Chapter One
Myles woke coughing. The room was dark, though sunlight edged the windows’ heavy drapes. At bedside Phipps, his valet, hovered – holding a candle and a draft.
Myles weakly shook his head. Waving Phipps to the far side of the room, he concentrated on regaining his breath. As he struggled, he eyed the flustered manservant. Phipps could not be bettered when it came to dressing. The man had an exquisite hand with a collar. But he knew little of the sick room. Why should he? In four years’ employ with the Marquis of Hayden, the valet had never had occasion to test the necessary skills.
Myles closed his eyes, stifling another cough. Despite his precautions, he verged on a decline – another period of inexplicable illness. The night’s troubled dream served as warning, presaging the coughing, the fevers and the infuriating indisposition.
Infuriating, because Myles worked at making himself strong. He had always walked, run, raced, ridden, swum. He boxed regularly and often, until he was the last one standing. He had been disciplined in diet and drink, discreet with all else. Fortune had favored him with health, intelligence and prospects. But the doctors had told him long ago, after the incident at the weir, that he had damaged his lungs – that he would forever retain a proclivity for recurrent infection. In all this time he had, perhaps, merely been lucky, to have suffered as infrequently as he had. He had been sixteen at the weir; next month he would be twice that age. He found it curious, how one’s body seemed to remember every trifling slight, every abuse –
As his breathing deepened and steadied, Myles thrust himself upright and signaled Phipps closer.
“Shall I send for a physician, my lord?” Phipps asked.
Again Myles shook his head. “I shall be returning home – urgently, Phipps.”
“To England, my lord?”
“Have I another home?” Instantly he regretted his temper. Phipps was invariably literal. “We shall meet the yacht at Bordeaux. And then – perhaps, London – or Braughton—“ He could not settle on a destination. He knew only that he could not stay in Italy until the spring, as planned. “We must leave at once.” We must leave, he thought, before I am laid low for weeks…
“Yes, my lord.” Phipps frowned. “But Lord Knowles – ?”
“Mustn’t be alarmed.” Myles reached for the mug Phipps had brought in to him. “I shall speak with him at breakfast.” He sipped the warm liquid, coughing again at the first swallow. “Zounds! What is this?”
“Warm ale and egg, my lord. My granny’s truest—”
“’Tis sufficient to be coughing, Phipps. I’ve no wish to be nauseated. Open the drapes. And fetch me some port.”
Myles looked out the open French doors to the verandah, bounded by an artfully carved stone railing and a glorious effusion of potted, red geraniums. Beyond the railing, Lake Como glistened in the midday sun. Though October had advanced a week, no hint of gold tinged the opposite shore’s wooded rise. Myles had been dreaming once more of a lake, but he knew he did not dream of Como, nor of any other Continental lake. He dreamed of home, and of summers as a child. He suspected that the lake he envisaged was in Cumberland.
His friend Knowles would be disappointed by this change in plans, but he would choose to continue on alone. Knowles, and Lord Demarest, and George Glidden, and almost every other young heir to the British peerage, had always considered a Grand Tour a birthright. Every one of Myles’ circle had craved a return to Europe, to see the sites their fathers had visited so freely and with such pleasure. Yet the contest with Bonaparte had long denied them their own explorations. Apart from a tenuous peace a dozen years before, after Amiens – when the armies of Europe had temporarily stalled and Myles, among a few others, had slipped briefly over to France – the Continent had proved a battleground. Some frustrated youngsters had bought regimental colors and chosen to fight rather than stay away. Tragically, many of them had never returned. Tens of thousands had lost their lives just that summer at Waterloo.
His brother David had nearly been among them.
Again Myles closed his eyes. David had been fortunate; the family had been fortunate. Myles could not recall any of his acquaintance who had escaped mourning over the past twenty years. Even Chas, his cousin, had lost parents and grandfather. And all suffered now for the losses at Waterloo in June. Myles would forever remember the shocking lists of casualties, the makeshift hospitals in Brussels, the blasted, burning countryside… Monsieur Bonaparte, he thought grimly, had much for which to atone. He considered the Corsican’s isolation on St. Helena a fitting penance for so acquisitive a warrior.
Myles shed the blankets and swung his legs to the side of the bed. He wore only his small clothes to bed. Given his preference for sleeping with a window open, and the chilly morning breeze from the lake, he reached for the dressing gown Phipps had placed across the covers. Despite his fatigue, Myles knew he must arrange as much as he could over the next day, before his energy failed him. He must see to transportation – the servants – Knowles….
He stepped through the open verandah doors and looked out upon the sparkling water. Cousin Chas, who had designed the gardens for another villa along this very shore, had long extolled the joys of Como – the alpine air, the extravagantly charming villas, each with its unique character and display of flowers and stately evergreens. The cypresses outside Hayden’s suite marched along the drive at lakeside, mimicking the magnificent mountains that hemmed the view. The place was truly spectacular. All the more curious, then, that Myles should have discovered such a desire to leave it.
He had been wandering contentedly enough for some months, ever since parting from David and Billie in Brussels. He and Knowles had toured Cologne, Munich, Vienna, Trieste, Venice, Milan – and now paused at Lake Como. They had intended to stay for some weeks before traveling on to Florence, Rome, Naples and perhaps the Aegean. Whether Lord Knowles would adhere to the same plan now was questionable. In Milan, Knowles had succumbed to the charms of one of that city’s renowned sopranos; indeed, Hayden, who had known his friend Knowles since starting school, had only ever seen him silenced by two things – a challenging game of whist and now, the lovely voice of Signorina D’ellesandra.
Whether the affair with the signorina was a serious matter or not, Hayden did not presume to guess. But he believed his friend should be let to find out. The task at breakfast, then, would be to convince Knowles to continue in Italy. Myles, knowing he was fading, could not impose upon his friend to accompany him on such a hurried journey home.
When Phipps returned with both coffee and port, Hayden sipped at both before washing. Then, choosing rest over the rigors of dressing, he took a seat out on the verandah and settled his heavy, brocade dressing gown about him. He remembered this weariness from previous declines – the headache and lack of appetite, the unconquerable lethargy. Now, though, he considered his age. He had not felt so very old when he had set out upon this ramble, but he was reminded again of his impending birthday. Staring at Como’s waters, he again recalled the struggle to free David from the depth of the weir. He had known then, for a certainty, that had he not surfaced with his brother he might as well have drowned with him. Yet what could he claim to have accomplished in all the years since?
At a knock upon the door, Phipps admitted Knowles.
“I must say, Hayden, that I am rarely so much in advance of you. In your smalls yet, I gather, and the hour close upon one! Why, you’ll scarce be through breakfast before we’re due at Sandy’s party! Not that he would notice what time any of us arrives. Nor what we’re wearin’, for that matter. Probably think your dressing gown all the crack! Though I did promise to host a table at cards for him tonight –”
“My friend, I shan’t be attending Sandringham’s soiree.”
Knowles looked his surprise.
“Why ever not? Thought you liked Sandy, even if he is a bit green. And you must admit that the old earl had fine taste in property. This is a lovely little spot, to be sure, but Sandy’s villa in Bellaggio there, across the water—”
“You should go along if you wish, Knowles. But I must prepare to return home.”
“Home? Confound it, Hayden, whatever can you mean? We’ve that much more of Italy to see. We are to stay here at least ‘til November—“
“And so you shall. The Villa alla Solle is yours for as long as you wish it. You might find you even desire to invite your bella D’ellesandra – and her mama, of course, to share it.”
“Bella! But her name’s Natala – Ah!” Knowles’ ears reddened as he caught Hayden’s gaze. “I ‘spose you think me a fool.”
“No, my friend,” Hayden smiled. “I think you susceptible.”
Knowles laughed. “Yes, I ‘spose. But heaven help you, Hayden.” He shook his head. “It shall be something worth seeing.”
“You are most unlikely to see me similarly enamored, Knowles. When I return home I intend to marry.”
“You?” Knowles abruptly took a seat. “Who?”
“I’ve no idea. Perhaps Avis Birdwistle. I’m told she has been trawlin’ for me long enough. Fact is, I shall be thirty-two next month. The thing must be done.”
“Look here,” Knowles said, examining his face too closely. “Are you certain you feel quite to rights? You look a bit peaked this morning.”
“No more so than the usual. I confess I could use more sleep.” He forced another smile. Knowles could not suspect him ill, else Myles would never be rid of him. Whatever his more immediate inclinations, loyal Lord Knowles would insist on seeing his feeble friend home.
“I have another year on you, Hayden, and no younger brother, either. You don’t see me rushin’ off to the altar—“
“Perhaps you should consider it.”
Again Knowles’ ears reddened.
“She does sing beautifully, doesn’t she? Strikes me quite silent every time I hear her.”
Merely a Mister by Sherry Lynn Ferguson will be available from Avalon Books in February, 2012.