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must make her blush with contrition and shame—he and the Countess are not yet joined in matrimony. The wounds of their past experience remain too raw. There is the weight of public opinion to be braved as well; for though they are saved from the noose, and all the indignities suffered in the weeks before their trial, they remain the object of much speculation. Isobel has retreated from society altogether, while the Earl devotes his attention to securing a suitable overseer for his estates in the West Indies. He has embarked on a plan of visitation to that region in May, and urges Isobel to accompany him; and my friend has not yet told him nay.

Isobel remains in her late husband's London house, the bitter memories of Hertfordshire and Scargrave Manor being as yet too strong. She is freed of her debt, as Lord Harold said, having received from that gentleman a large package of cancelled notes a few days after her liberation. The knowledge of her aunt's betrayal, against the extent of Frederick's goodness, has made my friend sober and sad; but she is young, and possessed of wealth and beauty, and cannot forego living for very long. With time, and forgetfulness, I believe Isobel shall find happiness again in the parity of Fitzroy Payne's mind and youth.

And Lord Harold Trowbridge? A curious man. To have held his high esteem—as I clearly did—is an honour I only understood when our acquaintance was at its close. He is everywhere misunderstood, mistrusted, and disliked, except by those who need his services; but he commands a fearful respect. I have said in the past that I should rather spend an hour with the notorious than two minutes with the dull; and my taste is proved again to be unerring.

I have here a letter penned in Trowbridge's hand—To the light angel—that contains a single phrase only. My dear Miss Austen, it says, we may take this as a lesson: It required a woman to divine what a woman had wrought.

THE END

About the Author

Stephanie Barron, a lifelong admirer of Jane Austen's work, is the author of five previous Jane Austen mysteries. She lives in Colorado, where she is at work on the seventh Jane Austen mystery, Jane and the Ghosts of Netley. As Francine Mathews, she is the author of The Cutout and The Secret Agent. Learn more about both Stephanie Barron and Francine Mathews at www.francinemathews.com.

If you enjoyed Stephanie Barron's Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House, you won't want to miss any of the wonderful mysteries in this superb series. Look for them at your favorite bookseller's.

And turn the page for an exciting preview of Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, coming soon in hardcover from Bantam Books.

JANE

AND THE

GHOSTS OE NETLEY

˜Being the Seventh Jane Austen Mystery˜

by Stephame Barron

Castle Square,

Southampton

Tuesday, 25 October 1808

˜

THERE ARE FEW PROSPECTS SO REPLETE WITH ROMANTIC possibility—so entirely suited to a soul trembling in morbid awe—as the ruins of an English abbey. Picture, if you will, the tumbled stones where once a tonsured friar muttered matins; the echoing coruscation of the cloister, now opened to the sky, the soaring architraves of Gothick stone that oppress one's soul as with the weight of tombs. Vanished incense curling at the nostril—the haunting memory of chanted prayer, sonorous and unintelligible to an ear untrained in Latin—the ghostly tolling of a bell whose clapper is muted now forever! Oh, to walk in such a place under the chill of moonlight, of a summer evening, when the air off the Solent might stir the dead to speak! In such an hour I could imagine myself a heroine straight from Mrs. Radcliffe's pen: the white train of my gown sweeping over the ancient stones, my shadow but a wraith before me, and all the world suspended in silence between the storied past and prosaic present.

Engaging as such visions must be, I have never ventured to Netley Abbey—for it is of Netley I would speak, it being the closest object to a romantic ruin we possess in Southampton—in anything but the broadest day. I am far too sensible a lady to linger in such a deserted