Jane Aiken Hodge was born in Massachusetts to Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Conrad Aiken, and his first wife, writer Jessie McDonald. Hodge was 3 years old when her family moved to Great Britain, settling in Rye, East Sussex, where her younger sister, Joan, who would become a novelist and a children's writer, was born.
From 1935, Jane Hodge read English at Somerville College, Oxford University, and in 1938 she took a second degree in English at Radcliffe College. She was a civil servant, and also worked for Time Magazine, before returning to the UK in 1947. Her works of fiction include historical novels and contemporary detective novels. In 1972 she renounced her United States citizenship and became a British subject.

While Napoleon campaigns to conquer the world, Princess Isobel has one aim only: the freedom of Poland. Her dynastic marriage produces the prince who will be Poland's hope. Her elaborate game, mixing romance, passion and politics, involves her with Napoleon himself, with the flamboyant Murat, wily Talleyrand, even the unpredictable young Tsar of Russia. At her side is Jenny Peverel, unwilling spy for the sinister Brotherhood, risking peril and heartbreak for the sake of the little prince. Their story sweeps from Isobel's court at Rendomierz to Petersburg, Warsaw, Tilsit and Napoleon's desperate retreat from Moscow. And around them move three young men, one British, one American, one French, changing partners in the long, dangerous dance.