The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(111)

A note on Sera’s music: “The Spanish Ladies” is an old sea shanty, predating the 1700s when it was finally written down; I’ve also used Thomas Moore’s “Oft in the Stilly Night” and “The Last Rose of Summer.” “She Was Born That Day in the Heart of a Boy” is mine, with many thanks to a long-ago French café wall for the titular inspiration.

Sometimes, a piece of history grabs hold of you and won’t let go. For several years (and several books), I’ve searched for a way to put an underwater ballroom into a story. The ballroom is real! There is a nearly identical underwater ballroom at Witley Park in Surrey, a massive estate built in the late nineteenth century by Whitaker Wright, an eccentric millionaire scoundrel. While Witley’s underwater ballroom was built in the 1890s, there’s no reason why it could not have existed in the 1830s at the hands of a man desperate for a monument to his love, as metal and glass submarines had existed for more than a century already. Though I swapped Witley’s Neptune for Highley’s Orion, I borrowed liberally from photos and first-person accounts of visits to the Witley ballroom, which, remarkably, remains intact. I’m deeply indebted to Atlas Obscura and numerous Reddit users for their commitment to understanding the physics and engineering of the ballroom.

As always, I am endlessly grateful to Carrie Feron, Carolyn Coons, and the outstanding team at Avon Books, including Liate Stehlik, Shawn Nicholls, Pam Jaffee, Libby Collins, Tobly McSmith, Carla Parker, Brian Grogan, Frank Albanese, Eileen DeWald, and Eleanor Mikucki. Thank you, also, to Steve Axelrod, who has all the best stories.

I am lucky to have a husband who has never once made me want to storm Parliament and friends who are the very best. Thank you to Eric for unflappable calm; to Lily Everett, Carrie Ryan, and Sophie Jordan for unwavering friendship; and to Bob, Tom, Felicity, and everyone at Krupa Grocery for keeping a table free for me.

And to you, wonderful readers, thank you for trusting me, for reading me, and for sharing so much of yourselves with me. These books are nothing without you. I hope you will all join me in 2018 for my next series, featuring the Bareknuckle Bastards, and some young women you’ll find familiar.

Oh, and as for Sesily and her American, stay tuned.