As Christmas of 1804 approaches, Jane Austen finds herself insupportably bored with Bath, and the littleness of a town. It is with something like relief, then, that she accepts a peculiar commission from Lord Harold Trowbridge to shadow his niece, Lady Desdemona, who has fled to Bath to avoid the attentions of an arrogant and unsavory earl. Little does she suspect that it will lead to murder. NPR sponsorships.