Dear Reader,
Her Heart for a Compass has been fifteen years in the making. It interweaves two journeys through life: Lady Margaret’s and my own.
It was when I began to research my own ancestry, discovering to my astonishment that my great-great-great-grandparents were the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, that I first encountered their second daughter, Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott. She and I share a given name, our birthdays are within a few days of each other, and we are both redheads. I felt an immediate affinity with her and wanted to know more about her. When very little could be found, my imagination began to take over. Lady Margaret, the heroine of this book, is a courageous woman who fights for her voice to be heard and has the confidence to follow her heart. She is strong and resilient, determined to live her life on her own terms, to empower herself against all odds.
Bringing Lady Margaret to life, I have been transported in my imagination to Scotland, London, Ireland, and New York, learning so much about my ancestry and the history of each of these locations along the way. Writing through the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been a relief to escape into Lady Margaret’s world and the huge cast of characters who share the book with her, some real, some wholly fictional. The Buccleuch family are not my only ancestors in this book. The Seventh Viscount and Viscountess Powerscourt (Wingfield), who also feature, are my great-great-grandparents.
I am delighted to finally be able to bring my version of Lady Margaret to life. I hope that you can lose yourself in her journey as I have. I hope she inspires you, Dear Reader, to have the confidence to follow your heart as I have learned to do.
Of course, every successful journey requires a helping hand. Mine was provided by Marguerite Kaye, my co-author, the mentor who guided me along the peregrinations of this literary journey. Together, we have forged a new, collaborative method of working, and become close friends in the process. Thank you, Marguerite, for teaching me how to translate the story that was in my head and my heart onto the page, and for helping me to realize my dream of becoming a novelist.
This journey would not have been possible without Rachel Kahan, an outstanding editor. She believed in me and in Lady Margaret from the very beginning and encouraged us both to be stronger and more courageous. Thank you, Rachel, for your attentive eye and insights, and for allowing Lady Margaret the page space she needed to grow into the feisty, fulfilled woman she becomes at the end of her journey.
Thank you to Lisa Milton and all the team at Mills & Boon for your abundant support and enthusiasm for this book. You introduced me to Marguerite and you gave us the fabulous Flo Nicholl to help steer us through the writing process and Becky Slorach, who devised the wonderful cover concept.
Many thanks to Jennifer Hart, Kelly Rudolph, Imani Grady, Kaitlin Harri, Naureen Nashid, Brittani Hiles, Alivia Lopez, and Mumtaz Mustafa at William Morrow for their diligence and professional savvy in bringing Lady Margaret’s story to readers in America.
Thank you to Susan Lovejoy, my walking library who has diligently carried out an enormous amount of the research for this story. Aside from devouring and digesting a raft of books and delving into countless archives, she has an eye for historical detail and arcane facts that has been invaluable in bringing the Victorian world to life and making it as historically accurate as possible.
Camilla Gordon-Lennox also contributed enormously to the research, particularly when our heroine travels across the Atlantic and immerses herself in New York life. Thank you, Camilla, for the American ambiance and for the New Yorkers you found to share the page with Lady Margaret.
Thank you to Jan Miller and Lacy Lalene Lynch from my literary agents, Dupree Miller, in Dallas. You have never, ever stopped believing in my dream of becoming a novelist.
Thanks to everyone at the Royal Lodge, to my own office team and my publicists. Steadfast supporters, who have been pillars of strength for all these years, thank you all. I couldn’t have done it without you.
And finally thank you to my wonderful sister, Jane, whose impressive memory has helped to refresh my mind regarding all our ancestors.
(Signed) Sarah