. “Mr. Boyce, you'd better have good reason for disrupting my day.”
“I believe your brother is involved in something dangerous.”
Put knew?
Impossible.
“What do you mean, ‘something dangerous,' Mr. Boyce?”
“I mean that he is associating with a group of men that are up to no good, and I have a good suspicion he intends to do something treasonous.”
“It might not be treasonous if it's for the—” She stopped.
He looked at her intently, waiting for her to finish, but when she clamped her mouth shut and refused he continued.
“Did you know your brother commissioned a very expensive secretary from me? It's one of the finest pieces I've ever made. He told me it was to be a gift for you. But he had me deliver it to a very strange address on Cato Street. Wesley claimed it was the location of new lodgings for you both, that he had rented the place without telling you, and that the secretary was to be a peace offering when he finally brought you round to see the new location. Have you seen it? Honestly, it's nothing more than an abandoned stable.”
Belle's mind was whirling. New lodgings? A secretary? What was Wesley up to?
“I see you are completely unaware of what has transpired. His so-called lodgings amounted to some scattered benches and tables in a loft over the stable. The meanest felon would not be at home there; I hardly think he intended to introduce his sister to it.”
“But, I don't understand. Why did he ask you to make a piece of furniture like that? I have nowhere to put it. My room is quite small at our lodging house.”
“I don't know. I certainly didn't question it at the time. I was quite happy to, er, well, I was happy enough for the commission. Anyway, the whole situation bothered me enough that I returned to keep an eye out on Wesley. I've been watching him from a tavern across from the stable. He's been meeting daily with about a dozen men, and they're definitely conspiring to do something. The leader is a tall, swarthy character.”
That must be Wesley's friend, Mr. Thistlewood. Oh dear, her brother really was trying to help the king build up evidence against his wife. She had no idea what to tell Put. She couldn't tell him what she knew, for he would seek the authorities. But she also couldn't have him following Wesley around like a bloodhound on the scent of a deer.
“Mr. Boyce, I appreciate your concern. But you've probably misinterpreted what you've seen. Perhaps my brother has merely joined a club of some sort, and the secretary is for storing papers.”
That sounded ridiculous even in her own ears.
“If that were true, why the subterfuge about the desk being for you? Why couldn't he tell me it was for his club? And do you seriously think some men starting a social club would meet in a stable? Or that they would make the purchase of a secretary their first expenditure?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Miss Stirling, you don't seem overly surprised by any of this, other than the desk. Why do I have the impression that you might know something about your brother's activities? Is he involved in something illegal?”
“No. I don't know. Wesley hardly tells me anything anymore. I told you before that I mucked up my relationship with him somehow, and the end result is that I have no idea what my brother does, who he sees, and where he goes. He could be dining with slavers every evening for all I know about his whereabouts.”
Curse Put and his penetrating gaze. She felt like he was absorbing every thought she'd ever had and keeping them for his own.
As if understanding how uncomfortable he was making her, Put relaxed his tone. “I'm sorry, Miss Stirling, I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just worried for your brother, and by extension you, if he's up to something that's, shall we say, less than suitable for a draper. But you say you have no idea what it could be?”
Put knows I'm not telling the entire truth.
You could tell him. Maybe he could help you track Wesley down and talk some sense into him. And it would be comforting to share this.
But you don't know him well enough. If he found out how serious Wesley's connivances were, he'd run to the authorities. Then I'd be personally responsible for seeing Wesley into a cell in the Fleet.
She slowly shook her head and met that deep forest of a gaze. “No, I don't know what he might be doing.”
He shook his head, and Belle sensed it was in frustration with her. Well, it certainly wouldn't be the first time she'd exasperated him, would it?
Time to change the subject. With a sharpened tongue she said, “Tell me, Mr. Boyce, how fares your lady friend?”
“Ah, finally you're willing to let me speak on the subject. My ‘lady friend' whom you saw is my cousin, Frances. She's mostly deaf, and she spends a part of each year with different relatives. I try to see her whenever she's in London. And if you weren't so mulish, you might have given me an opportunity to tell you about her. In fact, you could have joined us at our meal.”
Belle paused. “Oh. I see.”
“I think your problem, Miss Stirling, is that you don't know who to trust. As a result, you place faith in the wrong people, and cast aside those of us you can depend upon.”
“I always thought my problem was that I'm entirely too quick to speak my mind.”
He laughed. “No, that's what's most interesting about you. So tell me, can I be forgiven enough to have you accompany me on a walk through Vauxhall Gardens?”
“My brother ...”
“I hardly think your brother has voice to this anymore, given his apparent dealings.”
Oh, how true. If only she could float out the door with Put this very instant, padlocking the shop forever, forgetting Wesley's despicable dealings, the king's peccadilloes, and Mr. Nash's loveless marriage, and ... well, just everything. Just retreat somewhere idyllic where none of these men and none of her problems existed.
But she was a realist. And a proprietress. And a sister.
“That's not what I mean. How can we consider such distractions when Wesley might be on the verge of such troub—rather, while he is under a cloud of your suspicion? No, my brother must be free of distrust before I can even consider it.”
“I see. And what if I'm not mistaken, and Wesley is indeed in grave circumstances?”
“Well, then, my concerns will be far greater than that of promenading through paths of boxwood, won't they, Mr. Boyce?”
12
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
 
—Jonathan Swift, Irish writer, 1667–1745
 
Wednesday, February 23, 1820
London
 
B
elle closed the shop as early as she could, then practically ran back to her lodgings to see if Wesley was there. She hadn't seen him all day. In her hurry, she splashed repeatedly through icy puddles of water and was numb by the time she got home.
Wesley's room was dark and silent.
She took the opportunity to stretch before a fire their landlady had started in the tiny parlor. She closed the door to contain the heat, untied her pattens, and removed her shoes, putting them on the floor so they could dry as well as her stockinged feet. She needed this time to think. Instead, her eyes grew heavy and her mind softened.
She was in a drowsy state of half sleep when the front door opened, rousing her. She reached down and touched her shoes. Dry. As were her legs. She slipped back into her shoes as she heard the door to Wesley's room open and close.
And now for the question she should have been wrestling with instead of napping. Should she confront him? Or wait to see if he went out again, and follow him to see where he went and who he was meeting with such regularity?
Neither choice was appetizing. She straightened her skirts nervously while mentally seeking the right course of action.
But before she could decide, Wesley came back out of his room and left their lodgings again. Her decision was made for her.
Belle would follow him.
She peered out a window and watched as he headed down Oxford Street in the direction of Edgware Road. Was he headed to the Cato Street address Put mentioned? Leaving behind her noisy, clinking pattens, she slipped out of their lodgings when Wesley was far enough ahead of her that he couldn't possibly notice her.
Striding with great purpose, Wesley turned north on Edgware Road, then east on John Street. Belle was nearly running again to keep up, but this time avoided the slushy pools of water that filled every rut and dent of the street.
And now he headed south onto Cato Street. Her heart beat wildly. Where would he go next? She halted in surprise. He ducked his head as he entered what looked to be a public house, from the sign jutting out from the building, as well as the light and laughter spilling outside.
So much for Mr. Boyce's abandoned stable. But Belle still wasn't sure what to do. Enter a tavern unaccompanied? Would she even dare confront her brother in such a public place? She crept closer to the building, staying in the ever-increasing shadows along the street.
Once again, though, she didn't have long to wait. Wesley reemerged, stumbling as he came over the threshold. A pair of feminine hands reached through the doorway, pulling him back in again.
He was out again a moment later. “Wicked tart,” he said to the invisible woman, whose screech of good humor followed him. Belle prepared to follow him farther up Cato Street, but instead, he simply walked across the street and knocked in a rhythmic pattern against a wide set of black doors. One of the doors opened a sliver and Wesley slipped inside.
Belle stood still, shivering even inside her warmly lined wool cloak. This must be the stable. Through the smudged and icy upper-story windows, she saw the faint but discernible glow of candlelight.
Was this where Wesley met with Mr. Thistlewood?
Shadows moved and slithered behind the windows. She could make no sense of what might be happening up there, only that it couldn't be good, else why would it be in such a strange place?
Oh, Wesley, how did this happen to you?
She stood clutching the corner of what she now saw was the Horse and Groom tavern. The overhang helped keep her secreted while she waited.
You were a fool to follow him, Belle. What do you propose to do now? March into the hayloft, stamp your feet, and drag Wesley out by the ear?
She wished she had an additional scarf to wear. It was bitterly cold enough while traipsing along behind Wesley. Standing motionless reminded her that they were in the middle of a notably frigid winter, snow having fallen intermittently since mid-October.
Come out, Wesley. Let's talk about this. We'll go back to Yorkshire and start over there. Just please don't do something you'll regret.
If she expected him to hear her silent plea, she was to be disappointed. She determined that she'd stand there all night waiting for him, and that she'd agree to anything he wanted if he promised to abandon this conspiracy of the king's.
Her internal reflection was interrupted when a stream of men burst through the same entryway of the Horse and Groom. Several spread themselves out in the street in front of the tavern, while at least a half dozen stormed inside the stable.
“Hallo!” someone shouted from inside the tavern. “They must be runners!”
Oh dear Lord, no, not the Bow Street Runners
.
London's force of constables. This couldn't possibly end well.
Belle listened, paralyzed, to a cacophony of shouting, chairs scraping on wood, and the overturning of tables inside the stable. The runners waiting in the street between the tavern and the stable paced anxiously. One picked up a rock. “This'll scare 'em down,” he declared, and hefted it at one of the front windows, shattering it.
The noise inside the stable was stilled for only a moment, then the struggle resumed, except now the din was more voluble as it took flight out the broken window into the cold night air.
The tinkling of glass aroused even more attention from the patrons in the tavern, who spilled out onto the cobblestones in front of the establishment, holding mugs of ale and chattering as if they were watching no more than their favorite cricket teams compete against each other.
And then a noise erupted that Belle couldn't have predicted: a gunshot. But the runners didn't have pistols in their hands when they came out of the Horse and Groom, did they? She supposed it was impossible to tell. She regretted that she hadn't thought to bring one of her own pistols with her, although she could have had no idea the evening would come to this.
Dear God, please let Wesley be unharmed.
A hulking figure crawled out a side window and dropped down to the ground, unnoticed by anyone other than Belle. It was Arthur Thistlewood. He waved to someone else on the upper floor, and three more men promptly slid down to the ground. The last man down lay on the ground, clutching one knee. The others lifted him up, with two of them slinging the injured man's arms around their shoulders and half dragging him along.
The group of escapees started running to the back of the building, but something stopped them and they turned back to run toward the front. Directly toward Belle's hiding place across the street.
Were they fools? They thought they could get past the constables fanned along the street?
She opened her mouth to shout to the runners, but realized that the injured man was Wesley. Not that the constables needed her help, anyway. One of them noticed the set of men, hampered as they were by their injured member, and called out to the others.
Realizing that the authorities had seen them, the two men carrying Wesley dropped him unceremoniously to the ground, and took off with Thistlewood, who was running full tilt back toward John Street.
Wesley fell with a thud, and howled in pain. He was struggling up again when a runner got to him and kicked him in his ribs. Wesley fell again, his face landing in a carriage wheel rut full of water. The runner dragged him out of the water by his hair. “Can't have you dead yet, son, that'll come soon enough.”
But Wesley's limp form was just a feint. For even in the dim light provided by a single gas streetlight and the lamps still burning in the tavern, she saw the glint of steel as Wesley pulled a knife from his waistband, and thrust it at the runner who was still pulling him through the street.
The knife made contact with the man's arm, and he howled in outrage as he let go of his prey. “Insolent puppy! I'll shoot you now, trial be damned!”
He fumbled with a pistol at his waist.
No,
Belle thought.
No, no, no, no. That's my brother!
From the corner of her eye, she saw another, vaguely familiar, woman rushing from the tavern into the street. Her screaming was discernible only by her white-eyed stare and open mouth, but Belle couldn't hear her over the general chaos.
Without pausing to think any further over her profound and immobilizing fear, Belle ran out from the corner of the building, intending to throw herself over Wesley's body. Surely they wouldn't shoot an innocent woman.
She heard herself shouting as she ran toward the runner and Wesley, but at a distance, as if it were someone else screaming like a banshee. The runner looked up, startled, and out of habit pointed his pistol directly at her.
She heard another gunshot, felt something heavy slam against her shoulder, and was aware of a peculiar drifting sensation as she, like Wesley, fell helplessly to the ground, her arm stretched out as though pointing to her brother. Her last thought was of outrage that someone was lifting her out of the street. But the resulting pain was so shockingly exquisite that she retreated into the bliss of unconsciousness.
 
A young woman was peering into Belle's face, her eyes open wide in surprise. The woman opened her mouth as though to shout, but all Belle heard was an agonized bark and then the woman was gone.
Am I still unconscious? Is this a macabre dream?
But the cup of water being pressed to her lips was real enough, as was a man's voice somewhere close by.
“Thank you, Frances. You've been so kind to my guest. Miss Stirling? Belle? Can you hear me?”
Put's face hovered over hers.
“Where am I?” Her voice sounded like little more than a frog's croak. Lord, but her head clanged, as if a smithy were pounding out a blade on it.
“My home. After I got you out of the scuffle last night, I brought you here to recover. You're badly bruised, but you should be fine.”
Belle wrinkled her nose. So many questions formed in her mind. She wasn't sure which to ask first, so naturally she went for the most foolish one. “Were we alone here together?”
“Don't worry, as soon I settled you down, I sent for my cousin. I didn't want any improprieties, either. But Frances has been most devoted to you.”
The young woman moved into her view again, this time with a wet cloth in her hands. She used it to wipe Belle's face, neck, and hands. It was refreshing, Belle realized, given how feverish she felt.
“Your house is unfathomably hot.”
“Ah, that's probably all of the blankets we put on you. Just to be sure you were warm.” He gestured at his cousin while speaking his next words. “Frances, you should probably help Miss Stirling into a more, ah, comfortable state. I'll return shortly.”
Using a variety of facial expressions and hand signals to indicate what she was doing, Put's cousin put Belle into a seated position, with a bolster of pillows behind her, and removed a couple of blankets. Belle saw that she had been divested of her own clothes and now wore a nightgown, and blushed to think how she might have gotten into it. She prayed it was by the woman helping her now.
Frances undid whatever remaining pins Belle had in her mess of curls, and sat down to brush it out in long waves, running the brush gently over what Belle now realized was a very large protrusion.
Belle couldn't remember the last person who had done this for her. Perhaps her mother, when Belle was around ten years old? She wept from the sweet attention, and the uncertainty of her and Wesley's futures.
Put's cousin sat in a chair next to the bed, pointed to the brush, and shook her head.
You don't want me to do this?
Belle smiled, nodded, and pointed back to her head. Frances resumed brushing. After Belle's hair was tangle free and spread softly around her shoulders, Frances poured her another cup of water.
“Thank you, Frances.”
Put's cousin motioned for her to drink. Belle did, then Frances fussed over her, retying the laces of her robe, giving her mint to chew to sweeten her breath, and pinching her cheeks to bring color into them. Frances stepped back and looked at her, as if judging her masterpiece. Nodding, she held up a finger and left the room.
She returned moments later with Put, and winked at Belle as she quietly made her exit again.
Put sat in the chair his cousin had just vacated. “You look well for having been caught in the violent dispersion of a conspiracy.”
“It would seem you've become my hero, Mr. Boyce.”

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