It's with a heavy heart that Jane Austen takes up a new residence at Chawton Cottage in Hampshire. Secretly mourning the lost love of her life, she's stunned to learn that the late Lord Harold Trowbridge has made her heir to an extraordinary bequest: a Bengal chest filled with his diaries, letters, and most intimate correspondence. From these, Jane is expected to write a memoir of the Gentleman Rogue for posterity. But before she can put pen to paper on this labor of love, she discovers a corpse in the cellar of her new home. The dead man was a common laborer, and a subsequent coroner's examination shows he was murdered elsewhere and transported to Chawton Cottage. Suddenly Jane and her family are thrust into the center of a brewing scandal in this provincial village that doesn't take kindly to outsiders in general—and to Austens in particular. And just as Jane glimpses a connection between the murder and the shattering truth concealed somewhere in Lord Harold's papers, violent death strikes yet another unsuspecting vicitim. Suddenly there are suspects and motives everywhere Jane looks—local burglaries, thwarted passions, would-be knights, and members of the royal family itself who want Lord Harold hushed . . . even in death. As the tale of one man's illustrious life unfolds—a life that runs a parallel course to the history of two continents—Jane races against time to catch a cunning killer before more innocent lives are taken. But her determination to protect Lord Harold's legacy could exact the costliest price of all: her own life. Jane and His Lordship's Legacy is historical suspense writing at its very finest, graced with insight, perception, and uncommon intelligence of its singular heroine in a mystery that will test the mettle of her mind and heart. Barron's eighth Jane Austen mystery finds Jane mourning the death of the man she loved, the gentleman rogue, Lord Harold Trowbridge. Jane and her mother have just arrived at their new residence, Chawton Cottage, when Jane is greeted with two surprises: Lord Harold has willed her a box containing his personal correspondence, and the body of one Shafto French is lying in Chawton's cellar. Both discoveries bring trouble to Jane's door, not the least of which is resentment from Lord Harold's family, who object to Jane being given the papers. Jane can't help but be curious about the papers and the murder, leading her to read the former and attempt to solve the latter. Other problems loom as well: a local man named Jack Hinton thinks the deed to Chawton Cottage should be his. Barron's latest, featuring plenty of drawing-room intrigue and long-buried family secrets, will continue to please both historical-mystery readers and the ever-going Austen fan club. Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Readers who hope to recapture, if only briefly, the pleasure of reading Jane Austen for the first time will welcome Barron’s eighth Jane Austen mystery.... Barron has masterfully imitated Austen’s voice."— Publishers Weekly Stephanie Barron is the author of eight previous Jane Austen mysteries. She lives in Colorado, where she is at work on the next Jane Austen mystery. Chapter One All We Have Tuesday, 4 July 1809 Chawton, Hampshire I came into my kingdom today at half-past two--or so much of one as shall ever be granted me on this earth. Four square brick walls, half a dozen chimneys, a simple doorway fronting on the London to Gosport road, and a clutch of outbuildings behind: such is our cottage in Chawton. "Lord, Jane," my mother breathed as she surveyed the unadorned facade of her future abode from the vantage of our hired pony trap, "I should not call it charming , to be sure--but beggars cannot be choosers, you know, and we must admit ourselves infinitely obliged to your excellent brother. Observe, a new cesspit has been dug, and the privy painted! I declare, is nothing forgot that might contribute to our comfort?" I did not reply, for tho' the raw mud near the new plumbing works looked dismal enough, my mother could not hesitate to approve the generosity Edward has shown. A man of considerable property, as the heir of our distant cousins the Knights, my brother chuses to reside at his principal estate of Godmersham, in Kent--but has given us the use of his late bailiff's cottage here in Hampshire. If a former alehouse, fronting the juncture of two highways overrun by coaching traffic, with rough-hewn beams, low-ceilinged rooms, and cramped stairs, may be considered a luxury, then we are bound to be grateful to Edward; he has saved four women the expence of lodgings, and for a household of strict economy and perpetual dependence, that cost must be a saving indeed. There are some among our acquaintance who would hint that, in possessing the freehold of every house in Chawton village, my brother might have done more for his widowed mother, and done it years since; but I will not join my strictures to theirs.1 M