Chapter 1

Regalia was Michael’s blood as much as the sea breeze was the breath of his lungs. He was at home on the sea as much, if not more so, as he was on land. The yearning to feel the exhilaration of the ocean life at times taunted him when he was land bound, and the desire to put his feet on stable ground while floating over the endless ocean waves gnawed at his inner-most being.

Michael was land bound in Chicago for two years. The fluster of ballroom gatherings, social galas and important business meetings – all of which were held in the flamboyant style for which royalty was highly envied, were becoming boring to him. The smell of the sea was beckoning him like the aroma of food would call a hungry person to feast. Business weighed as heavy on his shoulders as a bundle of firewood upon the back of a peasant in some remote country, seeking freedom from his toils.

Michael’s charm often turned raspy and frayed at the edges when he could not  escape the pressures of business as quickly as he desired. No one knew this  better than the servants and his poor wife who had to pretend everything was all  right, even though it wasn’t.  There could be no show of discontentment in Margaret’s visage.  Only the closest onlookers and most astute and perceptive of friends could read the truth that radiated from her eyes; but from the casual onlooker’s point of view, of which there were hundreds, Michael’s family seemed to be storybook perfect.

His partners were dandies whose hearts were like steel bank vaults.  They too played their part in the drama with extreme skill.  Their cordiality was refined to perfection.  They portrayed themselves as men with hearts of compassion and social concern when they were in the public eye, and behaved like demons in private.  They were men who loved to dress in the cloak of artifice and had a strange respect for anyone else who possessed the shrewdness it took to do it as effectively.

Although they knew Michael’s glace’ appearance was donned for affects, they still exhibited a remarkable admiration toward him and his family; for the need to please him, and avoid displeasing him, was vital to their careers.  They, as well as Michael, loved to captivate others by the illusion of happiness and were intoxicated by the power to draw envy and jealousy from all those who wanted what they had, but could not attain it.

Michael certainly was the king of the hill. He had a spacious, sixty-room, three-story mansion adjacent to Lake Michigan with his own private dock and beach, and one thousand acres of beautifully landscaped grounds, not to mention a fleet of merchant ships, and numerous textile mills all over New England. He also had a great deal of control over most of the industrialists and politicians in the city, all of which earned him the unofficial title ‘Baron of Chicago’.

Michael, no doubt, was a man entirely centered on himself. He liked only his own ideas and had very little respect or tolerance for the opinions of others. He felt that coming from a long line of prestigious English noblemen gave him the superior edge in shaping the fashions and opinions by which others should live. It was definitely a distasteful thought for him to think that he should live by their ideas.  There was no doubt that clogged his mind regarding himself as one of the last of the aristocratic gentility that was left over from the royal ranks to suffer among the commonalty of man.

For the most part, Michael’s life was influenced more by his grandfather than his own father.  Michael’s father, Alexander, was a man of military missions in the service of Britain’s Queen Victoria.  As a top-notch engineer, he was needed in British territories around the world to oversee the construction of bridges.

Alexander was a wealthy man in his own right. Although he could have lived the pleasurable life without ever a day of toil, he enjoyed his position as Royal Engineer and the adventure and travel that went with the job.

Alexander had an ironclad will and ordered that Michael be put into a private boarding school.  This served to sadden Victoria’s heart and isolate Michael from her maternal guidance.

But Michael caught the caring eye of his grandfather, Alexander Sr., who wanted to take him under his wing in the absence of Michael’s own father.  He besought his daughter-in-law, Victoria, for permission to take his grandson sailing with him on short shipping jaunts during weekends, vacations and holidays when he was in port.  Secretly, Victoria was pleased that Michael had the guidance of his grandfather.