Endless Time by Frances Burke

Author:Frances Burke [Burke, Frances]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Historical, SciFi/Fantasy
ISBN: 9780091826420
Google: Yd_pAAAAMAAJ
Amazon: B0098U8YS8
Goodreads: 4567959
Publisher: Century
Published: 1992-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Interesting it was. It was also the longest, most drawn-out affair of the Season, and after nine hours Karen had had enough. She knew she would remember those hours, not only for their exhibition of the most wanton extravagance she was ever likely to witness, but as a panorama of all that Regency England represented when viewed from a position of privilege.

At nine o’clock exactly the horses swept through the portico with a flourish, and Antony and Karen stepped down from their carriage into the entrance lobby. Along with the expectant and unusually punctual crowd of guests, they moved through to the great hall, all green marble and yellow scagliola columns, with a splendid coffered ceiling overhead. There were glimpses of heavily gilded furniture, but most of it was hidden in the crush.

‘Two thousand guests have been bidden,’ said Antony in Karen’s ear. ‘Prinny will have surpassed himself in the spending of public monies.’

‘I hear it whispered everywhere that he wildly overspends his budget,’ Karen agreed. She waved to an acquaintance and bowed acknowledgement of other greetings. It was impossible to have speech in this din unless the speaker placed his lips almost against his auditor’s ear.

Antony did so. ‘The cost of this function will be in the region of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, I am reliably informed.’

Translating that into modern terms, she was aghast. The nation at war, exports frozen (discounting the extremely lucrative smuggling trade), people starving all over the country, and its own Regent spending as if he were a Croesus.

‘It’s wicked,’ she said, but her words were lost in the babble around them.

Joining a favored few, they were guided by footmen into an anteroom hung for the occasion in blue satin with gold embroidered fleur-de-lis. Their invitation had stated that the fete was given to honor the Comte de Provence, the self-styled Louis XVIII of France, and it was with a thrill of expectation that Karen advanced down the room towards a small group standing in the window embrasure.

It was dominated by two enormously fat men. Louis came as a disappointment. The Bourbon features did not lend themselves to majestic presence any more than they’d done for his murdered brother. But the Prince Regent, despite his corpulence, retained some of the famed beauty of countenance that had brought him the sobriquet of ‘Prince Charming’ in his youth. He was certainly not trying to hide his bulk in the scarlet uniform of a British field marshal. Ablaze with orders and festooned in gold braid – even the seams of his coat were embroidered – he emitted an aura of royalty. His jowls rested in the folds of his high cravat and he seemed likely to burst out of his corseted pantaloons, but Karen felt no disillusionment. He was a character, a figurehead, and with all the charm of a practiced beau he raised her from her curtsey, taking her hand and presenting her, himself, to the exiled king of France.

Again she dipped into the exceedingly difficult obeisance considered the due of kings, and which had cost her some effort to perfect.

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