The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons, #2)(114)

“Maybe she has a tendre for him,” Kate suggested.

“Lady Whistledown?” Anthony rolled his eyes. “That old biddy?”

“She might not be old.”

Anthony snorted derisively. “She’s a wrinkled old crone and you know it.”

“I don’t know,” Kate said, scooting out of his grasp and crawling under the covers. “I think she might be young.”

“And I think,” Anthony announced, “that I don’t much want to talk about Lady Whistledown just now.”

Kate smiled. “You don’t?”

He slid into place next to her, his fingers settling around the curve of her hip. “I have much better things to do.”

“You do?”

“Much.” His lips found her ear. “Much, much, much better.”



And in a small, elegantly furnished chamber, not so very far from Bridgerton House, a woman—no longer in the first blush of youth, but certainly not wrinkled and old— sat at her desk with a quill and a pot of ink and pulled out a piece of paper.

Stretching her neck from side to side, she set her quill to paper and wrote:

Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers, 19 September, 1823 Ah, Gentle Reader, it has come to This Author’s attention…





Author’s Note




Anthony’s reaction to his father’s untimely death is a very common one, especially among men. (To a much lesser degree, women whose mothers die young react in a similar fashion.) Men whose fathers die at a very young age are very often gripped by a certainty that they, too, will suffer the same fate. Such men usually know their fears are irrational, but it is nearly impossible to get past these fears until one has reached (and passed) the age of one’s father’s death.

Since my readers are almost exclusively women, and Anthony’s issue is such (to use a very modern phrase) a “guy thing,” I worried that you might not be able to relate to his problem. As a writer of romance, I constantly find myself walking a fine line between making my heroes utterly and completely heroic, and making them real. With Anthony, I hope I struck a balance. It’s easy to scowl at a book and grumble, “Get over it already!” but the truth is, for most men, it’s not so easy to “get over” the sudden and premature loss of a beloved father.

Sharp-eyed readers will note that the bee sting that killed Edmund Bridgerton was actually the second sting he’d received in his life. This is medically accurate; bee sting allergies generally don’t manifest themselves until the second sting. Since Anthony has only been stung once in his life, it’s impossible to know whether or not he’s allergic. As the author of this book, however, I’d like to think I have a certain creative control over the medical conditions of my characters, so I’ve decided that Anthony has no allergies of any kind, and furthermore will live to the ripe old age of 92.

My very best wishes,





About the Author


New York Times-bestselling author Julia Quinn has written twelve Avon romance novels, and is best known for the Bridgerton Series: The Duke and I, The Viscount Who Loved Me, An Offer from a Gentleman, Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, and To Sir Phillip, With Love. She is a graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest. Please visit her at www.juliaquinn.com.