My Indian prince, Kasi Rao, was indeed the only legitimate heir to the Holkar region of central India, a region that Richard Colley Wellesley, when he was governor-general of India, dearly wished to acquire. Wellesley was determined to dispose of Jawsant Holkar and replace him with his addled but legitimate half-brother, Kasi Rao. Given these basic facts, I have juggled events to suit my plot. It was not Kasi Rao’s father who imbibed too much cherry brandy and ended up under restraints, being fed on milk. It was instead his brother Jawsant, and at least one historian has suggested that Jawsant’s addiction resulted from his terrifying remorse after ordering the execution of Kasi Rao. I took an author’s privilege by granting my Kasi Rao an altogether longer and happier life with Mrs. Malabright.

The battle against migraines, megrims, or, as first mentioned in medieval English, the mygrame and other euyll passions of the head, has been documented for at least two thousand years. The cures that Quill had undergone prior to this novel (his encounters with camphor, sneezing powders, leeches, Indian hemp, and opium) were doled out to unhappy migraine patients in the 1800s. For anyone interested in the viability of Quill’s personal—and, I am certain, unusual—source of migraines, there are documented cases in which migraines follow sexual intercourse. I am indebted in these details to a wonderful book written by Dr. Oliver W. Sacks entitled Migraine: The Evolution of a Common Disorder. I hasten to add that Sudhakar’s dose of tree-frog poison is purely fictional. In 1998, The New Yorker reported that the future of pain management may lie in poison secreted by an Ecuadorian frog, the Epibpedobates tricolor, whose venom is proving to be seventy times more potent than morphine. It is my earnest hope that all migraine sufferers will receive a miraculous cure akin to Quill’s, whether due to an Ecuadorian frog or to less-exotic drug treatment.

About the Author

About the Author

ELOISA JAMES is also the author of the acclaimed novels Potent Pleasures and Midnight Pleasures. She is a professor of English literature who lives with her family in New Jersey. Visit Eloisa James at www.eloisajames.com or visit our website at www.bantamdell.com.

Copyright

Published by
Dell Publishing a division of
Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036

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, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2001 by Eloisa James

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address:

Delacorte Press, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.