Now Face to Face

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Historical Note

  List of Characters

  Fall

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Winter

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Spring

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Summer

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Fall

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Winter

  Chapter Sixty

  Spring

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Also by Karleen Koen

  Copyright

  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 CORINTHIANS 13:11–13

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  SPIES, 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.

  LIST OF CHARACTERS

  TAYLOR FAMILY AND FRIENDS

  BARBARA MONTGEOFFRY, COUNTESS DEVANE—Widow of Roger, Earl Devane, and granddaughter of the Duchess of Tamworth

  THÉRÉSE FUSEAU—Devoted servant of Barbara

  HYACINTHE—A ten-year-old slave, servant of Barbara

  ALICE SAYLOR, DUCHESS OF TAMWORTH—Barbara’s grandmother and the widow of England’s famous General Richard Saylor

  ANTHONY RICHARD SAYLOR (“TONY”), THE SECOND DUKE OF TAMWORTH—Grandson of the Duchess of Tamworth and inheritor of his grandfather’s title and land; cousin of Barbara

  MARY, LADY RUSSEL—Tony’s sister; Barbara’s cousin

  CHARLES, LORD RUSSEL—Husband of Mary, and former lover of Barbara

  ABIGAIL, LADY SAYLOR—Tony’s mother; daughter-in-law of the Duchess of Tamworth

  DIANA, LADY ALDERLEY—The Duchess of Tamworth’s daughter; mother of Barbara

  CLEMMIE—Servant of Diana, Lady Alderley

  LOUISA, LADY SHREWSBOROUGH (“AUNT SHREW”)—Sister-in-law of the Duchess of Tamworth; great-aunt of Tony and Barbara

  SIR ALEXANDER PENDARVES—Friend of Louisa, Lady Shrewsborough

  SIR JOHN ASHFORD—Neighbor and oldest friend of the Duchess of Tamworth

  JANE CROMWELL—Daughter of Sir John Ashford; Barbara’s
childhood friend

  THE REVEREND AUGUSTUS CROMWELL (“GUSSY”)—Husband of Jane; secretary to the Bishop of Rochester

  PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON (“WART”)—Friend of Barbara

  PHILIPPE, PRINCE DE SOISSONS—Cousin to the royal family of France; friend of the late Roger, Lord Devane

  ANNIE, PERRYMAN, TIM—Servants of the Duchess of Tamworth in her country residence, Tamworth Hall

  HOUSE OF HANOVER

  GEORGE I—King of England as well as Elector of Hanover; born in Hanover

  GEORGE, PRINCE OF WALES—Heir to the throne through his father, George I

  CAROLINE, PRINCESS OF WALES

  TOMMY CARLYLE—A courtier in the court of George I

  ROBERT WALPOLE (“ROBIN”)—Minister of George I

  LORD TOWNSHEND—Minister of George I; brother-in-law of Robert Walpole

  LORD SUNDERLAND—Minister of George I and rival of Walpole and of Lord Townshend for the King’s favor

  DUCHESS OF KENDALL—Mistress of George I

  HOUSE OF STUART AND JACOBITE FOLLOWERS

  JAMES III (“JAMIE”)—Known as the Pretender, born heir to the throne of England; cousin of George. His followers were called Jacobites.

  LAURENCE SLANE (ALIAS OF LUCIUS, VISCOUNT DUNCANNON)—Devoted friend of and spy for James III

  THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER—Bishop of the Church of England; secret agent for James III in England

  CHRISTOPHER LAYER—Agent for James III in England

  PHILIP NEYOE—Agent for James III in England

  VIRGINIANS

  SIR ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD—Deputy Governor of the colony of Virginia

  COLONEL VALENTINE BOLLING—Landowner whose nephew’s estate, First Curle, was lost to Barbara’s brother in a game of cards

  KLAUS VON ROTHBACH—Bolling’s nephew by marriage; captain of Bolling’s ship

  COLONEL EDWARD PERRY—Landowner; neighbor of Barbara

  BETH PERRY—Colonel Perry’s daughter

  MAJOR JOHN CUSTIS—Landowner; knowledgeable on gardens and tobacco seed

  JOHN BLACKSTONE—Servant indentured for his part in the Jacobite invasion of 1715 and overseer for Barbara

  ODELL SMITH—Overseer for Barbara on First Curle

  MARGARET COX; MAJOR JOHN RANDOLPH—Neighbors of Barbara in Virginia

  KANO, SINSIN, BELLE, MAMA ZOU, JACK CHRISTMAS, MOODY, GREEN, CUFFY, QUASH—Slaves on First Curle

  Fall

  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.

  Chapter One

  ON THE FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER IN THE YEAR OF 1721, A GALLEY with a center mast and one sail glided through the waters of the James River in His Majesty King George I’s Royal Colony of Virginia. It was manned by slaves on oars, and in its middle, as if to emphasize her importance, sat its principal passenger, Barbara Montgeoffry, widow to an earl, and therefore a countess: the Countess Devane. She was young to be widowed already, only one-and-twenty, like the century. She sat small, exquisite yet fragile-looking in her widow’s weeds—clothes solidly black as the manners of the time demanded.

  Other passengers included the Deputy Governor of the colony and the Countess’s servants, a young French maid and a page boy, a slave himself. Two pug dogs, a cow, and six willow baskets with chickens inside were wedged in and around trunks, wooden boxes, barrels, and furniture wrapped in oilcloth.

  The river was wide, the sky blue-white. Birds chirped in trees that stood like ancient sentinels on the banks. For some time now, from the east, from the direction of Williamsburg—the principal town and capital of the colony—clouds had been gathering, rolling over and into each other. At this bend in the river, there were no houses, only fields and trees, a forest of trees, huge trees, primeval trees, as old possibly as the land itself, certainly older than the colony, which had existed upon the shores of this river and three others to the north only since 1607.

  “Governor Spotswood, how much farther?” asked Barbara impatiently.

  She was the reason the Governor had taken time from his duties to man a galley up the James River.

  “We are not half the way yet. Are you unwell again? Shall we land? Perry’s Grove is an hour or so ahead,” Sir Alexander Spotswood answered. An older man, in his fifties, he was deputy governor of the colony. As he spoke, a sudden wind came up to shake the fringe on his buckskin coat and pull at the sides of his wig, a full, formal, dark wig, in the style that the late king of France, Louis XIV, had made fashionable. It was parted in the middle to hang down majestically around the face.

  “I’m quite well, just impatient to reach First Curle.”

  She’d come to Virginia from England to look over her grandmother’s plantation, but there had been a delay of a week while she recovered from a fever. Her arrival was completely unexpected, as was her fever; to the Governor, it was as if a shimmering butterfly had landed unexpectedly in his colony, a butterfly with the most impressive of ancestors. The Countess’s grandfather Richard Saylor had been a renowned and beloved general in the long war with France that had taken up the Governor’s young manhood—and that of so many others—in the 1680s and 1690s and into the beginning of this century. Richard Saylor’s military exploits had earned him a dukedom. The Governor had served under him once upon a time.

  Is there going to be rain? thought the Governor, staring at the sky. The clouds were suddenly closer; he’d swear they had moved at least a mile since the last time he checked them. He looked at the shore, estimating where they were, where to take shelter should it begin to rain.

  He looked over to the young Countess, his fragile black butterfly. He did not imagine her responding kindly to a storm of rain, though she had displayed nothing but beautiful manners so far, beautiful manners that matched a beautiful face the precise shape of a heart, a fair and sweet face.

  The Lionheart’s granddaughter, thought the Governor, for a moment taking time to wonder at the world, at its smallness. Richard Saylor had been called the Lionheart by his soldiers. To imagine that he took the Lionheart’s granddaughter to a river plantation that belonged to the family. What honor. And what obligation. He glanced once more at the sky. The clouds were above them now. It was going to rain.

  Do I land or keep going? he thought. Will she be more angry to be wet or to be delayed? She’s been ill. She’s in mourning. She is not used to our roughness—only look at the entourage she’s brought with her: a French lady’s maid, a page boy, and two pug dogs. Her dogs, her servants, were the talk of Williamsburg. I’d better seek shelter and see that she is protected, he thought.

  Large, determined drops of rain splattered the oilcloth covering the table and chairs, the barrels and trunks. The waters of the river stirred underneath the galley, as if something large and menacing had turned over. Wind rattled the ropes and iron rings on the sail, and the galley rocked back and forth in spite of the steady, powerful rhythm of the rowers. The cow, wedged among boxes and barrels, stretched out her neck toward land and lowed.

  At that moment, the wind struck like a fist, and a basket of chickens fell over, the chickens in them escaping, clucking, squawking, flying into everyone. The dogs began to bark, and the young page boy, Hyacinthe, leaped up to lean dangerously over the side after a chicken.

  “Hyacinthe! Sit down! Never mind the chickens! What is happening, Governor Spotswood? Thérèse! For God’s sake, shut those dogs up!”

  It was the fragile black butterfly, Barbara, who spoke, yanking her page boy back down on the plank seat beside her as she did so.

  Spotswood did not answer, for he was maneuvering his way through the cargo to get to the center mast and let down the sail, which was whipping in its rigging like something desperate to be free. A squawking chicken flew straight into his face. It screamed. But not any louder than he did.

  “Damnation and blast and confounded hands of Jesus Christ! A storm, that is wha
t is happening, Lady Devane. A large one!”

  He sent the chicken whirling overboard. Over them, the sky was rolling ominous, cresting clouds. The day was, in a moment, dark, as if evening had come. Barbara watched yet another chicken cluck and cry and run amok until it flew into the water and disappeared, squawking and screaming to the last, under water that was now foaming and cresting dangerously.

  “Oh no,” said Hyacinthe in French, “your grandmother the Duchess—” He did not finish. But then, he did not have to. Barbara’s grandmother, the Duchess of Tamworth, Richard Saylor’s fierce and indomitable widow, was quite proud of her chickens and cows, wanting them on her plantation in Virginia. She had been specific in her instruction.

  “Never mind,” Barbara said, also in French. “The chickens have no importance as long as we are safe.”

  She raised her face to the rain, to the dark sky, exhilarated rather than frightened by this sudden wildness coming up from nothing around her. During the week she had lain impatiently in the best bed in the best bedchamber in the Governor’s house in Williamsburg, ill with an ague, or fever, which was one of the hazards of coming to this colony, they had warned her of these sudden storms. They’d described ferocious lightning and deafening thunder as part of the storms.

  Carters, Burwells, Lees, Pages, Fitzhughs, Ludwells. They were among the biggest landowners, the Governor had told her, the gentry of this colony, and she was wise enough in her fever to smile upon them as they buzzed around her sickbed like bees, buzzing colonial bees, attracted by her title and family, the surprise of her crossing the ocean to join them. They rode in from their plantations, the Governor said, to see her. They brought her flowers, wines, cooling fever waters; they were profusely apologetic that she should be sick, as if it were their fault she had the ague. They chattered to her of their colony—the vastness of its bay, the size of its rivers, the deadliness of its snakes—as proud of its flaws as they were of its beauties.