By the King's Design Read online

“My parents are dead, sir.”

  “No husband? No parents? Who, then, owns this family shop?”

  “My brother, sir, Wesley Stirling.”

  “And why is he not here to plead your case?”

  “He was one of the Luddite attackers.”

  The House of Commons erupted in laughter. Belle felt her neck and cheeks turn scarlet. She clenched the rail in front of her more tightly, frustrated but determined.

  “So, to be clear, Miss Stirling, your brother owns this cloth shop and decided to destroy his own gig mill in an apparent act of self-destruction, and now his sister has descended upon Parliament to demand restitution for it? Is this what we are to understand?” Abbot was barely maintaining a somber expression, while the other members were pointing up at her and screeching like a tribe of monkeys who have just discovered a new insect that might be interesting to devour.

  Belle could have happily torn Abbot’s unsympathetic look right from his face.

  She waited for the laughter to subside.

  “No, sir. What I am saying is that my foolish brother was deceived by my fi—by some Luddites into what he thought was a harmless prank against me. He didn’t know what he was doing. Nevertheless, the mob destroyed the mill, which cost me dearly. I demand that Parliament make restitution, for its inability to keep these packs of wild dogs from vandalizing the countryside at will. Shops like mine are vital to England’s trade and cannot be permitted to fall prey to these creatures. So I ask you, sirs, which of you will stand up for me?”

  The chamber’s laughter gave way to a few appreciative murmurs, in addition to several scandalized gasps. Then the monkeys began chattering among themselves again, Tory and Whig alike, their differences forgotten in light of this interesting new development.

  The Speaker spoke up. “Ahem, we would do well to be quiet. Members, I ask for your attention. Gentlemen, SILENCE!”

  The chamber stilled.

  “Miss Stirling, I believe your complaint is with your brother, not us. I suggest that you return to Yorkshire to resume your family squabble, and not waste the House’s valuable time. You may not realize that we’ve been a bit busy, between the loss of Lord Perceval, the Americans’ declaration of war, and now Napoleon’s rampage through Russia. We are also facing another election in September. A woman’s troubles with her jackanapes brother are hardly of concern to us.”

  Belle was losing control of the situation, but she wouldn’t give up now.

  “Pardon me, sir, but I will not leave London until I’ve been reassured that Parliament will take care of the damages.”

  “You may be waiting in London an excruciatingly long time, Miss Stirling.” A slow smile spread across his face. He was toying with her now.

  “Possibly you are right, sir, but assuredly if you will not hear me I’ll find others who will.”

  “Is that so? And to whom will you plead your case if I refuse to listen? Where else could you possibly go? The prime minister and I are of one mind, so you’ll get no assistance there.”

  She swallowed. Indeed, where would she go if the Speaker were to ignore her? Who was more influential than he? But she wouldn’t be cowed by this man, nor any of the others watching their exchange with amusement.

  “I’ll tell you where I’ll go. I’ll go to the Prince Regent. He’ll listen to one of his subjects if you won’t.”

  This elicited a barking laugh from Abbot. “Ah, madam, I see you don’t know the prince well at all. By all means, you should seek him out for reparations. In fact, we would be glad of a return visit from you to let us know of your grand success with him.”

  And with that, she was summarily dismissed. Furious, she whirled around to fling herself back down the stairs, and stopped short, nearly toppling over a man who had slipped into the gallery at some point and was now blocking the door. He sat in a chair with a writing box straddling his lap, and was scratching his quill pen furiously across a piece of parchment, presumably to record the proceedings. He looked up to dip his quill in a pot of ink, and realized Belle was gaping at him. He moved his legs to one side to allow her to sweep past, making a single, curt observation: “Interesting.”

  Interesting, indeed. Belle returned to her temporary lodgings in the city to lick her raw wounds and plan her next steps.

  Perhaps she really would try to obtain an audience with George Hanover.

  Lord Liverpool waited patiently from an armchair while the prince’s valet crammed his master into a corset and struggled to tie the laces tightly enough so that the prince’s figure might be made somewhat fashionably slim. A pair of pantaloons in the style Beau Brummell had made famous lay across a chair next to him.

  The Prince Regent was slavish to Brummell’s style even though the two were no longer acquaintances. In Liverpool’s opinion, Brummell had tried to best the Prince Regent at being a complete horse’s rear. Not caring for the competition, George had discarded him. Yet George could not ever discard his desire for fashion, and so Brummell’s influence lived on in starched neatness against the prince’s body.

  The prince rubbed rouge on his cheeks while the valet worked on his clothes. Peering closely into the mirror to examine his own facial artistry, George Hanover said into his reflection, “So you say this little chit actually interrupted the proceedings over some foolish grievance against the government?”

  Liverpool swirled the claret in his glass with one hand, while holding the London Gazette report in the other. “Yes, apparently it was quite remarkable. I spoke to Abbot after reading the report. He says he’s never seen anything like it. She practically accused the assembly of being at fault for those idiotic Luddites.”

  “She sounds like an utter harridan.”

  “That’s just it, Your Highness. He says she wasn’t that at all. She was more ... impassioned than anything else. The members were quite taken with her.”

  George’s valet fitted the prince’s waistcoat over his torso. George grunted in irritation as the valet stepped between his master and the mirror to button it.

  But he returned his attention to Liverpool. “Taken with her, you say? Was she comely? Was she dressed fashionably?”

  Liverpool considered. “According to Abbot, yes. Very black hair, almost ebony, done up against her head with curls like women do. Comes from a line of drapers, so I imagine she knows more than most about the cut of cloth. Well proportioned. Although I suspect her tart tongue is not for a fainthearted man.”

  “Indeed?” With the valet now off unfolding a cravat from a nearby chest, George examined his eyebrows in the mirror before applying some cream to smooth them down. “She sounds most intriguing. I should like to meet her.”

  “Actually, Your Highness, she threatened Parliament to seek an audience with you herself if the Commons wouldn’t do something for her.”

  “Did she? She sounds more and more captivating. What’s her name again?”

  “Annabelle Stirling. She’s from Yorkshire.”

  “Well, I insist that you find Mistress Annabelle Stirling and have her brought to me here at Carlton House. It is my express wish to grant the young lady’s desire for an audience with me.”

  And with that, George stepped his stockinged feet into a pair of satin-heeled shoes topped with extravagant red bows, while his valet tied his cravat. The prince was ready for whatever social engagement he had planned, therefore Liverpool’s meeting with him was over.

  After spending a couple of days nursing her fury inside her temporary lodgings, Belle borrowed writing implements from her landlord so she could pen a letter to Wesley, instructing him to send her all of the inventory from the shop, as well as a bank draft for what she felt was her fair share of the shop’s value. As for the rest, Wesley and Clive could rot together for all she cared.

  She would start over in London, far from the madmen of Yorkshire.

  But before she could follow through on her threat to the House Speaker, she was startled by a courier carrying a summons for her to attend to the Prince Rege
nt at Carlton House, two days hence.

  Bewildered, she wondered who was responsible for this. And how had the prince discovered where she was staying? The Crown certainly had resources beyond her understanding.

  She spent the interim time scouring London for a shop location, finally deciding on a reasonably priced lease on an abandoned draper’s shop, fortuitously located in between a wallpaper printer owned by two brothers, and the C. Laurent Fashion Dolls shop, run by a woman of French descent, at the lower end of Oxford Street, which she quickly learned was a more fashionable shopping district than Cheapside. She could do no more with it until Wesley sent her goods to London, which could take weeks, so she decided to focus on finding a proper gown to wear to meet the Prince Regent.

  And just what did a tradeswoman wear to be presented to a prince?

  And for that matter, how was a curtsy to a prince actually executed?

  Lady Isabella, Marchioness of Hertford, glowed with pleasure over the note she’d just received. Breaking open the prince’s personal seal, she scanned his scrawled handwriting, which promised that a very special, no, an exquisite, gift would be arriving at Manchester House before his own appearance later that evening. Could she ensure Lord Hertford was otherwise engaged?

  Her husband, Francis, would certainly oblige the prince. Her relationship with George Hanover was in its fifth year, and her husband had been very obliging for four of those years, ever since the prince’s private secretary had revealed the affair to Francis and Isabella had to explain the great benefit her special closeness to the prince would mean to the family name.

  Francis had been much more understanding after that.

  Isabella put the note down to finish her toilette. Waving her maid away from the dressing table, Isabella pulled her ring box toward her.

  Now what kind of bauble might the prince be sending over? She’d recently hinted that the sapphire necklace she’d seen in Rundell and Bridge’s window would set off her coloring well. If he was obliging her in that, then she must be ready with a bare neck and perfectly bejeweled wrists and fingers.

  Isabella pulled out a ring containing a plump pearl surrounded by diamonds and placed it on her right forefinger. Except that it wouldn’t slide on. Must be the heat swelling her fingers. She pulled out a different ring, this one a large square of jade flanked by a single round diamond. It, too, refused to be worn.

  Had she really gained so much weight lately? She put a hand to her cheek. Certainly it was fleshier than it had been ten years ago, but wasn’t the prince just as rotund? After all, she might be nearing fifty-three, but he was just five years her junior and required many more stays and ties than she did.

  And he seemed to enjoy her stoutness. She smiled in satisfaction as she closed the ring box. She’d leave her wrists and fingers bare, the better to display her new necklace, with its fine loops and swirls of tiny, glittering diamonds punctuated by large oval sapphires across her ample bosom.

  No sizing required.

  When two of George’s liveried servants arrived an hour later, she stood serenely by the window in her bedchamber, a practiced air of nonchalance about her.

  This air was swept away when the men entered, not with a small casket to hold her anticipated jeweled delight, but struggling with an immense, cloth-wrapped monstrosity. They propped it against the fireplace mantel.

  “What is this?” she demanded. “Surely this is a mistake.”

  “No, madam,” said the shorter of the two men. “His Highness said specifically to be sure we brought this today.” The two men bowed their way out of the room.

  Servant humility was always a good assurance of her continued favor with the prince.

  She examined the package. Obviously a painting. And life-sized, too. She and Lord Hertford were great art collectors, but had enough fortune to buy whatever pleased them. Didn’t the prince know by now that jewels and titles established a mistress’s special position with her royal lover, not some dust-collecting, fifteenth-century painting of the Madonna?

  Yet ... what if this was not the Blessed Virgin? What if it was the prince himself? Perhaps he’d personally done a sitting just for her. Ah, now that would be of particular value. A painting to hang at one end of their dining room so that all of their guests could feast on it.

  She removed a pair of snips from her dressing table and carefully clipped away the ties holding the cotton wrapped around the painting. She took several steps back to admire the portrait of the prince.

  Except it wasn’t the prince.

  No, not at all. In fact, who in Hades was this?

  For it was a full-length portrait of a young woman seated in a pastoral setting, a faithful dog at her side. The girl’s eyes were languid, her nose straight, and her lips full. The sitter held a miniature in her hand, but Isabella couldn’t make out whose portrait it was. She bent down to look at the signature. Thomas Gainsborough.

  Well, George certainly paid a princely sum for it.

  But who was she?

  Lady Hertford didn’t have long to wait, for her royal lover appeared promptly at his appointed time. She had to admit, even after five years as his mistress, she was still impressed by his ability to make an entrance. Although his figure resembled nothing less than six feet of sausage stuffed inside six inches of casing, he strutted into her drawing room like a bantam rooster.

  Lady Hertford touched her own waistline self-consciously. Well, she thought, those of us who live well may expand an inch or two. Or three. It just demonstrates my own beauty is such that the prince finds me delectable anyway.

  “Ah, my sweet Prin,” she called, rushing to him eagerly to accept his wet kiss. “I insist you come to my bedchamber right away.”

  “Not even wine first, eh, Lady Isabella?” George’s eyes disappeared into the fleshy folds created by his lascivious grin. Was it her imagination, or was he a tad larger than last week? She took his arm and led him up the stairs.

  “No, my amorous Prinny. We must discuss the gift you sent. It intrigues me greatly.”

  “Did you like it? I thought you would. It’s of great value, you know.”

  A servant closed the door behind them as they entered her bedroom, leaving Lady Hertford alone with the prince. She went to the painting and tapped the subject’s face. “She’s quite lovely. Who is the sitter?”

  George smiled broadly. “You don’t know? Why, it’s Maria Robinson. A remarkable likeness to her. Although the portrait must be thirty years old now.”

  Maria Robinson?

  Lady Hertford blinked rapidly. Surely this was some kind of jest.

  “Did you say this is a portrait of Maria Robinson?”

  “Yes. She was quite a beauty at her peak.”

  Lady Hertford tried to maintain a calm composure in front of the man for whom she’d sacrificed the last five years of her domestic tranquility.

  “My dear, are you saying that you are presenting me with a gift of one of your previous mistresses?”

  Maria had been George’s mistress long ago, an actress whom he met in 1779 and nicknamed Perdita after a role she performed onstage. Her liaison with the prince had not ended well. She left the stage on his promises of financial support—what an idiot the girl was—and within two years was abandoned by him through a curt and unfeeling letter. Maria died in 1800, after nearly two decades of paralysis following a horrific miscarriage while under the protection of her new lover, Colonel Tarleton.

  Heavens, Lady Hertford thought. As though I would ever be as a big a fool as that chit.

  “Of course, my love,” he said. “Isn’t it a remarkable likeness?” George spread his hands wide, as though waiting for her to come to him.

  One of the buttons on his waistcoat popped off under the strain and tinkled gently as it hit the marble floor.

  They both pretended not to notice.

  “What is remarkable is your audacity.” She hoped her voice was even, but feared it had poisonous overtones. She had to watch herself.

&nbs
p; “Whatever do you mean?” He let his hands drop, as it was apparent that Lady Hertford would not be bounding into them. A useless loss of a pearl button, she supposed.

  “Sir, do you seriously think I intend to hang a portrait of your previous mistress in my home?”

  He looked puzzled. “It’s a Gainsborough,” he said.

  “I don’t care if Gainsborough and Reynolds woke Rembrandt from the dead and all three congressed together on it. The mistress of your youth will not reside in my home.”

  She made a mental note to have her great-grandfather’s portrait rehung in the dining room.

  George pulled a lace-edged handkerchief out of a sleeve and mopped his perfectly dry brow.

  “How you wound me, Isabella. Already that dreadful Lord Liverpool maltreats me by withholding the financial support necessary for a man of my station. Can’t a man give his most adored lady, the woman of his heart, his truest of loves, a gift without undeserved persecution?”

  “Not when it is a gift reminding his true love of his previous inamorata!”

  “Dear lady, you misunderstand me. My heart is racing to the point of leaping from my breast, so deeply have you wounded me. I do believe I need a glass of refreshment.”

  He headed to the sideboard that she’d placed in her room years ago to hold the prince’s favorite libations. He ran a pudgy, be-ringed finger across the front of the decanters and selected a brandy. He expertly poured himself a full measure into one of the Baccarat crystal glasses Lady Hertford had imported from France especially for him. Only when he was within her private rooms did he pour for himself.

  He turned back to her, raising the glass to his lips. But as he caught Isabella’s eye, all of a sudden his hand began shaking violently, sloshing a little of the brown liquid on his snowy white cravat.

  Lady Hertford narrowed her eyes. A neat trick my wounded suitor performs. But I am a fine actress, too.

  “Oh, my love!” She rushed to daub at the finely tied cloth hiding the prince’s many jowls. “Have I caused you to drop a spot of brandy?”