Free Now Face to Face by Karleen Koen Page A

Rochester to Jamie, who was in Italy. Rochester was the most cautious, most wily of the undiscovered Jacobites, nominal head of all Jacobites in England. “The Hanoverian and his ministers”—Whigs, the other party of Parliament—“are hated as never before. Come at once and claim your throne,” he wrote. So they were.
    Outside, Slane saw King George’s ministers waiting for their carriages. One of the wives among them beckoned to Slane.
    “Let me introduce you,” she said. “Robert Walpole, Lord Townshend, Newcastle, this is Laurence Slane.”
    Slane bowed to the men, listened to the women compliment his performance, their voices high, like those of excited young girls, their eyes soft, admiring. He pretended not to hear how handsome they declared him.
    “Lovely roses,” said one of them. “Are they from an admirer?”
    “I’m sure you have nothing but admirers,” gushed another one.
    Slane divided the roses among the women present, smiling into the eyes of each as he gave over her share. Amused, feeling predestined, he kept one apart and presented it with a bow to Robert Walpole, the minister who had managed to save King George’s ministers from dismissal for their parts in the South Sea Bubble. There was much hatred against Robert Walpole for that. It was on the streets, written in the broadsheets that dripped gossip, sung in the street-corner ballads.
    It was good, this hatred, reminding people that there was another king for the asking. Thank you, round Robin, Slane thought.
    Plump, heavy-lidded, a great maneuverer of men, Walpole stared at the white rose, then at Slane.
    “For His Majesty, King George,” Slane said, “with all my compliments. Tell him that tonight he is in this lowly actor’s thoughts as never before.”
    “Come and seize your throne,” Rochester had written Jamie and his advisers as the public cried out for the heads of King George’s ministers to be delivered upon platters. Invade, now.
    Spring, Slane would tell the Bishop of Rochester when he saw him.
    We invade in the spring.

 

    Chapter Four

    B ARBARA KICKED AT HER HORSE’S SIDE WITH HER BOOT HEELS, urging it forward along the edge of a fence. The fences these Virginians made were called worm fences because they undulated like a worm moving upon the ground. She had drawn a picture for her grandmother in the notebook, showing how the fence timbers met and angled first one way, then, at the next meeting, another. Her grandmother would be amused to have a worm fence, would likely want one made upon Tamworth. She was several miles from the house, at one of the fields in which slaves were harvesting tobacco. Hyacinthe sat silently behind her on the horse. This place consisted of the house in its clearing; then, scattered through cleared woods, fields. Across the river was more land, more fields, watched over by two more overseers.
    Here, in this field, slaves were cutting down tobacco stalks, leaving each stalk atop the small hilled mound on which it had grown, moving on to the next stalk and the next.
    “Not all the tobacco is ready at the same time, ma’am,” said Odell Smith, her reluctant guide in this. “I spend much time riding from field to field judging what should grow a few days, a week more. The weather is my enemy. The tobacco must grow as long as we can allow, but autumn rains, due in another few weeks, or an early frost might ruin what is not yet cut.”
    “So that you have to rely on your instinct,” said Barbara.
    “Instinct and good fortune. If we had more slaves, I could gather in more tobacco.”
    A girl was gathering the scythed stalks by the armful and carrying them to the edge of the fields. Barbara moved her horse to a rough scaffolding there; from it hung drying stalks from yesterday and the day before. She stared at the leaves, only just beginning to dry. This was what Virginians depended upon. This was made into the snuff that all fashionable men inhaled in London and Paris and every city and