Ten Things I Hate About The Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,129

other matters as well. Illustrations for my books appear on my Pinterest page, too. If your question or concern isn’t answered in these places, please feel welcome to email me at [email protected]. I do my best to answer, though this tends to take much longer than it ought to do.

Acknowledgments

This book would not be possible without the support of:

May Chen, my editor, who encourages, inspires, keeps me from running off the rails, and brings out the best in me;

Nancy Yost, my agent, who’s always there for me, keeps me going through good times and bad, cheers me on or gives me a hard time as necessary;

Larry and Gloria Abramoff, who once again provided a writer’s refuge in a warm clime, along with meals filled with laughter and mental stimulation;

Jessica Fox, who provided invaluable assistance with riding scenes and matters equine;

Claudine Gandolfi, whose beautiful photographs of London sites have not only enhanced my collection of images but offered inspiration;

Patricia Henritze, my incredibly cool sister-in-law, who assisted me with theater history and found me experts I wouldn’t have known how or where to look for;

Bruce Hubbard, MD, who once again helped me navigate between the worlds of nineteenth- and twenty-first-century medicine and explained the changing views about taping fractured ribs;

Mark Hutter, Master Tailor, the Department of Historic Trades and Skills, and Neal Hurst, Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles, both of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, whose expertise has helped me better dress my gentlemen;

Pamela Macaulay, my researcher extraordinaire, who found the elusive Baron de Bérenger, The Long Finn, and other obscure materials to satisfy my obsessive mind;

Susan Holloway Scott, my friend and general consultant on all matters writerly, fashionable, and all the et ceteras, who, in addition to friendship and moral support, provides me daily doses of images to fire my imagination;

Dave Walker and Isabel Hernandez of the Kensington and Chelsea Central Library, London, who not only provided a vast store of useful images and resources, but introduced me to the Baron de Bérenger’s rifle and the fascinating fellow who invented it;

Cynthia, Vivian, and Kathy, my sisters, who are always there for me—

—with bonus thanks to Cynthia, for standing at my side at public events and keeping things moving smoothly, and for the ideas, the shopping, and the talking;

Walter, my husband, who is a genius and a prodigy among spouses, who took over my responsibilities to allow me to complete this book, and whose patient guidance has made him the major part of every book I write.

The blunders are mine, all mine.

About the Author

LORETTA CHASE has worked in academe, retail, and the visual arts, as well as on the streets—as a meter maid—and in video, as a scriptwriter. She might have developed an excitingly checkered career had her spouse not nagged her into writing fiction. Her bestselling historical romances, set in the Regency and Romantic eras of the early nineteenth century, have won a number of awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s RITA®. For more about her past, her books, and what she does and doesn’t do on social media, please visit her website.

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By Loretta Chase

Ten Things I Hate About the Duke

A Duke in Shining Armor

Dukes Prefer Blondes

Vixen in Velvet

Scandal Wears Satin

Silk Is for Seduction

Last Night’s Scandal

Royally Ever After

Don’t Tempt Me

Your Scandalous Ways

Not Quite a Lady

The Last Hellion

The Mad Earl’s Bride

Lord of Scoundrels

Captives of the Night

The Lion’s Daughter

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ten things i hate about the duke. Copyright © 2020 by Loretta Chekani. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

Digital Edition DECEMBER 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-245741-7

Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-245740-0

Cover design by Guido Caroti

Cover illustration by Patrick Kang

Cover photographs by Konstantin L/Shutterstock (sky); Radek Sturgolewski/Shutterstock (manor); 1000 Words/Shutterstock (steps); Konmac/Shutterstock (garden); I Wei Huang/Shutterstock (fountain)

Avon, Avon & logo, and Avon Books & logo are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.

HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.

first edition

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