Death In Exile — Laurel Schunk

It is 1816 England. Diana Atwood is fleeing for her life after a brutal beating, one of many, by her husband, Henry Rutledge. Rutledge has almost used up Diana's wealth on gambling and whoring, but he knows she has some jewels in safekeeping. In order to get the jewels, he accuses her of stealing them from him, and will have her deported to Australia on a hideously inhumane convict ship out of spite if she will not hand over the jewels. To make matters worse, Diana's faithful servant Mathers has been murdered. Diana's friends, Anna Katherine Forsythe and Quillen Rossiter, must work together to save Diana from the fate Rutledge plots for her. Quill finds himself drawn to Anna Kate, but he doesn't want to get involved with her. She refused his proposal once. Besides, he has more important things to concern him, like the injustices of the British penal system. Then Lucas Cranford enters the picture, brooding and still angry that Diana married Rutledge rather than him. Through the ordeal of protecting Diana from Rutledge, Anna Kate learns to control her immature and spoiled impulses and begin to think of others before herself. Death in Exile sparkles with the Regency's elegance, wit, and overweening purpose to marry off young women to gentlemen worthy of them-but glimmers darkly from the injustices inherent in the hectic marriage mart. With the continued popularity of Jane Austen, two hundred years after she began writing, this story brings that historical time to life, with the quaint expressions, the fashion, and even the Prince Regent and Jane Austen herself.