The Reluctant Heiress by Eva Ibbotson

Guy is a self-made man. A foundling who worked his way up into the upper echelon of society, but doesn't care particularly for its trappings (he actually refused a knighthood). Tessa is a princess who has fallen on hard times, but doesn't mind because she lives to serve art. Nerine is Guy's insufferable fiance who finds it hard to be in love with anyone because she is so incredibly in love with her own face.

I feel like Ibbotson enjoyed writing this. I feel like she wrote it with tongue firmly in cheek. I feel like she would be a freakin' hoot to hang out with. All this is based on nothing except for her strangely unrealistic fluffy historical romances that don't seem to be based in any sort of factual reality and yet are still amazingly un-put-downable.

"Maxi's face fell. He had spent five minutes arranging the feather in his hat at an angle which would give pleasure to his intended, and though he tried not to be vain about his legs, he would have been foolish not to know that few men could carry off lederhosen the way he could."

"The English were swine of course, everyone knew that, but they did understand breakfast."

That, in a nutshell, is why I must now hunt down the rest of Ibbotson's books and read them all.

Previously: A Countess Below Stairs.