Red Wine For Miss Parker - Another very romantic Comedy (Delicious Regency by Ruby Royce, Book 2) (6 page)

Silently, she finished her breakfast.

"I wish you a pleasant day, my Lord," she sang hypocritically as she left the table and walked down to the lakeshore.

Somewhere near the western shore of Lake Maggiore

Francesco had not been able to resist.
 

Wounds or no wounds, he wanted to swim. Swimming had always been his remedy.
 

It was a way of forgetting one's self, forgetting the world, forgetting fear, forgetting sadness. Even as a boy in England he had gone swimming in the river near Seventree as soon as the weather would permit it.
 

Pulling himself in long strokes against the current, letting the the cold water wash over him… it had been the best medicine for his ails: The longing for his family, far away and scattered. The fear of a French invasion. The fear of more bad news from the continent, of more relatives in France beheaded. Later, the grief over the Duchess' death, over the Duke's illness and the senselessness of his existence.
 

Now that Napoleon had been defeated and his family reinstated, it was easy to pretend those nineteen years of exile had been just a transitory holiday. Many a nobleman grew up on a foreign estate with another noble family. It was quite the norm, was it not?

But in the case of the Karlsburg children, it was different.
 

Nobody could have known the old rule would ever be re-established in Europe. A battle ending differently, maybe only a contract differently worded and the Karlsburg-Sforzas would have been condemned to a life of persecution or exile in lands even further away than England.

 
As a boy, before the Congress of Vienna, Francesco had often played with the idea of emigrating to Mexico. One of his cousins was king there. Still today, he sometimes wondered whether he should not simply leave it all behind.

Even if he was, again, a Prince not only in name, he still felt he had no purpose. His far older brother ruled since their father's death and he had sons of his own, of whom the first had recently married and fathered yet another male child. The Karlsburgs were a profligate lot, he mused, but how else would they have kept so many thrones over so many centuries?
 

There was really no way for Francesco ever to rule in Lombardy.
 

He was not even wanted as a political advisor, because everybody believed he lacked seriousness and did not feel rooted in Lombardy. He grew up in England after all!
How ironic.

He often
did
lack seriousness, that was true, but how could he take it all seriously? Did they truly believe, monarchic rule would last forever, now that the peoples of Europe had seen what power lay within their reach?
 

No. He gave Lombardy another twenty, maybe thirty years before the Italian people would decide it was time to unite under Italian rule and kick the Karlsburgs out. Francesco had decided he did not want to be there when that happened. In the darkest corners of his heart, he even sympathised with the common man's desire for freedom. Had it not been all he had longed for when he had been cooped up in Seventree? Freedom?

He did not want to think about it. As a matter of fact he had been thinking so much these past three days, his head was aching from it. But those had not been reflection on politics.
 

No. He did not want to think at all. So he swam.

His first intention had been to swim to a small beach further south, but as if pulled by an invisible hand, he found himself swimming towards his unloved cousin's residence across the lake.
 

It was going to be a hot day but Palazzo Sforza still lay in the shade of the mountains rising up behind it. The beautiful yellow palace from the early 18
th
century had always reminded Francesco of a fairy-tale castle, with its little towers and merlons and the elongated arched windows.
 

Dominic must have spent quite a sum on renovating it, Francesco reasoned as he approached. Palazzo Sforza had been just as neglected as all the other noble residences around the lake in the time of the French occupation.

He turned onto his back an glanced towards his own home.
 

Castello Maggiore was far bigger and older than the elegant Surrey-Sforza residence and whereas Dominic's house was merging into the surrounding nature, Francesco's baroque residence was build on top of a protruding peninsula.

Looking at it from so far away, the Prince thought that it looked bulky and naked. The park needed to be changed, there needed to be life. Colours! He would have to discuss it with his gardener.
 

The Prince turned around again and saw a figure walking towards the shore.
 

"A figure" my foot, I know exactly who that is.

His heart pounded strongly in his chest.
 

Help. I'm absolutely besotted by that bloodthirsty mignon. I want her. I need her! My life will not be worth living without her! — Oh, please, I can't have been thinking that just now. I'm not THAT italian! "My life's not worth living without her". Really??? Get a grip, Francesco.

Flora Parker was wearing a light yellow dress and her dark curls were loosely held by a ribbon of the same colour.

Thank God, she's unarmed!

So far, she had not discovered him.
 

Carefully he slid closer. There was a landing stage leading into the water with a few rowing boats tied to it. He positioned himself behind it to watch her but he could not remain still for long. The lake's water was not exactly warm and he had to keep moving for his limbs to stay nimble.
 

Flora had stopped by the shore and critically scanned the water at her feet.

Francesco grinned. Not a good idea when one's face is halfway under water. The insolent liquid swashed into his mouth and he had to gulp it down to obtain his silence.
 

Sitting down in the grass, Flora opened a little leather bound book. From time to time she smiled as she was reading and the Prince was at once immune to the water's chills. A gentle fire spread through his veins.
 
My life's not worth living without her!

He swam closer.
 

When he was only a few yards away from her, he fully immersed himself and made the last few strokes beneath the surface.
 

In the park of Palazzo Sforza,…

To his Holiness, the Pope:

Good old Uncle Pius, I have sent you the recipe for the salve. It should help with your gout!

Kisses, Flora!

Flora giggled as she read her most recent absurdities.
 

Maybe she had to start a career as a novelist. It might be more lucrative than taking the waters in Bath and more entertaining too. One simply had to look at the late Miss Austen and her successes. Flora's ideas were just as comical and as romantic. She would not write about the landed gentry, boring and well-behaved as they were, no! She would reveal the scandalous behaviour of the peers! The Darl of Smoothington's Love Affairs, the Sulk of Dreary's Dangerous Desires and the Lackscount Vickerby's Evil Crimes. Maybe The Archdukes Princely Privates…

She grunted like a maniac and was so shocked and delighted by her own frivolities that she had to bite into her diary's leather binding.
 

"You have a beautiful laugh. I'm saddened that you've not shown it to me before."

With a loud shriek Flora propelled herself into a standing position.

The princely private's prodigal proprietor was right at her feet. Well, that's where his spectacular pectorals were, his head was rather at the level of her shins.

Without warning, the words came pouring out of her.
 

"Your Royal Highness! I thought you were dead! In bed! But it is good that you are not for I have to tell you that you must believe me when I say that I have longed to ask for your forgiveness about what happened, I had not expected you to sit so close and there was all the blood and you said I was an accursed witch and I had so hoped to apologise to you but I guessed you might not ever wish to hear of me again after I had broken you nose and…"
shut up, Flora, you idiot, shut up
 
"…ruined your wonderful uniform, which I will reimburse of course, even though I believe that salt and cold water should do the job and you will be able to wear it again and I also hope you will not have me arrested and executed, I honestly did not want to do you any harm and I am most certainly no revolutionary, I would never be able to send anybody to the guillotine, although I have often wondered whether they decapitated people with their wigs on or without…"
SHUT UP, FLORA, SHUT UP RIGHT NOW!!!
 
"..and why are you here anyway, should you not be resting? It can't be any good for your injuries or for your health to swim such distances in the cold morning air? I would advise you to get out of the water and after some rest have yourself taken home by a boat, we have quite a lot of those and I am so sorry, I know I should be silent now, but whenever I am nervous my mouth just keeps going on and on and on. If I were the heroine of a novel, I would be one of those heroines who'd cause every sensible reader to ask the author why on earth the hero should be attracted to such an annoying woman. I am not usually like this, as you will remember, I hardly spoke a word at the opera and NO! PLEASE DON'T!"

The diary must have fallen to the ground and lay open on the page where Flora had tested her signature as Archduchess of Lombardy. She could only look on in horror as the Prince, with a faint smile on his face, turned his eyes to it.
 

The smile left his face as soon as he saw what she had written.
 

Oh no, oh no, oh no! Oh no, oh no, oh no!

"I never… I never…," she gasped. "It was… only a joke!"
 

His mouth twitched. "Oh, was it?" he said bitterly.

Flora's heart raged and hammered. She wished she would faint but she did not! No, she had to endure the dreadful shame fully aware!
 

He was staring at her now, his blue eyes cold. All she could do was stare back. To her absolute terror, she felt another onslaught of verbal incontinence and her lips were about to part when a thunderous voice echoed from the mountains.

"WILL YOU COME BACK, YOU IMPOSSIBLE ANIMAL! THIS IS NOT LAKE LEMAN AND YOU DO NOT KNOW THE WATERS! MR. WIMPLE, YOU ARE NO COMPETENT SWIMMER, RETURN AT ONCE! AH, THERE YOU ARE, MISS PARKER!!! WATCH OUT, MR. WIMPLE WILL WANT TO— "
 

Flora whirled around. A big, speckled white cannonball came shooting towards her at incredible speed. Two yards away from her, it managed to gain altitude and flung itself into her arms. The impact took Flora off her feet and she was catapulted into the water.

Flora could not tell top from bottom anymore.
 

Frantically she moved her arms and legs but her dress, now soaked with water, was pulling at her. There was no footing, no air!
 

Then one of her fingers touched something. Something smooth and curved!
 

Like the greek statues they have at Seventree!
(Flora secretly patted their backsides whenever she visited Gigi at the ducal residence — but that remains between the author and the reader…)

There were most likely no statues in the water here so she held on to whatever it was and pulled herself towards it. She opened her eyes and what she saw through the green haze made her close them again.
 

That again! Princely indeed!
 

At least, now she knew where "up" was and she managed to get her head out of the water for an instant before her dress pulled her down once more.
 

Two strong hands grabbed her and brought her back to the surface.

She put her arms around the Prince's neck quite unashamedly.
 

To avoid sinking down… What else?

A desperate cry came from the park. "Mr. Wimple! Papa is coming to save you!"

General Cartwright crashed into to water not far away from them and soon re-emerged with the Cartwright's obese basset hound in his arms.
 

"Now Miss Parker, that was very irresponsible of you, I must scold you," the giant man said through his giant beard. "The poor animal has only recently been introduced to the joys of the aquatic sports."

"I'm very sorry Sir," Flora sputtered, "I had not expected him to run this fast."

"Oh yes!" The General raised the dog's face towards his own and placed a kiss onto the animal's forehead. "He has become quite an athlete now that he is free from his intestinal ailment. He lost over two pounds! These Swiss
docteurs
are miracle workers, dear Miss Flora. —
 
But what of you, Sir! What gives you the impertinence to stand around here in full undress, strapping the little Miss Parker against you as if she were a monkey?"

"I…" the Prince was obviously at a loss for words.
 

Flora was not. Sometimes even being a blabbermouth came in handy.

"Please, Sir, may I introduce his Royal Highness, the Archduke of Lombardy."

"Ah! Karlsburg! Now there's a nice looking chap! Good to meet you, Highness, I met your brothers Joseph and Karl, they led a nice regiment back in the days of the old bonny-party! Nice regiment. Excellent horses. Did you know that the regular war horse of the middle ages was a lombard horse? You know, the knight's destriers!"

"This is Baron General Cartwright, her Grace's father," Flora explained.

What's that pressing agains my thigh?

The Prince had some difficulty regaining his composure, Flora noticed.
 

"Pleasure to meet you, Excellency."

"Are you two engaged?"

"WHAT? NO!" Flora exclaimed and wiggled in protest.

"No, General," the Prince moaned, "our current position is only the result of several unfortunate events and I suggest you
 
alight from the water and have our charges dried."