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.

Juana Brett's hapless father has dragged her to England from her beloved home in Portugal. In Portuguese, she is not hindered by the stutter that plagues her when she speaks in English, and she is not at the mercy of her teasing stepsisters and icy stepmother. When Gair Varlow fixed his political machinations on her, he never expected to fall in love with her too. Pulling strings to get her an invitation back to Portugal, he knows he is sending her into danger.
For Juana, nothing could be better than going home. But as the threat of invasion by France hangs over her return, she has no idea how completely the political intrigue has taken hold of her Castle home, and soon finds herself amidst terrorists and spies.
Juana can trust no one, which is made all the more difficult when she is caught between the persistent courtship of her handsome cousin, and the draw she feels towards Gair Varlow. But all this is dimmed by the mystery and terror of the winding stair...
This swift historical romance was first published in 1968.