Book excerpt: As millions of viewers across the globe thrill to the assembly room exploits of the Bridgerton family and wait with bated breath for Lady Whistledown’s latest dispatch from Almack’s, scandal has never been so delicious. In a world where appearances were everything and gossip was currency, everyone had their price. From a divorce case that hinged on a public demonstration of masturbation to the irresistible exploits of the New Female Coterie, via the Prince Regent’s dropped drawers and Lady Hamilton’s diaphanous unmentionables, The Real Bridgerton pulls back the sheets on the eighteenth century’s most outrageous scandals. Within these pages Lord Byron meets his match, the richest commoner in England falls for a swindler with a heart of stone, and forbidden love between half-siblings leaves a wife and her children reeling. Behind the headlines and the breathless whispers in Regency ballrooms were real people living real lives in a tumultuous, unforgiving era. The fall from the very pinnacle of society to the gutter could be as quick as it was brutal. If you thought that Bridgerton was as shocking as the Georgians got, it’s time to think again.