By the King's Design (34 page)

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Authors: Christine Trent

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And as she went to the cell's door to knock, she heard Wesley's voice float across the stench and the crying and the misery: “Don't forget, I need my pipe.”
And as the door clanged shut again behind her, she realized that Wesley had not apologized to her, nor had he thanked her for her visit.
March 1820
Brighton
 
Belle waited for the king once again, this time in one of the refurbished drawing rooms. Only this time, it wasn't just a draper and an architect in the vast room waiting upon a prince. There were numerous courtiers and government officials who had followed the king to Brighton, milling around, hoping for an audience, too.
A liveried servant entered and everyone stilled. “His Majesty will now see Lord Crugg.”
The rest of the room groaned in disappointment as Lord Crugg strode proudly to the door, to be led by the servant to the king's presence.
Looking at the number of people in the room, Belle suspected this could take all night.
She found an empty bench under a window and sat down. Others eyed her suspiciously, most likely because women weren't granted private audiences with the king. Unless they were his mistresses, that is.
Let them think what they want. My reputation is nothing as compared to Wesley's life.
She surreptitiously rubbed her shoulder. It was still sore, although thankfully her headache was gone. In her haste to see the king, she'd ignored her own pain.
After visiting Wesley at Newgate, she'd returned to Put's home, where he and his cousin waited anxiously for her. Assuring them both that she was perfectly well now—a lie; her head still throbbed and her shoulder was in greater pain after Wesley's pulls on her arm—she told them that she planned a trip to see the king to ask for his intervention on Wesley's behalf.
She still fumed, remembering Put's look of pity and his observation that little could be done for Wesley. “He's cooked his own goose.” Still, he offered to accompany her and, when she refused, asked her to at least bring along Frances for company. She turned that down, as well.
Better to be alone with anxious thoughts, to plan what she would say to the king.
Belle returned once again to Newgate before boarding the coach to Brighton, bringing Wesley clothing, more money, bedding, and his beloved pipe box. Putting everything else to one side, Wesley slid the top off his pipe box, pulled out the wooden stem, and caressed it. “Belle, you've made my intolerable situation just a bit more bearable.”
“I'm glad. I'll be back after I see the king. He's fled to Brighton because of your ... well, because of the disturbance.”
“Will he actually give you an audience, now that he's king?”
“I don't know. But I have to try. I'll do everything I can, Wesley.”
He wagged the pipe at her. “See that you do, Sister. I believe I am out of other options.”
She shook clear the thought that, once again, Wesley was less than grateful for her assistance. She had to free the thought from her mind, lest she turn herself over to anger over his stupid, spoilt behavior, not only with Arthur Thistlewood but in everything Wesley had ever done.
Belle also didn't want to think about why his pipe had become his most prized possession. The contemplation of what he might be smoking in it was too much to bear. She shouldn't even have brought it to him, but what use was it to castigate a man whose life as he knew it was no more?
No, if she remained a loving sister and they could get this all behind them, perhaps they could regain a warm relationship again.
Although that did leave the problem of Mr. Putnam Boyce, didn't it? What would her relationship be with him once this was all over?
“His Majesty will now see Miss Annabelle Stirling.”
She jumped, surprised that she was actually going to be granted an audience, much less that it would be so soon. She squared her shoulders with a wince, determined not to leave Brighton without the king's commitment to help free Wesley.
 
After a long day of meeting with petition seekers, the king shut the door to his bedchamber and turned to the plump woman in his black and gold canopied bed. “My dear, you have no idea how exhausting it is to run a country with as much care as I do. And sometimes I'm visited by the oddest creatures with the most unusual requests.”
The woman lay on her side, propped up on her elbow. The diaphanous gown did little to hide her ample hips. She patted the bed next to her. “Did you have an odd creature today, Your Majesty?”
She sat up against the pillows as the king sat down heavily before her, lifting his arms so she could undress him. She was never quite sure if she had mastered the fine techniques of seductive undress, and made up for it by leaning forward and rubbing her bosom against him while she struggled to divest him of his clothes. The woman wondered if Lady Conyngham had this much trouble being a temptress.
“I did. Mr. Nash's assistant, or I suppose now she's Mr. Crace's assistant, I can't remember. Her name is Annabelle Stirling. She thought I would be fool enough to intervene for her brother, who rots appropriately enough in Newgate.”
Displaying no reaction at all to this news, she pushed his waistcoat back over his shoulders as gently as she could, pretending that it was a simple task and that he wasn't a mountain of flesh that made her own figure look willowy. “What is his crime?”
“He was one of the Cato Street conspirators. As though any clemency should be shown to that group of radicals. Why, they planned to kidnap me! Me, their sovereign king. Damned good riddance to the lot of them. No, she'll see no quarter from me. And certainly not from Liverpool, I'll wager. Scratch my back right there, would you, sweetheart? Ah, excellent. You give me great comfort.”
Although the story of Miss Stirling and her unfortunate brother was of great interest to her personally, she lost her curiosity as her mind wandered on to whether the king would continue to see to her comfort, and that of her children, as payment for the great sacrifice she'd made for him in his chambers.
April 1820
London
 
Darcey stamped her foot prettily. “Father, I tell you, it's true.”
Mr. White sighed as he put down his magnifying glass. What a plague his wife and daughters were. He just wanted to spend some time alone with his insect collection. He'd just received a rainbow scarab, and was admiring its metallic blue-green and copper colors and the long, curved horn extending from its head that marked it as a male.
Fascinating creatures, dung beetles. The adult male and female worked together, as equals, to dig beneath the excrement they treasured as a food source for their young.
If only he could make his family understand that Parliament was their dung heap and Mrs. White needed to work with him to ensure they could roll it and mold it into a perfect circle to benefit them.
And their daughters, well, what an impossible pair of harpies they were turning out to be. And not even in their twentieth years yet, either of them, every day resembling their mother more and more. Just constant carping about the decisions he was making for their own good.
And did Darcey think he was blind to her constant escapes and lies about attending to her great-aunt Lydia? A man like Julian White did not manage to enter Parliament without having a modicum of wits about him. Darcey's long fabrication about spending a few weeks with her aunt so she could sit by the old woman's bedside and read to her was a bigger ball of excrement than any beetle could ever hope to roll up. The girl had been running wild for months and reeking of pub fumes, but he had little energy to spare for wondering about it, much less chasing her down and disciplining her.
And here she was, confessing her own sins with her ridiculous story that one of the conspirators was misled into his role by his sister and a cabinetmaker in Shoreditch. What the hell was she talking about?
Yes, Darcey complained bitterly that she was a caged bird, but she was more like a wild raven, dark eyes flashing amid her squawking and screeching. He could practically see her wings flapping as she spoke now.
“They conspired, Father, to force Wesley—I mean, Mr. Stirling—into participating with that Mr. Thistlewood. He was duped into thinking he was doing something noble for Parliament, no, for the king. He is innocent of his charges. You must help him, Father. Do something before he's sent to trial and convicted. They'll hang him!”
“Darcey, you're raving. George Edwards was the informant inside that group. He kept Parliament well aware in advance of how the conspiracy was formed, and there was no cabinetmaker or lady draper involved. Besides, Thistlewood has acknowledged everything. You're babbling nonsense. And what's your interest in this Stirling fellow, anyway?”
“I met him ... a few times ... at the hospital, when I took Aunt Lydia for cures. Mr. Stirling was ... a gentleman who ... who was there caring for his dying wife. She had a wasting illness and was bedded next to Aunt Lydia. And he told me ... he told me that his sister, Annabelle Stirling, had practically blackmailed him into helping her and her ... her paramour, Mr. Putnam Boyce, into serving the conspiracy against Parliament.”
“Blackmailed him
how,
exactly?”
“They told him that ... that ... they would invent a story about his ... honestly, Father, I can't quite remember what they threatened him with, but it was perfectly awful. As a member, you have the power to help him, don't you? Speak to Mr. Abbot or Lord Liverpool, can't you? He was innocent in the whole affair.”
Darcey clutched her hands tightly before her as she glanced nervously around the room. She was sweating, as well. What was the matter with the girl? Had she gone completely off her nut?
“It's becoming clear to me, Daughter, that I should have married you off to Mr. Fretwell's son when he proposed a match between our families, rather than letting you pout and sulk your way out of it, for if I'd done so, I'd not be listening to this gibberish right now. Instead, you'd be bound to your husband and unleashing your vitriol on him. The biggest mistake I ever made was not seeing you into that marriage. Who knows when a willing soul will come along again?”
A willing soul who wouldn't send her packing back to her father after her first shrewish rant.
“Darcey, I always thought that between you and your sister, you were the one with sense, but I can see now how utterly incorrect I was in this assumption. You have no understanding of the events of Cato Street. I have no idea why you're defending some random conspirator, but I'll have no more of this. Here.” He fished around inside a bowl on his collection table and pulled out several coins. “Go purchase a pair of gloves or something. Forget about all of this fee-faw-fum.”
She shook her head. “Really, Father? Well, if you won't act on the information I'm giving you, I can see I'll have to do something myself.”
Darcey stamped her silk-encased foot once again and fled to her room to hide her tearstained face, but not before reaching out to grab the money her father had dropped on the table.
“Humph,” Mr. White said, sitting down to resume admiration of his scarab collection.
 
Lord Liverpool had never actually been to Lord Harrowby's home in Grosvenor Square before, despite all of the planning and secret meetings that had occurred to secure the surprise capture of the Cato Street conspirators based on the supposed dinner scheduled at this address.
But this evening the two men sat together in Harrowby's study, smoking cigars to congratulate themselves on their successful infiltration of the plot.
Liverpool leaned back in the leather chair to enjoy the aroma. “Excellent, Harrowby. Quite smooth.”
“Glad you like it. I imported a box from Jamaica. Lady Harrowby hates the smell, so undoubtedly the room will be subjected to an army of servants airing and beating and scrubbing the soul out of it tomorrow.”

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