This Duchess of Mine (29 page)

T
o be absolutely frank, when Elijah first fainted in the House of Lords some years ago (in both my writing life and in Georgian time), I had no idea how to cure him. So I was fascinated to discover the work of Dr. William Withering (1741-1799). Withering discovered the drug
digitalis
, exactly as described in
This Duchess of Mine
, by tracking down a Gypsy remedy, isolating foxglove, and figuring out how to distill the active ingredient. The depiction of Dr. Withering as taking bold risks with the life of his poor patients is not true; the doctor dedicated much time to charitable medicine.

One fascinating aside: Withering was one of the first victims of academic plagiarism. Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin's grandfather) asked him for a second opinion on a patient with dropsy; shortly afterward Darwin submitted
“An Account of the Successful Use of Foxglove in Some Dropsies and in Pulmonary Consumption”
to the College of Physicians in London, noting Withering's experiments only in a footnote. Withering was furious, and for good reason! But Darwin went on with his life, and while his discoveries were nothing akin to those of his grandson, he did invent an organ
that could recite the Ten Commandments (one has to hope that he dwelt on the eighth).

Unfortunately, the floating prison ships called the hulks also existed. In the Georgian period, these prisons were moored in the Thames, and as Elijah points out, the mortality rate aboard them was fearful. The riot I described is a figment of the imagination, although I borrowed details from the Gordon Riots that took place four years earlier and resulted in the burning of London's notorious prison, the Clink, to the ground.

And finally, I want to acknowledge that the most ratlike character in the book, the Duke of Villiers's solicitor Templeton, is indeed named after a famous rat. The rat in
Charlotte's Web
is greedy but I may have maligned his character here. After all, the original Templeton saves Charlotte's children, albeit for a price, whereas Villiers's Templeton does the opposite.

My books are like small children; they take a whole village to get them to a literate state. I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to my personal village: my editor, Carrie Feron; my agent, Kim Witherspoon; my website designers, Wax Creative; and last, but not least, my personal team: Kim Castillo, Franzeca Drouin, and Anne Connell. I am so grateful to each of you!

I want to add a special thank you to Professor Lenny Cassuto, a brilliant chess player who has given me advice throughout the writing of this series. Dr. Cassuto designed Jemma and Elijah's final game, and even played it out in his head (though not blindfolded).

The village would wither, of course, without the cheerful support of my readers. One of the parts of being an author that I most enjoy is writing an “extra chapter” for each novel I publish, one that springs directly from my readers' responses to my work.

In the month or so after
This Duchess of Mine
publishes, please hop onto the Bulletin Board attached to my website (www.eloisajames.com) and vote for the chapter you wish I'd included in this novel! And if you'd like to read the “extra” chapters of earlier books, just look on the website under Readers' Menu.