Lady Charlotte's Christmas Vigil Read online

  Lady Charlotte’s Christmas Vigil

  Caroline Warfield

  Merlin’s Owl Press

  Copyright 2015 by Carol Lynn Roddy, writing as Caroline Warfield

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication my be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  ISBN: 978-1978083547

  ASIN:B0758NLYV2

  Cover art: Snow and Fog on the Grand Canal (circa 1840) by Ippolito Caffi (1814-1866). This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or less.

  Contents

  Lady Charlotte’s Christmas Vigil

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Author’s Note

  About Caroline Warfield

  More from Caroline Warfield

  Lady Charlotte’s Christmas Vigil

  Forced by her brother’s illness to abandon the Grand Tour and her dream of visiting Rome for a time, Lady Charlotte may find there are worse places than the romantic city of Venice, especially under the care of a competent and commanding Italian doctor with Christmas in the air.

  Acknowledgments

  This story forced itself onto my laptop almost by its own volition, but it wouldn't be here if the prince among men hadn’t taken me to Venice—twice. That city is wickedly seductive in its canals, its buildings, and its history. Again I had to ask, can I put a Regency novella here? And, of course, I could.

  It might have stayed on my laptop if it weren’t for the confidence given me by the Bluestocking Belles, especially Jude Knight who listened to me nattering on about it. If the story works, it owes much to Mari Christie, its editor and cover artist.

  To Greg in gratitude for our journeys together

  Chapter 1

  Venice, Italy, November 1818

  They dropped her brother on the threshold, wet and stinking of fish, long after midnight. It took all of Lady Charlotte Tyree’s strength to haul him across it. It took all of her powers of persuasion to convince the landlady to allow it.

  No doubt to preserve her parlor and best guest rooms, the landlady, Signora Rossi, bent to help Charlotte drag his worthless carcass to the kitchen and stretch him out on the stone floor.

  “Do not soil the hearth rug with this wretch,” she ordered and left in a flurry of fastidious hand wiping.

  “Dear God, David, what have you done now, and where is Charles Douglas?”

  A moan was the only response. Charlotte began to systematically strip her brother of his sodden and odiferous clothing. Signora Rossi’s overworked maid opened the door and skittered to a stop, blushing at the sight of a man being stripped to his smallclothes. Charlotte sent her for towels and a blanket. The girl disappeared as if she were fleeing the Devil himself.

  “Ninny,” Charlotte grumbled, working with efficiency and speed.

  Her brother began to shiver uncontrollably; his personal linen would have to come off. She left him naked and shaking on the stone floor and went to set a kettle to boil. She put his clothing outside the door on the stones lining the canal. If she couldn’t convince a laundress to clean them for the poor box, she would burn them.

  She put some warm water in a basin and returned to the boiling kettle. Whether David would drink tea to ward off his chill or not, she would need a cup when she finished dealing with him. She found kitchen rags and began to sponge his face with the warm water. He murmured something unintelligible, and she leaned in to hear him. The smell of drink on his breath, mixed with the stench of fish and polluted water, assailed her nostrils.

  “What is it, David?” she asked, trying not to gag.

  “Failed. George laughed.”

  “Failed what?”

  “Canal. Water too damned cold.” He moaned again and turned his head.

  The maid hesitated when she stepped in, covering her eyes with a pile of towels. Charlotte yanked them from her hands.

  “Put the blanket on the table and get out,” Charlotte demanded. This chit is no help whatsoever.

  Charlotte laid half of the towels on the floor and rolled her brother onto them, then covered him with the rest. The girl interrupted her, calling from the door, eyes on the ceiling.

  “I forgot! I brought this.” She pulled a bar of soap from her dress.

  “Grazi,” Charlotte said grabbing the soap. “Now go.”

  “Signora Rossi said if towels don’t come clean, you must pay,” the girl said in a rush, before she scurried out.

  Charlotte poured hotter water into the basin and began to bathe her brother, as if he were a baby and not a man of twenty. He certainly acts like an infant. He continued to mumble incoherently, but she could only make out a few words here and there: cold, Rialto, canal, George, swim.

  George swim. Merciful angels. Byron should pay for this. Rage filled her. The poet had swum the length of the Grand Canal in June. The entire town buzzed about the improbable feat. It would be just like David to try to imitate his idol.

  George Gordon, Lord Byron, had been leading her brother into ruin since the day they had reached Venice the previous month, David spent his nights drinking, gaming, and God knew what else at Palazzo Mocenigo, Byron’s palazzo on the Grand Canal. He spent his days (on rare occasions when he rose during the day) following the notorious poet like a puppy. David ignored the ostensible purpose of his Grand Tour, managing to avoid the exquisite mosaics of San Marco, the soaring Tintoretto frescoes in the Doge’s Palace, and the wide range of masterworks in any of a dozen churches nearby. He didn’t seem to notice the classical façade of La Fenice, even though the theatre occupied many of his evenings. Charlotte spent her days sketching the very things David came here to study.

  Now this. She shook her brother by the shoulders.

  “What did you do now? What did you swim?” Her heart sank, because she could guess the answer.

  “Canal,” David moaned. “You’re hurting me, Lottie.”

  “I should bang your thick head on this stone floor. That canal is a cesspool.”

  “George swam it. Swam the whole length of the damned thing. Nothing for it but to try. Taunted me.”

  “He did it in summertime, idiot.” How Byron avoided drowning or disease baffled Charlotte. "Tell me all of it."

  “Little to tell. Two of the fellows said I wouldn’t make it to the bridge. Douglas supported me. Bet a florin on me.”

  Charles Douglas, David’s worthless tutor, aided and abetted his ruin. Her complaint letters to their guardians from Amsterdam and Geneva had gone unanswered, or at least their answers hadn’t followed her all the way to Venice.

  Perhaps I wasn’t explicit enough. She hung her head. Of course she hadn’t been. She wanted help, not to be dragged home ignominiously. If they knew about Aunt Florence and the Duchess of Horsham, they would leave David to the mercies of Douglas and demand Charlotte's return. Charlotte would never get to see the glory of Rome. She couldn’t bear it.

  David ignored her scowls and droned on. “Water was too damned cold, ten feet out, I couldn’t move my legs. I got to the middle and sank, so they had to pull me out. Sent a gondolier to drag me in. Laughing, all of them. Said I smelled like a fishmonger, and hired two fishermen to haul me home.”

  She finished warmi
ng and drying his torso and limbs and covered him with the blanket.

  “Th… thanks Lottie. C… c... cold.”

  When she lifted his head over an empty basin and poured warm water over it, he yelped. She showed no mercy.

  “Quiet, or I’ll use cold water." She rubbed soap into his hair and rinsed. She tossed the water out the kitchen door, into the canal, and repeated the process two more times, until the stink of canal water lessened.

  It took two hours to make him fit for his own bed. Charles Douglas, the worthless tutor, still had not returned.

  Salvatore Caresini gave the old woman a gentle pat on the shoulder and assured her again that the cyst on her leg would not kill her. She only came for the attention, and he didn’t mind giving it. Too many of the old ones, like Venice itself, sank deeper into decay and death every day, in spite of Salvo’s struggle to stem the tide.

  He thought of his uncle, wallowing in his own filth in the crumbling Palazzo del Gardesani, along the Rio de Verona, still living in the old days, the time before Napoleon took his revenge on the city and sold it to the Austrians. Salvo ought to have checked on the old man two days ago, his mother had reminded him at breakfast, but he could not bring himself to face another hopeless situation, not when so many who needed his help were happier to get it.

  He smiled at the elderly patient and helped her to the door. His mother stood outside it. She pushed her way in and shut the door on his receiving parlor. “Toto, a woman, an Englishwoman, comes to seek help. She looks wealthy enough to pay well. Find your badly neglected charm and use it, or another physician will snatch up this client.”

  He cringed at her use of his pet name, and even more at her assumption he needed wealthy clients. “Perhaps I should discover her problem and then decide if I can help.”

  “Of course you can help! You are the best physician in Venice!” Signora Caresini snapped. She stood with pride, squaring her shoulders. He laughed and kissed her cheek.

  “I do what I can, Mama. Send this paragon in.”

  “Please Toto, perhaps she will bring us enough to hire a tutor for the boys.” She pulled at her skirt and twisted it in a rough hand. “Be careful, though. This one comes without chaperone or maid.”

  His heart sank. Please God, not another lonely widow. In the four years since his wife had died, a parade of such women had found cause to seek the attentions of a young widower, even one with three children to raise and a mother with hawk-like eyes.

  The woman who entered wore no widow’s weeds. She looked young, naïve, and frightened. Very frightened.

  “Dr. Caresini? You must come. Please, you must come!”

  Frantic patients came to Salvo daily. Often, soft words calmed them, so he could see to their problems and send them on their way. “Come, sit, Madam. Tell me your problem, and we will decide what must be done,” he soothed.

  “No, you must come,” she demanded, feet planted in front of his examination table. His physician’s eye saw no injury, no illness. She looked, in fact, like the picture of robust good health. She also looked devilishly attractive, with rich, dark hair, a lush body, and sparkling hazel eyes. No wonder his mother had warned him.

  “What is this urgent problem, Miss . . .”

  “Tyree, Lady Charlotte Tyree. My brother is ill. He worsens hourly.”

  Lady? This could be trouble, indeed. How sick must her brother be to send her here with no companion?

  “Tell me exactly what has happened. Be as clear as you can. Leave out no detail.” Details helped him, but also his patients; they calmed down when he forced them to think. He gestured to a chair, but his client failed to notice.

  Her words tumbled out like a spring flood, while she remained standing. Her hands, long-fingered and graceful, traced expressive gestures in the air. Unusual in an Englishwoman. He shook away the thought and pulled his eyes away from her hands, only to land on her abundant curves.

  Focus, Salvo! He forced his attention to her words.

  “He had to be dragged from the canal. They—”

  Alarm prickled the hairs on the back of Salvo’s neck. He forced her to describe her brother’s dip in the canal again, and her reason for coming.

  “When did the fever start?” he demanded.

  “Last night. For two days, he seemed better, if a bit warm, but then the fever rose. Now he raves, out of his mind. You must come.”

  Alarm turned to silent cursing. “Where are your apartments?”

  She told him the location of their rented rooms, near the theatre that was located on the other side of the Grand Canal.

  “How did you get here?”

  “I paid the traghetti, the ferrymen, to ferry me across at San Samuele.”

  And she walked from there. Foolish woman.

  Salvo reached the door in two long strides. “Giacomo,” he called to his assistant, “Summon Paolo to be ready. You may take over the patients here.”

  “Paolo?” Lady Charlotte demanded.

  “My boatman. It will be much faster,” Salvo said over his shoulder while he packed a bag. The damned canal breeds illness like seaweed. Salvo thought the city safe when the weather cooled, but he had no recourse when a fool decided to plunge in. “Come, come, Lady Charlotte. We have no time to dawdle.”

  Aren’t doctors grey-haired, stooped, and slow?

  The man who rode behind Charlotte in grim silence was none of those. At the first sight of him, she had almost turned around, certain she had the wrong house. She fought the temptation to turn and look back at him. Were his eyes as piercing as she remembered? His shoulders as broad?

  When she described David’s condition, the man's repose had transformed into a headlong rush in the blink of an eye. Pure, masculine power radiated from him. Within moments, he called to his assistant to take over the office, mumbled instructions to the old woman, who watched Charlotte anxiously, and saw Charlotte into a bobbing gondola. She had leaned on his palpable strength and allowed herself to be seated to the front.

  The boat turned out of the Rio della Fescada and cut swiftly across the water of the Grand Canal. Charlotte turned. When she glanced behind her, she assured herself that she was only looking at the boatman who navigated great skill. If her eyes also scanned the man sitting behind her, well, he sat in the way, didn’t he? The boatman, Paolo, gave her a cheeky grin and raised an eyebrow. She bounced back. A soft chuckle from the rear seat heated her cheeks.

  “We’ll be there in moments,” Dr. Caresini’s voice rumbled across the boat, deep and reassuring. “See, here we turn at the Rio del Duca.”

  Charlotte ran to keep up with the doctor’s long strides. His abrupt stop in David’s room did not reassure her. He examined David, first with his eyes, and then with large, but surprisingly gentle, hands. He prodded David’s belly, bringing a heart-rending moan of pain from the patient. He opened David’s shirt and ran a finger along the rose spots there, before leaning over to place his ear over the patient’s heart. His frown deepened at every step.

  When he stood, he ran a hand through his thick, black hair and let out a stream of Italian words Charlotte didn’t understand. She assumed they were curses; that did not reassure.

  “Putrid fever,” he said. “Far advanced. His heart has slowed. He will require close care. Has your maid nursing experience?”

  “I—” Speak up, Lottie. What business is it of his that you are here without a chaperone or personal maid? “I will see to my brother myself.”

  She felt as if his eyes could pierce right through her. “No. That will not do,” he said.

  “I beg to tell you, I have more nursing experience than I care to remember. I nursed both our parents through their last days.” And every ill servant, ailing child, and stray animal who wandered through the estate.

  His intense scrutiny made her uneasy.

  I know what he sees. A woman past her youth, firmly on the shelf. That she also skirted social ruin, Charlotte chose not to remember and didn’t plan to tell him.

 
; “What of your brother’s valet?”

  “His tutor, Charles Douglas, ran as soon as he saw how ill David became. I believe he squats in Byron’s house,” she said, bitterness giving heat to her words. “Give me instructions. I will do this.”

  He reached into his bag and pulled out an envelope of powders. “Willow bark may help with fever and pain. Putrid fever may spare his caregiver vomiting and other unpleasant manifestations, but keeping fluids in him is vital. I will instruct your kitchen to provide clean, boiled water and broth as often as someone can get it into him. Cool cloths to his person whenever the fever spikes. Aside from that, we must wait.”

  “Is that all I can do?”

  “Not you. I will send someone.”

  He pulled out a small notebook and looked at her expectantly. “What is the name of my patient?”

  “David Tyree.”

  He raised an impatient eyebrow and frowned at her. “And you are Lady Charlotte. Is there not a title?”

  Charlotte drew in breath and let it out in a rush. “The Right Honorable , The Earl of Ambler,” she told him. His frown deepened. Is our doctor a republican?

  “Age?”

  “Twenty.”

  “He has not yet reached his majority. His guardian should be notified.”

  “His guardians—all three of them—are in London.”

  “Are they also yours?” Disapproval etched itself in every line of his face.

  She nodded. Insufferable man.

  He snapped his notebook closed without asking their names. Thank God. She dreaded them uncovering this current mess. Something in the look on his face frightened her.

  “Will he live?” she whispered.