Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 04] (43 page)

Dear Reader:

For those of you who wondered, Queen Victoria came to the throne in June of 1837 but was not crowned until June 29, 1838.

The Bedchamber Crisis, as the business over Victoria’s ladies came to be known, happened pretty much the way it is related in
Dangerous Lady,
and resulted in Lord Melbourne’s serving two more years as prime minister before the Tories took over. Because his majority was practically nonexistent, his authority was small, and little of note occurred in Parliament during those years. Victoria did eventually appoint a balanced number of Tory ladies, but only after the intervention of Prince Albert. She later blamed her behavior in the incident on her youth and inexperience, and agreed that a ruler should make every effort to appear nonpartisan.

Both Victoria and the Duchess of Kent made honest intentions to reconcile their differences. Progress was slow, however, and it was many years before they did so. In October 1839 Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha arrived in England. Victoria fell in love with him, and four months later she married him. It was he who did the most to bring the duchess back into favor.

Lady Flora Hastings died in July 1839 of the illness that had overtaken her.

For those of you wondering why Letty is a maid of honor rather than a lady-in-waiting, it is because the latter term is late nineteenth century (1862). A maid of honor was an unmarried lady, usually of noble birth, whose duty was to attend the queen. That term dates from 1586. The term
lord-in-waiting
the author took from the London
Times
of April 1839.

The rumor about Wellington’s assassination occurred on April 29, 1839, as described.

The Duke of Grosvenor still owns most of the land in Mayfair. The land is leased to the householders, and freehold properties are much more valuable than those that are not. It will not surprise anyone to learn that a very large part of the Grosvenor fortune derives from these leases.

The heroic achievements of Admiral Robert Rame are, in fact, those of Admiral Henry John Rous, of the Royal Navy. The author has drawn the admiral’s comments on handicapping from
Law and Practice of Horse Racing
(1850) by the Honorable Captain Rous, R.N., as cited in
Newmarket: Its Sport and Personalities
by Frank Siltzer (Charles Scribner, 1923). Admiral Rous was for many years the much respected senior steward of the Jockey Club. All other actions and comments of Admiral Rame derive solely from the author’s fertile imagination.

For those of you who are interested in learning more about the early Victorian period, the author recommends
The Letters of Queen Victoria, A Selection from Her Majesty’s Correspondence Between the Years 1837 and 1861; Melbourne
by Lord David Cecil; and
The Young Victoria
by Alison Plowden. More information on ladies-in-waiting (and maids of honor) can be found in
Ladies in Waiting
by Dulcie Ashdown, and
Ladies in Waiting, From the Tudors to the Present Day
by Anne Somerset.

If you enjoyed
Dangerous Lady,
I hope you will read
Highland Spirits.

Sincerely,

A fourth-generation Californian of Scottish descent, Amanda Scott is the author of more than fifty romantic novels, many of which appeared on the
USA Today
bestseller list. Her Scottish heritage and love of history (she received undergraduate and graduate degrees in history at Mills College and California State University, San Jose, respectively) inspired her to write historical fiction. Credited by
Library Journal
with starting the Scottish romance subgenre, Scott has also won acclaim for her sparkling Regency romances. She is the recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award (for
Lord Abberley’s Nemesis
, 1986) and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. She lives in central California with her husband.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1999 by Lynne Scott-Drennan

cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-4804-0645-2

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