Red Wine For Miss Parker(2)

Surrey had at first suggested they'd join his friend James Napier on his newly invented steam boat for its maiden journey across the Channel and proceed on post-chaise from Calais, but Gigi had thankfully opposed that typically masculine and possibly suicidal idea.

So, with a host of servants and a vast supply of good food and drink they had set out on the Carlotta, a big and elegantly furnished sailing ship the Duke's late father had bought from the East India Company to facilitate his wife's visits to her homeland in Lombardy.





From Genoa the group had proceeded by carriage through the splendid Italian countryside, on winding roads, through vineyards and orchards, passing colourful villages and, much to Flora's discomfort, a whole lot of soldiers.

The wounds left by Napoleon were still wide open in the hearts and minds of Europe, leaving some unsatisfied with the restoration of the old powers and others happy to be back, but wary and afraid of the new ideas growing inside an ever more enlightened bourgeoisie. The Congress of Vienna in 1814 had re-established the Karlsburg rule in the north of Italy, and this imperial dynasty had never been known for clemency when its dominion was threatened. Now, once again ruling over half the continent, with their cadet lines in Tuscany, Modena, Parma and even the far away Mexico, they held an iron hand over subjects who had seen glimpses of a new way to human equality within the laws of the Code Napoleon – before the French emperor had turned into a megalomaniac.





Flora took another deep breath and eliminated thoughts of politics from her musings.

Too stunning were the white mountain-tops of the alps reflected in the water. Too beguiling the sunlight shining through the leaves, shedding her in a glow of bright green and yellow.





Flora had come here to update her diary.

She had documented the entire trip and she would not be neglecting her notes only because the weather and the surroundings tried to lure her into idleness.

Two new arrivals had to be commented.

Their party — until that morning made up of Surrey, Eugenia, Surrey's youngest sister Clara and Flora herself — had been suddenly enlarged by the Earl of Darlington and Viscount Lackerby.

The two lords had claimed to have come from an educational voyage to Paris and found Lombardy to be conveniently "on their way".





Flora looked down at the leather bound book resting in her lap.

She had brought a sharpened pencil along, deciding from the first that ink and feather-pens would be too unpractical to be carried around. She opened the diary and began.





June 11th

This morning, Darlington and Lackerby have surprisingly shown up at Palazzo Sforza and made it known they intended to spend the rest of the summer with us, although I have to say neither myself nor Eugenia were truly surprised by their intrusion upon our idyll, considering the gentlemen's preference for the good life. Where's life better than here?

My beloved mother will rave with joy when I write about these developments. I'm sure she'll embroider two sets of bedlinen with both their coat of arms, just to make sure. Her daughter married to a Viscount or even an Earl? What an achievement THAT would be. She could immediately die and go to heaven, knowing all her hopes and dreams came true .

I have to admit that I myself would not be opposed to marrying either of them, if I was inclined to get married at all, since they are both remarkably good-looking and impossibly rich.

In fact, everybody here, except ME, is exceptionally tall, good-looking and shockingly wealthy.

It does have it advantages to know them, as my current situation is most definitely proof of, yet from time to time I can't help but feel like their favourite act of charity.

"Let's take along the little Miss Parker, she doesn't even have a title, the poor lass!"

Eugenia and Surrey are so annoyingly beautiful and in love, they can be quite a nuisance, to tell the truth. I'm sure they fall on each other like starved tigers as soon as they are left alone. Thank God, Surrey's often busy taking care of his vast Italian properties and I have Gigi to myself.

I do like Clara St. Yves, or Freckles as everybody calls her for her freckled face. She's the Duke's youngest sister and lives with Lord and Lady Barnham. Yet, I have not quite understood what kind of a soul she really is. She's a lively and intelligent girl, but she can be just as moody as her brother. One day, she seems to enjoy staring into the distance and sighing a lot, the next she's as exuberant as a puppy. Sometimes I find her staring at me in an almost fearful fashion, a moment later, she is behaving as if we were the best of friends! Throughout the trip she has suffered from her gloomy humours, looking out across the sea forlornly. But this morning, for example, she was almost feverish. Well, she enjoyed "The Birds of Cheltenham Gardens" as far as I remember, so she cannot be completely normal.