By the King's Design Read online

  Books by Christine Trent

  By the King’s Design

  A Royal Likeness

  The Queen’s Dollmaker

  BY THE KING’S DESIGN

  CHRISTINE TRENT

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  Copyright Page

  For my husband, Jon,

  my very own master cabinetmaker

  and

  For Georgia Carpenter—

  mother, editor, friend

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  No novel can come into existence without plenty of research, and it’s especially true for historical fiction. My sincere thanks go to the craftsmen at the Colonial Williamsburg cabinetmaker’s shop, who spent a few hours on a warm spring day entertaining all of my pesky questions about the similarities between cabinetmaking in early nineteenth-century England versus colonial America. Cabinetmakers Bill Pavlak, Kaare Loftheim, and Edward Wright all had a vast knowledge of the tools, techniques, and living conditions of their counterparts from two centuries ago.

  Thanks are also due to my agent, Helen Breitwieser, who is a simply wonderful combination of coach and teammate over my career, as well as to my editor, Audrey LaFehr, who gives me freedom to write stories the way I want.

  I am perpetually indebted to my mother, Georgia, and friend Diane Townsend, who continue to diligently read my manuscripts and pluck out all of my errors, as well as listen to a writer’s self-doubt. My brother, Tony, ripped my characters to shreds and helped me put them back together again. Dude.

  This writer’s days are perked up by Leslie Carroll, fellow novelist and friend, with whom I spent entirely too many hours e-mailing about the minutiae of life instead of working on my manuscript.

  Jackie and Hayley at The Hair Company make my three hours each month pure bliss with their pampering while I occupy a chair, scribbling away. Jackie, I may still one day take you up on that offer for a permanent writing chair!

  I cannot overstate my gratitude to the online historical fiction blogging world for their enthusiasm for the genre and their warm welcome of new novelists into their world. Any readers seeking good recommendations for books can do no better than to visit blogs such as All Things Historical Fiction, Tea at Trianon, Confessions and Ramblings of a Muse in the Fog, Enchanted by Josephine, Historical Tapestry, Obsessed With Books, Passages to the Past, and Tanzanite’s Shelf and Stuff. There are many more bloggers out there, as well, who devote many hours to reading and reporting on books.

  In particular, my thanks for their fabulously coordinated blog tours go to Liz at Historically Obsessed, Heather at The Maiden’s Court, Allie at Hist-Fic Chick, and Arleigh at Historical-Fiction.com. You’re a warm, wonderfully supportive group of bloggers!

  Finally, and most important, my love and high regard go to my husband, Jon, who brainstorms plots with me, champions me to the finish line and, in the case of this book, advised me step-by-step on woodworking tools and techniques. I would be utterly unable to complete a book without this extraordinary man.

  Laus Deo.

  PROLOGUE

  I do of my own free will and accord to hereby promise and swear that I will never reveal any of the names of any one of this secret committee under the penalty of being sent out of this world by the first brother that may meet me.

  —From the 1812 Luddite Oath, “Twisting In”

  April 1812

  In a field near Rawfold’s Mill, Brighouse, Yorkshire

  “Remember what I told you, brothers. Leave the machines, but shoot the masters.” George Mellor pulled his mask back over his face, leaving only his blue eyes blazing out from atop the soiled kerchief. His large, brawny presence belied his age of two and twenty.

  Dozens of men imitated him in silence, the rustling of their masks the only sound in the growing twilight. The remainder of Mellor’s straggling army had foregone masks and blackened their faces. The malodor of his mask made Mellor wish he’d done the same.

  He shook his head in wonder at the few who had adopted a strange uniform, an ill-fitting woman’s dress over homespun trousers. He, like most of the men, wore his cropping apron, used to protect his clothing from loose fibers as he used huge, weighty shears with curved blades to cut away the nap of recently woven and pounded fabric. This slow and laborious work resulted in cloth with a smooth and even surface. The croppers’ work was the final stage of manufacture before fabric was sent to market.

  The average cropper had bulging arms, carved and toned from years of handling his forty-pound cropping blades. But these talented craftsmen, whose work was so highly prized that they typically earned three times the pay of mere wool spinners, were this night planning to use their strength for more nefarious purposes.

  “I’ll personally smash in Cartwright’s head!” bellowed a man in the crowd, holding up a smithy hammer with a nasty iron head.

  “Quiet, fool!” Mellor hissed. “Can’t have anyone noticing us before we even get started.”

  The men jostled restlessly, and an “Ow!” from the direction of the shouter told Mellor that someone had swiftly applied an elbow to his side to shut him up.

  Mellor crouched down to wait until it was dark enough to complete the march to Rawfold’s Mill. Tonight they were going to teach William Cartwright a lesson. The man had brazenly used new cloth-finishing machinery for the past year, putting many honest, competent men out of work and ruining the trade by producing inferior fabrics, stockings, and lace. Nothing exceeded what a Yorkshire man could do with a pair of cropping shears.

  It could be tolerated no longer.

  Known affectionately as “King Ludd” by the other croppers, in honor of Ned Ludd, who had initially started the rebellion against machinery in Nottinghamshire, Mellor had steadfastly tried to be precise in his attacks, directing men to smash only the offending pieces of equipment and not to molest buildings or mill families. After all, he wasn’t a murderer, he was only trying to protect a generations-old way of life for thousands of people.

  But Cartwright’s arrogance had driven Mellor insane with fury.

  First, the mill owner had sent derisive responses to Mellor’s letters instructing him to remove the new mechanized cropping frames and gig mills. Then, to make matters worse, rumors reached Mellor’s ears that Cartwright was reinforcing his mill, trying to turn it into a fortress against him. Even the smaller outbuildings of the mill complex had supposedly been fortified. Doors strengthened, spikes set on stairwells, and men poised on the roof with acid carboys ready to be poured on any attackers.

  It was insufferable. Not that Mellor believed the bit about the acid.

  And so Mellor changed his policy of protecting the mill owners. Tonight, Cartwright would pay the ultimate price.

  Mellor gave a hand gesture, which was repeated throughout the crowd, signaling that it was time to begin their three-mile walk to the mill. Along the way, they converged with a Luddite group from Leeds, and now marched as a strong, three-hundred-man army to Rawfold’s. Each man armed himself in his own way, with either hammer, sword, or pistol. Mellor smiled grimly at the terrifying sight they must be.
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  It was completely dark as they approached the five-story mill and its thatched outbuildings. Mellor spread word that all but a few torches were to be extinguished.

  All was quiet and still at Cartwright’s place, with just a lone lamp burning in an upper-story window. Probably left behind by one of those witless new machine operators.

  Mellor signaled again, and his men silently began fanning themselves around the main building. This was the moment that always thrilled Mellor the most. Those last ninety seconds before he and his fellow Luddites rampaged into a mill. The smell of fear and excitement blended into an energizing intoxicant, and he could feel his own power oozing from his pores, knowing that no one would raise a pike, stick, or hammer without his say-so.

  He paused to let a light breeze pass over him. He closed his eyes, and breathed deep of the crisp night air. Their cause was just and they were fearless to a man.

  It was time.

  “Now, boys, now!” he shouted. Who cared if any of Cartwright’s people heard him at this point? Mellor’s men were too numerous and too keyed up to be stopped.

  The men began whooping and brandishing their weapons as they ran closer, intending to both smash windows and batter down doors in their effort to get to Cartwright.

  From his peripheral vision, Mellor saw the upstairs lamp go out. Just as suddenly, lamps were lit along the roofs of all the mill buildings, illuminating their defenses.

  Mellor gasped. It was true. Cartwright really did have acid vessels. The Luddite leader shouted for everyone to hold, to pull back, but it was too late. The men were in a frenzy and could neither hear him nor pay attention to the cauldrons being tipped over.

  And then windows began creaking open all over, and the sound of pistols being loaded, fired, and reloaded soon overcame the deafening screams of his men being drenched in skin-flaying acid.

  George Mellor froze in his vantage point. His raids had always been successful before, with little or no resistance by mill owners.

  But this night he had miscalculated badly.

  1

  Come Cropper lads of high renown,

  Who love to drink strong ale that’s brown.

  And strike each haughty tyrant down

  With hatchet, pike and gun

  —From “The Croppers Song,” 1812

  April 1812

  Leeds, Yorkshire

  Annabelle Stirling reached out a hand to reverently stroke her shop’s new gig mill, which would mechanize the raise of a fabric’s nap. She’d scrimped from the shop’s profits for over a year to afford it, and it was finally here. The shop had been chaotic and disorganized during the three days it took for the workmen to set it up, but it was surely worth it.

  She frowned. All of the shop’s workers, and half the village, were here to see it in operation for the first time. But where was Wesley?

  “May I try it, Miss Stirling?” Henry asked. He was the first cropper they’d hired when deciding to expand from merely being cloth merchants to also taking rough cloth and doing the final finishing work on it. Since bringing on Henry, they—well, Belle—had hired three more croppers.

  “Of course, it’s only right that you should try it. You’ll be the one in charge of it,” she said.

  Henry looked tentatively at the enormous piece of machinery, which looked like a large drum in the middle of a letter C. Fabric would be fed in at the top of the C, and fed around the spine and over the drum, straightening and stretching through a set of rollers, then would be gathered in soft folds at the bottom of the C. Henry stood facing the inside of the C, which towered at least two feet over his head, his foot poised over a foot pedal.

  “When you’re ready,” she said quietly.

  Henry began pumping his foot pedal, and a combination of gears and belts attached at various points to the mill screeched and protested loudly. Sweat was already pouring down the man’s face as the drum began rotating slowly. He reached up and pulled the edge of the long length of fabric over the top of the C and into the first roller above the drum, feeding it in and out of the rollers that would automatically smooth the cloth, removing the nap in a consistent and reliable manner.

  His audience stood breathlessly, Belle included, to see the finished product. After Henry had fed about ten yards of cloth through the machine, he stopped pedaling to examine the cloth. He furrowed his brow as he pinched a section of fabric and ran his thumb over it. He looked up at Belle.

  “Miss Stirling, I don’t know. Not as good as I could do myself.”

  Belle lifted a section of cloth that had been cropped and deposited in the bottom of the C. Henry was right. The finishing wasn’t quite as fine as what he did. But she looked at the quantity of fabric that had been finished in record time and announced, “Henry, nothing could possibly replace your hands on a set of shears. But look at how much you’ve accomplished already this morning. I say the gig mill is a success.”

  And with that, everyone who had crowded inside the room ran forward to touch the fabric and form their own opinion on its quality.

  Late in the day, after nearly everyone in their village near Leeds had come forward to handle the newly processed cloth and then gone off to gossip about it in the coffee shop, Henry came to her, hat in hand.

  “I dunno, Miss Stirling, how we can ’spec to compete with merchants selling hand-finished cloth. My own work is much better, and I surely don’t mind goin’ back to it.”

  “Yes, your handwork is better, but you saw how much fabric you were able to finish in just a short amount of time.”

  He twisted his hat through his fingers. “Yes, ma’am. But it’s your reputation I’m worried about. If you start selling poor-quality cloth and all.”

  She smiled. “Henry, your job is secure. I couldn’t possibly do without you. I’m just glad you’ll be able to accomplish so much more each day.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He continued to stand there, looking nervously from side to side.

  “Is there more?”

  “I was just wondering, er, whether Mr. Stirling was pleased about the new gig mill. I noticed he wasn’t here when we started it up. Just thought he might have his own opinion.”

  “I’m not quite sure where Mr. Stirling is today. I know, though, that he will be quite delighted when he sees its remarkable potential for the shop.”

  Which wasn’t entirely true, but enough to satisfy Henry and send him on his way back to his family for the night.

  Where was Wesley today? He knew the gig mill was being installed and would be in operation for the first time this morning. Belle sighed. Although her brother, Wesley Stirling, had inherited the shop after both their parents had been swept away in a fever epidemic that had run through the area nearly five years ago, it was Belle who had taken responsibility for the small shop and its workers. Her parents ran it as merely a cloth merchant’s shop, but Belle saw the benefit in bringing in pre-finished cloth and having it finished herself before sending it on its way downriver via the River Aire to land transport for eventual arrival and sale in London and beyond.

  By establishing her own dressing shop and having fabric finished on the premises, she could control the final quality of what was sold and thereby manage the shop’s growing reputation. The new gig mill didn’t produce as fine a finish, but, oh, the output.

  Not that Wesley had much interest. Much to their father’s despair, her brother, older by two years, had run off to India with a local village girl, Alice Treadle, in some kind of business prospect that he never quite explained. When he was called back after their parents took ill, he never explained why Alice didn’t accompany him on his return.

  Wesley’s presence was largely unnecessary, since he merely signed or approved whatever Belle wanted, leaving management of the shop to her and spending days—and sometimes nights—at undisclosed locations.

  It had been this way for as long as she could remember. Her father—Fafa, as she always called him—had tried to encourage Wesley’s interest in the business, but
he was always more concerned with playing in the woods, or chasing birds, or, later, pursuing comely girls he fancied.

  So when Belle first reached out a hand to stroke a piece of fabric and cooed about its softness, Fafa turned his attentions to his younger child. He and Belle would ride over to farms so she could stroke the backs of sheep, cattle, and goats, and Fafa would explain to her how wool, leather, and cashmere came from each animal, respectively, and why the animals must be husbanded properly for not only meat but skin and hair.

  They visited fields together, where he would pick stalks of flax and place them in her hands. “This will become a linen fabric one day, Belle,” he said, much to her amazement. How could a plant with sweet, pale blue flowers turn into lengths of linen, damask, and cambric?

  “It can become fabric and more. Cabinetmakers turn its seed into an oil to finish wood. It’s also used for medicine. But I’ll show you how it becomes cloth.”

  They went to a heckling shop, where Fafa lifted her onto his shoulders to watch workers preparing dried flax fibers that had already had their seeds threshed and straw scutched, or separated, from the fibers. Belle was entranced as she watched workers drawing the flax stalks through what Fafa called heckling combs, each a bed of long iron pins driven into a wooden block. The shop contained various sizes of these combs.

  “Why are they different?” she asked.

  “Depends on what they’re making,” Fafa said. “The finer the combs, the finer the yarn spun from the flax will be.”

  The workers carefully drew the processed fibers through the nails, leaving behind more straw and even some of the fiber. The dust produced was stifling and the smell odious, but Belle was too spellbound in the rhythmic pulling and gathering to care.