A favourite game of the rich and beautiful Emma Woodhouse is dabbling in the marriage market, where she plays with everyone’s hearts except her own.

But, for Jane Fairfax, the other heroine of Jane Austen's Emma, marriage is not a game. Orphaned and without a dowry to attract a husband, she must rely on her charms to secure an engagement, or find work as a governess.

In a superb companion novel to Austen's romance, Joan Aiken reveals another world unknown to Emma - this is Jane's secret story of love and heartache.