Only a Duke Will Do

  “No son of mine shall ever be prime minister,” Simon said solemnly.

  She cast him a bemused look. “Why not?”

  “Because I want something better for him.”

  “Like what?”

  His heart full, he brushed a kiss on her damp brow. “This, sweetheart. A deep and abiding love.”

  She gazed up at him with shining eyes. “Why can’t he have both? You do.”

  “Ah, but I was lucky, and I doubt lightning will strike twice. Politics does not generally make for happy marriages. Look at my grandfather’s.”

  “That only went badly because he was such a monster.”

  “Perhaps.” He gazed at his son. “Or perhaps politics creates men like him—sad little Napoleons who can’t bear not to be in control of everything, even their personal lives. Which means they have to beat down whomever they can’t control.”

  Stroking his wife’s hair, Simon marveled again at his good fortune. “Either way, if I have to choose between a happy marriage or a future in politics for my son, the happy marriage will win hands down.”

  Taking the baby from Louisa, he held him for the first time, tears stinging the back of his throat. Life was good. This was good. “Because as Uncle Tobias once said, the best thing a man can ask for in this fickle world is someone to love.”

  Author’s Note

  I admit it—I fudged with history a bit in this book, although not as much as you’d think. Of course there was no Simon as Secretary of War, and Lord Monteith was an invented prime minister (thank goodness). But many of the other political characters and events are real (although I admit to making the events more dramatic). Lord Sidmouth did resign as Home Secretary in 1822, having never recovered from the backlash after the Peterloo Massacre. And while Lord Castlereagh never resigned—he committed suicide in 1822—Liverpool replaced both him and Sidmouth with ministers who were more progressive than their predecessors.

  Sir Robert Peel (during the era in which my book is set, he had not yet gained the title) did become Home Secretary, and he did push through the Gaols Act in 1823. George Canning did become Foreign Secretary.

  And the new and improved cabinet was able, after Liverpool finally retired in 1827, to push through what Simon wants implemented in my book—parliamentary reform, which affected how people were elected to the House of Commons, and thus how much influence the aristocracy had on legislation.

  The Reform Act of 1832 was considered groundbreaking in its time. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Lord Sidmouth, who was still knocking around in 1832, voted against it.

  Other bits of real history in this book include the material about Newgate and prison reform. Mrs. Fry’s Association genuinely changed how prisons were governed, and her brother-in-law did serve in the Commons. And Louisa wouldn’t have been the first duchess to dabble in politics. Long before the time of my book, Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, stumped for her husband’s political party, along with all her friends.

  Sadly enough, the material about Princess Charlotte is also true—she did die horribly in childbirth after two days of labor, although history is still not sure whom to blame.

  And there really was a razing of Poona and a Battle of Kirkee. The British did win against overwhelming odds, but the Governor-General had no part in it. The real man who inspired everyone to fight was Mountstuart Elphinstone, the British Resident at Poona. He’d never fought in any army, but still managed to lead them to victory after assuming command. With such an impressive man for a model, how could I resist giving his role to my hero?