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As the Earl Turns

Lord Micheal Thomas Shamus Patrick the Twelfth Earl of Desmond was born in Callan, Ireland in 1873. He attended university at Oxford and assumed his position as Earl of Desmond and protector of the Irish state at the age of 23, after the late Earl, his father, was "crushed" to death while defending Dublin from the incursion of aggressive female, decidedly English aristocracy. The paper failed to mention that the Earl was at the time of his death involved in romantic horseplay at one of Dublins seedier drinking establishments.
That was probably the last Irish defense of British invasions, that will ever occur on the Emerald Isle. For in the weeks that followed, Micheal Patrick fell madly in love with a British born aristocrat lady Elizabeth Deftsy. Where Michael was stoic, Beth as her friends called her,  was playful. Where the Earl insisted upon custom and manners. The Lady, while demure, held curtsy's and formal balls in piteously low regard. He was subdued as a Dublin rain, and she was  gregarious as the London stage. They were at once, perfect for one another.
So at 23 herself, Beth found herself sharply uprooted from the high streets and courtesans of London, and dropped ankle deep in the puddled cobbles and dimly lit pubs of dripping Dublin.
Beth didn't hate it, quite the opposite. She had the arm of the only eligible Earl in the entire country, she drew fits from the drunken Irishmen, and she realized quite quickly and to her surprise that it did not rain constantly. April through July were pleasantly sunny and bright, and it reserved the constant rain for October through February, and in Elizabeth's view who wanted to be outside in those months anyway.
          The Earl however, was restless, the pomp and circumstance of carrying the Moniker of landed gentry was exhaustingly boring and intolerably redundant. There were no coastal attacks to defend. No populace to manage, or uprisings to quell. There was in fact, not much to do at all, outside of watching it rain, reading, playing cards, or giving oneself over to the drink.
Michael stared out the window all afternoon that dismal day in November. He watched the rain fall on the housemaid as she bustled to market, her ankle length plain black dress held several inches aloft, as her rain boots ignored a thousand tiny lakes. He watched as a sodden four horse team clomped with a decided slosh, as it delivered Meghan O'Malley to the Church Street door. He looked on languidly at dinner as the street lamps were lit by a rain suited youth, a shadowy flash of black slicker hopping lamp to lamp. Michael though dully to himself, "so now the rain can be warmly illuminated." He shook his head shook his head as some genius idea of not lighting gas lamps on rainy nights could save...and the idea was replaced with the sound of rain on the window pain. Michael again looked on sleepily as drop sized rivulets on the red pane of stained glass, turned to torrents of rushing blood. Micheal had recently befriended an author by the of name of Bram Stoker, and his dark thriller "Dracula" was the rage of the Irish world, and reached even to the rain soaked stain glass windows of Micheal Patrick.