By the King's Design (5 page)

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Authors: Christine Trent

BOOK: By the King's Design
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“It's all right, Belle. Go home,” he shouted back.
Not likely. Belle knew what she had to do to protect themselves and her livelihood.
She picked up her skirts and ran into the shop, heading as swiftly as she could for her work counter lining the wall, and bending over to find the pistol box among the shelves below the counter. She moved aside ledgers, material scraps, and boxes containing scissors, tapes, and leftover lengths of decorative fringes.
Ah, there it was. She pulled it out and frantically set it on the counter. Drat. She'd forgotten that the box had a lock on it. Where was the key? She lifted her key ring from a nail on the wall in front of her, and shuffled through the keys, searching for the right one.
Hurry, Belle, hurry.
She could hear the din of voices rising angrily nearby, as the men came closer.
Please, God, help me find that infernal key.
Ah, this one must be it. She fit it inside the lock and the top sprang open. The guns were old, but the brass appliqué on the handles still gleamed brightly.
Two pistols. Meaning she could, at most, hope to get off two shots, which would, she hoped, be enough to scare them off. After all, a rough-made club was no match for a gun. Even if the gun was managed by a woman.
Now to remember how to load the things. It had been too long since she'd last practiced.
She searched under the counter where the pistol box had been and retrieved the ammunition kit. The gun man in Birmingham from whom she'd purchased the guns had given her written instructions that he'd tucked inside the kit. She unfolded the page of instructions and scattered the other contents across the oak countertop.
Her hands were beginning to tremble, for fear of not being able to load the guns in time. Or load them at all.
Belle selected a piece of flint and tucked it into the hammer. Next, she tapped a measure of black powder out of its container and onto a piece of tissue paper. Half-cocking the hammer on one of the pistols, she shakily poured a measure of black powder down the barrel. With one hand still holding the gun, she wrapped a lead ball inside a wad of cloth and rammed it down the barrel on top of the gunpowder, using a metal ramrod. The cloth would prevent the ball from rolling back out of the barrel.
Almost done.
She picked up the container of black powder again and sprinkled a tiny amount in the flash pan underneath before fully cocking the piece. Ah, right. When she pulled the trigger, the flint in the hammer would crash down on the pan, creating an ignition to send the bullet hurtling off to its target.
She hoped.
More noise and arguing from outside distracted her. Was that the sound of Wesley apologizing?
Shaking her head in anger and frustration, she gently set the pistol upright against a jar on the counter and set to work on the second pistol, relieved that she loaded it far more quickly than the first one.
Before she could move to pick up the first gun, a hand came from nowhere and grabbed her wrist, shaking it and forcing it to release the second pistol. It fell to the counter, and Belle was momentarily blinded by a flash as the hammer came down on what black powder remained in the flash pan. It wasn't enough to fire the pistol.
She turned toward her attacker, struggling against him. The man wore a brown wool hood over his eyes. The jagged eyeholes of his mask had tilted and she couldn't even see his pupils. The cloth was oddly familiar.
“Leave me be!” she said. “What is your business here?”
“We mean you no trouble, Annabelle. We just need to see that mill dismantled.”
So you're not a stranger to me.
“How dare you address me so familiarly. Who are you?”
“Never mind that.”
He yanked her away from the counter, but she was able to grab the first pistol as he did so, hiding it in the folds of her skirt.
Careful,
she thought.
You'll only get one chance.
She tried to squirm out of his grasp, but he held her arm tightly. As the man prodded her toward the door of the shop, the other men came tumbling in, Wesley and Henry on their heels.
Most of them were carrying weapons of some sort, from clubs to knives to sacks full of something—probably stones.
Wesley was in the middle of the group, fully surrounded by the men. Catching Belle's eye, he shrugged, his eyes sending her a plea she couldn't understand. Henry looked as though he might faint dead away at any moment.
She lashed out at the man who was handling her so roughly. “I'll say it again; leave me be, you oafish dolt. You've no right to be here and I'll see every one of you hanged.”
He let go in surprise at her outburst.
One of the gang laughed. “Hey, you said she was a lively thing. Truer words never spoken. But let's get to business.”
Before she could react with the weapon clutched in her hand, three of the club-wielding men went to the gig mill and began beating against it. It wasn't long before the mill was cracking and splintering before her eyes, collapsing in a heap of rubble.
No, it couldn't be. She'd worked so long and hard to save the money to buy the mill. It was the future of cloth finishing and focus of her dreams. It would take years before she could replace it.
You'll never be able to replace it,
a tiny voice whispered.
She felt dizzy.
Belle gripped the pistol tighter, although it was sliding in her grasp as her nerves caused her to sweat. She had one shot, and she wasn't sure where to place it. At the man holding her? The range was too close. At the men who had just hammered away at her precious new mill? What if one of them was her own employee who thought he would lose his job because of it? Besides, it was too late to stop their work.
As their exertion against the machinery caused them to breathe more heavily, the men tore their masks away to allow for more air passage. None of them were her workers. Their forearms were rippled with muscles, so they were obviously croppers from elsewhere.
Part of George Mellor's gang, perhaps? Maybe Mellor himself had escaped prison and was now underneath the wool mask?
Wesley seemed paralyzed, staring in fascination at what was going on and doing nothing to stop it, not that there was anything to be done to save the machinery.
But Belle could and would get these men out of her shop.
In one fluid motion, she brought her pistol out into plain view and pointed it at her attacker while reaching up with her free hand and yanking on her captor's wool covering. It easily came away in her hand.
Clive Pryce.
What?
She stared back and forth between the wool and his face. And realized that the cloth looked familiar because it came from her shop. It was part of an older batch of drab that Henry had hand-finished.
She shook her head in disbelief. They were affianced, due to be married in a couple of weeks. And Wesley's best friend. He was—
She looked over at Wesley again. “It can't be,” she breathed.
But Clive stepped toward her again. She whirled on him with her pistol and raised it at him.
He lifted his hands in supplication. “Belle, darling, this was all only for your own good. You know deep inside that this mill is immoral. In two ways. Not only because it produces inferior cloth that will drive expert craftsmen like Henry into starvation, but because you know that managing this shop is your elder brother's job, not yours. You've stepped outside your role as his younger sister to assert yourself in a distasteful, mannish way. Assuredly, I won't tolerate it when you become my wife.”
“You won't tolerate ... I've stepped outside ... my own good ...” Belle was nearly speechless in shock.
“Besides, even if I permitted you to continue with this draper shop, it wouldn't do for the wife of a respectable Luddite to introduce an evil piece of machinery into it.”
Once again, Belle was grasping for an understanding. “What are you saying? Have you done this before?”
“Done it before? Why, I'm a King Ludd, just like George Mellor. My men are expert in smashing gig mills, stocking frames, and the like. Notice how we didn't touch anything else, just the mill. It's a lesson to arrogant shop owners without destroying their entire livelihood.”
“Therefore I should be grateful to you for doing this?”
Clive laughed. “I suppose that's true.”
Despite his shaking nervousness, Henry spoke up. “Now, Mr. Pryce, I don't much like this new machinery, either, but I'd never destroy it.”
“Your opinion concerns me little. Belle, you hire insolent men, and Henry will be the first to go when we're married.”
Belle readily found her astonishment overtaken by pure, white-hot fury. How dare he presume to know what was good for her? For that matter, how dare he think to know anything about her at all? For if he believed that for one second Belle could be happy outside of the cloth shop, then he should be taken straight to York Asylum for confinement. In fact, she'd escort him there personally.
“You'll not tell me—” But before she could finish her thought, Henry stepped forward toward Clive, his hands raised. She didn't know whether he meant to attack or supplicate, but it didn't matter. Clive took it as a threatening gesture, grabbed Henry, and threw him bodily onto the demolished remains of the gig mill. Henry landed violently on his back with a clatter that sounded almost as terrible as the smashing of the mill. He groaned and fell eerily silent.
“Henry!” Belle cried, running forward to help him, but Clive seized her and shoved her to one side.
“He's not important, Belle. You first need to apologize to me and your brother for the vain way you've been handling things in this shop. It's not befitting a woman.”
“
I
need to apologize? To
you?
”
Henry moaned again.
Thank God, he's still alive.
Wait. Did Clive say she also needed to apologize to Wesley? Her brother shared the profits from this shop with her and had every interest in the gig mill being a success. Unless—
She wheeled around on her sibling, still pointing the pistol forward in her wrath. “So, tell me, Wesley, my dearest brother. Is this little celebration of any surprise to you whatsoever?”
“Of course! I knew nothing about it!” Wesley straightened his back in indignation.
“And so how did Clive manage to obtain this piece of cloth from our shop to wear to this little gathering that you knew nothing about?”
“He must have stolen it.”
“Indeed. Your closest companion made it his business to break into our shop when no one was here to steal a piece of cloth to wear in his plan—that you knew nothing about—to obliterate the item in the shop that holds our livelihood. Is this what I'm supposed to believe,
Brother?
”
Beads of sweat broke out on Wesley's forehead. “Sister, surely you wouldn't consider using that weapon on me.”
“I'm really not sure what I would consider doing. Right now I'm waiting to hear what your part in this was.”
“I, well, I, er, you see ...” Wesley looked helplessly at Clive, who stepped back into the conversation.
“Sweetheart, you must realize that although I certainly supported this instructive lesson for you, it was actually Wesley who instigated it. He has long desired to gain control of the shop back from you, and this was an ideal way to scare you into handing it over to him.”
Belle could scarcely believe what she was hearing. Her own brother really was the source of this destruction?
“How could you do this?” she asked him.
“I didn't! Clive is lying. It was his idea to do it. He wanted to scare you into giving up the shop so that you would be a proper wife. He told me you'd be the better for it. Besides, he's the one who has been an active leader with the Luddites.”
Belle was confused. Was this Wesley's scheme, or Clive's? Either way, they were in collusion against her.
But her attention was diverted once again by Mr. Wood stumbling noisily into the shop. “What ho!” he said. “I heard there was some trouble here. Who are you men, wearing disguises like that? Show us your faces as God made them.”
The remaining miscreants with kerchiefs still around their faces pulled them down. No one dared disobey a man of the cloth.
The vicar noticed Clive. “Ah, Mr. Pryce, I see you got here ahead of me. Took me some time to run over here after I got word at the rectory that there was a disturbance. I suppose you have things well in hand.” He looked at the destroyed mill. “Or perhaps you got here too late.”

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