No Good Duke Goes Unpunished

Author’s Note

Medicine in the 1830s left a great deal to be desired. With virtually no understanding of germ theory, a man could die from far less than a knife wound, and a stabbing came with a very real threat of death, even if the blade missed all the major organs. Of course, when you’re writing a book, none of this occurs to you—especially when you’re writing a hero who is something of a magnet for violence.

Therefore, writers like me are very lucky to have dear friends who happen to be talented doctors. Many many thanks go to Dr. Daniel Medel, who put up with my crazy texts and late-night phone calls about stabbings and knife wounds and bloodletting and nerve damage, and never once told me Temple’s survival was impossible, assuming the knife was somehow luckily and fastidiously clean. Which it was. I promise. It goes without saying that any medical errors in the book are entirely my own.

As with all my books, this one could not have been written without the always-right insight of my literary Sherpa, Carrie Feron, and the hard work of Tessa Woodward, Nicole Fischer, Pam Spengler-Jaffee, Jessie Edwards, Caroline Perny, Shawn Nicholls, Tom Egner, Gail Dubov, Carla Parker, Brian Grogan, Eleanor Mikucki, and the rest of the unparalleled Avon Books team.

As ever, thank you to Sabrina Darby, Carrie Ryan, Sophie Jordan, Melissa Walker, Lily Everett, and Randi Silberman Klett for your help with Temple and Mara’s story, and to Aprilynne Pike and Sarah Rees Brennan for emergency lunch that ended with both fresh ideas and Mara’s heterochromia.

I’ve saved you for last! Thank you for taking this journey with my scoundrels, for loving them as much as I do, and for the endless encouragement online and by mail. I hope you’ll join me for the Fourth Rule of Scoundrels—Chase’s story—in 2014.