An excerpt of Chapters 1-2 from Heather Snow's Sweet Deception is now available on Heroes and Heartbreakers for members. To read the full excerpt, please log in or register.

In the dark, the greatest lover can become the most dangerous conspirator...

Lord Frederick Aveline, otherwise known as Derick, has successfully kept upappearances as an English nobleman. What no one knows is that he’s a full-blooded Frenchman—a double agent for the British against the French. But there is something else no one knows about Derick. Deciding to leave behind his days of espionage, he’s arrived home in Derbyshire to finish one final order of business: to find and expose a dangerous traitor in their midst.

But Aveline Castle holds its own share of secrets—including murder—and an unexpected lure in the brilliant and fiesty Emma Wallingford. Emma’s loyalty lies with acting as the town’s magistrate, and she doesn’t welcome an unanticipated, though appealing, intrusion like Derick’s. As the two of them are drawn closer, the sordid past of Derick’s family comes to light, as does the true nature of his arrival.

But when deception, however sweet, is the name of the game, no one can be trusted. And every love—and every life—is at risk.

(And be sure to check out Heather's guest post, The Chemicals Between Us: Chemistry in Romance.)

Chapter 1
Derbyshire, June 1817

The medieval tower rose high and proud above the bilberry heath covering the castle’s grounds, its vibrant red bricks proclaiming it a foreigner amongst a plateau of white limestone. Derick Aveline, Viscount Scarsdale, exhaled with a snort—he certainly knew what that felt like.

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