Bride to the King by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland [Barbara Cartland]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782132196
Publisher: BARBARA CARTLAND EBOOKS LTD
Published: 2013-02-10T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

The crowds were moving slowly and were obviously in a mood of gaiety and excitement.

The majority of people on the street, Zosina thought, were peasants who appeared to gape at everything and everybody.

But there were also a number of anonymous figures wearing dominos and masks, who were moving in through a huge doorway lit with dozens of electric globes and festooned with bunting and flags.

Because she felt nervous, Zosina moved closer to the King as he elbowed his way through the crowds to the door of what she guessed must be a beer hall.

She knew they existed in Lützelstein, although she had never actually been in one. She had heard that dances and entertainments often took place in them.

When she walked through the door, holding her domino tightly around her and afraid because the King was moving so quickly that she would be left behind, she found herself first of all in an entrance hall.

There were a great number of people standing about apparently waiting for new arrivals.

They were very noisy and the band playing inside seemed almost deafening.

Then Zosina heard a cry of,

“Gyo! Gyo! Here you are!”

A moment later several men hurried towards them holding out their arms towards the King and when they reached him, shaking his hand effusively and slapping him on the back.

“We’d almost given up waiting for you,” they said. “Come on, Gyo! Everyone’s here but you.”

They started up some stairs and Zosina and Autal followed.

She wondered where they were going and a few seconds later they opened a door off a wide corridor and she realised that they were entering an enormous box.

She felt, with a sigh of relief, that she would not have to cope with the crowds on the dance floor beneath them and she would be able to watch without immediately taking part in the dancing.

Then, as she saw who was waiting for them, she felt her eyes widen in surprise beneath the velvet mask.

A lot of the men had pulled their masks from their faces letting them hang round their necks and she could see that they were all young but a very different type from the sort of gentlemen that she would expect to find in the company of Royalty.

She told herself not to be censorious, but there was something she thought rather common and coarse about the men that made them different to those she had met before.

“Gyo! Gyo!” they cried triumphantly as the King appeared. “We thought you were never coming!”

“Nothing could have prevented me from being here tonight,” the King replied.

“Have a drink. Lakatos has brought us some champagne – what do you think of that?”

“I bet you are several bottles ahead of me already,” the King exclaimed, “but give me time and I will catch you up!”

Somebody handed him a glass which he filled to the brim and he drank deeply before he said,

“Give Autal a drink and Magi. She is with me.”

He jerked his thumb at Zosina as he spoke, but she was

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