In the 23rd installment of the bestselling Aunt Dimity series, a dark and stormy night kicks off a ghost chase in rural England On a dull and dreary October day, Lori Shepherd and her husband Bill set off for the historic town of Rye, on the southeast coast of England, for a quiet weekend together without the kids. Bill must first pay a visit to a reclusive client--but after Lori drops him off, a powerful storm drives her off course and leaves her stranded in an ancient, rambling inn called The King's Ransom. When Lori is spooked by ghostly noises in the night, Aunt Dimity reminds her rather tartly that not all ghosts intend to harm the living. But the longer Lori is stuck at the inn, the stranger things seem. She learns that the inn was once a hangout for smugglers, and that it's riddled with secret tunnels the smugglers used to reach a network of hidden caves. Then there's the inn's cook--a brawny, gruff ex-con--who seems to have a beef with a mysterious French guest. Are the noises Lori hears made by the spirits of long dead smugglers? Or should she be more worried by the inn's living inhabitants? Joining forces with her new friend Bishop Wyndham, and guided by Aunt Dimity's wise counsel, Lori sets out to discover once and for all who--or what--is haunting The King's Ransom. Nancy Atherton is the bestselling author of twenty-three Aunt Dimity Mysteries. The first book in the series, Aunt Dimity's Death , was voted "One of the Century's 100 Favorite Mysteries" by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. She lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. One   It was half past eleven on a blustery Tuesday night in mid-October. My ten-year-old sons were asleep in their room, my baby daughter was asleep in the nursery, and the family cat was asleep in my husband's favorite armchair. After a tumultuous evening involving a dead mouse, an emergency diaper change, and an illicit game of cricket in the living room, my husband and I had retreated to the master bedroom, but we weren't asleep.   Bill was sitting upright against his pillows, perusing a sheaf of densely printed legal documents. It wasn't my idea of a riveting bedtime read, but as an estate attorney with a wealthy and demanding clientele, Bill sometimes had to bring his work to bed with him.   I didn't mind. I was so tired that I wouldn't have cared if Bill had brought his bicycle to bed with him. I wasn't sure why I felt so weary, and I hoped that a good night's sleep would cure whatever ailed me, but in the meantime, I was beat.   I turned off the light in the bathroom, climbed into bed, and flopped back on my pillows with a heavy sigh. At the sound of my sigh, Bill set aside his papers and eyed me warily. Twelve years of married life had taught him to choose his next words with care.   "Something wrong, Lori?" he asked cautiously. "Besides the mouse, the exploding diaper, and the smashed vase, I mean."   "No," I said, staring fixedly at the ceiling. "Nothing's wrong. Not one thing." I sighed again. "My life is perfect."   I wasn't exaggerating. Apart from an occasional domestic disaster, my life was nothing short of a dream come true. My husband was the best of men, my children were as bright as they were healthy, and our cat was an excellent mouser. We lived in a fairy-tale cottage made of honey-colored stone near a picture-postcard village nestled snugly among the rolling hills and the patchwork fields of the Cotswolds, one of England's prettiest rural regions.   Although Bill and I were Americans, as were our twin boys, Will and Rob, and our baby, Bess, we'd lived near the small English village of Finch for more than a decade. Bill ran the international branch of his family's venerable Boston law firm from an office overlooking the village green; Will and Rob attended Morningside School in the nearby market town of Upper Deeping; and I juggled the ever-changing roles of wife, mother, friend, neighbor, and community volunteer. Nineteen-month-old Bess did what nineteen-month-olds do, which meant that Stanley, our sleek black cat, spent much of his time avoiding her.   Bill's father, William Willis, Sr., had made our happiness complete when he'd retired from his position as the head of the family firm and moved to England to be near his grandchildren. A handsome widower with courtly manners and a sizable bank account, Willis, Sr., had broken many a hopeful heart in Finch when he'd met and married his second wife, the well-known watercolorist Amelia Bowen. The pair lived in Fairworth House, a graceful Georgian mansion just up the lane from our cottage.   Finch was no more than a stone's throw from Willis, Sr.'s modest estate, across a humpbacked bridge that spanned the Little Deeping River. A stranger might mistake the village for a somnolent backwater, but those of us who called it home were never at a loss for something to do.   In our spare time we fished from the banks of the Little Deeping, hiked the network of footpaths that crisscrossed th