Clarissa FieldBeautiful, spirited love child of a nobleman's dalliance with a tempestuous lady, Clarissa is only twelve when she first encounters the dashing officer, Lance Clavering. But she is not too young to fall in love, nor to become the pawn in a deadly game of power and passion which are both her heritage and her destiny. The time is 1715, the place an England rife with civil discontent threatening to explode into revolution. Clarissa is caught up in events which will alter England's history - and lure her into a strange, shadow box future.Is the dashing Lance what he pretends - a heroic, charming lover - or is he the agent of an evil cabal sworn to strip Clarissa of her fortune, her dignity ... perhaps even her life?Is the mysterious young rebel, Dickon Frenshaw - first her jailer, then her salvation - watching over her out of devotion ... or spying on her for those who would see her destroyed?As her dreams of romance and peace first seem to be realized in marriage, then ever more gravely thratened by that same marriage, with only herself to trust, Clarissa must penetrate the long-buried mysteries of her own legacy - and risk a heartbreak more painful than betrayal.