My research for The Dare and the Doctor proved to be rather tricky. Not the doctor part, for I have physicians in my family who also love history and can answer questions about Regency-era bullet wounds. But, unfortunately, I do not have relatives in the horticultural arena. In fact, my personal skill with plants barely qualifies for the “oh yeah, we should water the ficus” level.
Thus I spent a great deal of time learning about the history of the modern rose, and discovered that the Regency and early-Victorian era was (pardon the pun) blooming with growth and change for rosarians. At the time, English and European roses were hearty plants, but their blooms left something to be desired, flowering only once and for a few weeks in the summer. (They were also not the tight-budded, many-petaled flowers we know today—that was another century of cultivation and evolution of roses, so neither here nor there.) Between 1750 and 1830, England began to import roses from the Far East—China roses and tea roses. These were significantly smaller, and since they were bred in a different climate, much more fragile, restricting them to being indoor potted plants. However, they bloomed all season long. The first person to successfully create a hybrid perpetual was a Frenchman named Jean Laffay, who is a towering figure in historical rose circles. I’m afraid I stole his achievement and gave it to Margaret, a few years before he released his hybrid perpetual to the world.
By the way, breeding roses is an incredibly involved process and one, I discovered, I would likely not have the patience for.
Hybrid perpetuals did change the face of the English garden, having the hardiness necessary to make multiblooming roses outdoor plants, something to be featured and not just set up along hedgerows. No one would know this better than the Horticultural Society of London. Founded in 1804, the original members (like many societies of the day) were all men, and women were barred from joining—however, they were allowed to come to the public exhibition of their gardens in Kensington and Chiswick. In 1825, the head of the Horticultural Society was Thomas Andrew Knight, but he was far more interested in fruit trees than roses, so I gave his office to the fictional Sir Kingsley.
Today the society is known as the Royal Horticultural Society, and hosts the internationally renowned Chelsea Flower Show.
There is one aspect of research for which I was much better equipped, having actually been to Greenwich. Growing up in a naval family, I was exposed early to the meaning of Greenwich Mean Time and the amazements of the prime meridian. Nowadays, Greenwich feels like it’s embedded in the center of Greater London, but at the time it was very much its own small, scientifically minded town, and separated from London proper by some distance. The Royal Observatory, where the prime meridian was founded, still stands, as does the Greenwich Hospital. At the time, it was a home for retired sailors (“hospital” referring to a place of hospitality, not medical care), and now it is a part of the Old Royal Naval College. I admit to not having done proper research three books ago, when I decided Greenwich and Greenwich Hospital were the perfect place for Rhys to set up shop, but I worked a bit of that confusion into the novel, hopefully well enough that you didn’t notice.
There was plenty of other research that went into this story, including the layout of Vauxhall and the rules of faro and dueling, as well as just what flowers were in a typical English garden of the period and travel times to and from London. But the heart of The Dare and the Doctor belongs not to the fiddly details but to two friends who found in each other everything they never thought to wish for. And I hope you enjoyed Margaret and Rhys just as much as I enjoyed my time with them.
Happy reading!
Kate Noble