Now Face to Face

Dedicated to my dear sister,
Carmen Marie Smith Rawlinson.
She made the life of everyone who knew her special.
I am grateful that she lived long enough
to read this manuscript.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child,
I thought as a child: but when I became a man,
I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now
I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three;
but the greatest of these is charity.

—I C
ORINTHIANS
13:11–13

H
ISTORICAL
N
OTE

S
PIES, TREACHERY, FINANCIAL DISASTER, AMBITION, ROMANCE
—elements of fiction and elements of history weave themselves like silver threads into the setting of
Now Face to Face.

This book is, of course, first and foremost a novel, and it recounts the loves, losses, and adventurous life of a fictional character, Barbara, Lady Devane. Yet the historical period in which Barbara’s story unfolds is important, too, to the action, as human lives are always affected by the times in which they are lived.

Now Face to Face
takes place in the early eighteenth century, when two men, cousins, claim the right to wear the crown of England, and each has just cause. A tangled web of events preceded the rival claims. By the time the Elector of Hanover, George, crossed the English Channel in 1714 to be crowned King of England, division was deep within the minds of many of his English subjects. Who was the right and proper king? Was it George, who had never set foot in England, but crossed over now from Hanover? Or was it James III, he who had been born twenty-six years earlier in London, and was a direct descendant of the Scottish House of Stuart, and of a king of England, James I?

George or James?

James was the third of his line to bear that name, and the two Jameses before him had both been kings of England. One, James I, was his great-grandfather; the other, James II, was his father.

To tangle the knot further, this man, this James III—or the Pretender, as he was known among those loyal to George I—was half-brother of Anne, the English queen who had just died in 1714. Years earlier, in 1688, Anne and her sister, Mary, who was queen before Anne, had turned their backs on this little half-brother born late in life to their father and his second wife. Many said that in the last years of Queen Anne’s reign, as one after another of her children had died, and it became clear that there would be no heirs to the throne through her, Anne regretted her earlier betrayal and wished the crown to go to the man she’d seen only as a tiny baby. He was a grown man now, a half-brother, but a brother she had betrayed. And certainly courtiers and ministers in her court intrigued—whether out of guilt over past deeds or from simple expediency—to have the crown return to him who owned it by right of birth: James III.

But there was a law, passed in 1702, that the one who wore the English crown must be Protestant. Bloody religious and civil wars marked the years between Queen Elizabeth’s reign and Queen Anne’s. James III was Catholic. George of Hanover was the closest living relation to the House of Stuart who was also Protestant.

In 1688, James III, while yet a baby, was removed from London by his mother and father, then King and Queen of England, who feared for their lives. They lived to see the King’s own grown daughters, Mary and Anne, declare open rebellion against their father and assume, one after the other, the English throne. Mary’s husband, the Dutchman William of Orange, invaded England in 1688, at the invitation of most of its nobility. And for the rest of his life, King James intrigued to be returned to his throne; he led two invasions to try to accomplish this. His son, James III—the Pretender who figures in the story of
Now Face to Face
—also plotted, also invaded.

Intrigue, espionage, betrayal, lies, not to mention true love—these are the stuff of history, and of fiction. Welcome to
Now Face to Face.

L
IST OF
C
HARACTERS

T
AYLOR
F
AMILY AND
F
RIENDS

B
ARBARA
M
ONTGEOFFRY,
C
OUNTESS
D
EVANE
—Widow of Roger, Earl Devane, and granddaughter of the Duchess of Tamworth

T
HÉRÉSE
F
USEAU
—Devoted servant of Barbara

H
YACINTHE
—A ten-year-old slave, servant of Barbara

A
LICE
S
AYLOR,
D
UCHESS OF
T
AMWORTH
—Barbara’s grandmother and the widow of England’s famous General Richard Saylor

A
NTHONY
R
ICHARD
S
AYLOR
(“T
ONY”), THE
S
ECOND
D
UKE OF
T
AMWORTH
—Grandson of the Duchess of Tamworth and inheritor of his grandfather’s title and land; cousin of Barbara