Sweet Deception by Heather Snow Read Free Book Online Page A

spring-fed pond several days later. When they were pulled from the water, they were quite unrecognizable.” Emma shifted on her feet, clearly uncomfortable with whatever she’d seen that day. “But though they’d been dead for days, I noticed rigor didn’t set in until they’d warmed.” She raised a chestnut brow of her own. “How did
you
know cold water could affect rigor mortis?”
    He wasn’t about to tell her that he’d been trained by both the French and the English in myriad ways to dispose of a body while throwing off suspicion as to what truly had befallen it.
    He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to the maid, deflecting the question. “Well, if she did die elsewhere, the flood would have washed away any evidence of it,” he said. “And her body may have been carried in from anywhere upstream. We may never be able to tell whether her death was an accident or not.”
    Emma squatted, and reached her hand out to take Molly’s chin. She turned the maid’s head slowly, squinting in the low light. “I wouldn’t say never,” she murmured.
    Derick came around, squatting down beside Emma.
    Even in the feeble moonlight, ugly purple bruises that resembled nothing more than long fingers stood out on the maid’s neck.
    “Damn,” Derick uttered.
    It seemed he wouldn’t be leaving upper Derbyshire until he’d uncovered both a traitor
and
a murderer.

Chapter Four
     
    E arly the following afternoon, Derick stood at the door of Wallingford Manor. He tugged the fine linen of his cuff so that it emerged from the sleeve of his burgundy Bath coating jacket just so and then rapped three swift clangs with the massive knocker. As he waited, he wiped damp palms against his buff pantaloons. His hands felt empty, as if he should be bearing flowers or some other pleasing gift for the lady of the house.
    Good Lord.
Where had that thought come from? By the time he was of an age to call on young ladies, he’d been well ensconced behind enemy lines and the only thing he’d been interested in wooing was sensitive information. That most of that information had
come
from wooing ladies, young and otherwise, was another matter entirely. Besides, he wasn’t here to see Emma—indeed, hoped not to see her again at all. Emma disturbed him, unbalanced him. And he couldn’t afford the distraction.
    No, he needed to focus solely on the task at hand. It was unlikely that poor Molly Simms’ murder had anything to do with his mission. But tragic though it was, it did gave Derick a legitimate reason to work directlywith the magistrate himself and leave Emma out of his investigation altogether.
    An annoying pang of disappointment twinged in his chest. He pushed it aside. This remained a mission like any other, a chess match of sorts, and Emma just a pawn. Not his opponent.
    If anyone played the white king to his black one, it was her brother. Once Derick’s fellow agent at the War Department, Thaddeus Farnsworth, had pinpointed a leak of military secrets to a source in upper Derbyshire, Wallingford immediately became the most likely suspect. A decorated war hero with vast military experience, he was one of the few people known to reside in the area who had the kind of knowledge that had been sold to the French. Wallingford hadn’t presented himself at Aveline Castle either last night or this morning—which was odd, given the man’s duties as magistrate. So Derick had come to him. It was time to get a good look across the board at his potential adversary.
    The door cracked and Derick was met by the polite stare of the butler.
    “Lord Scarsdale to see Lord Wallingford.” He whipped out his calling card. A bit much for the country, he knew, but it was all part of the affectation.
    The servant’s eyes widened as he stared at the stark but finely engraved card. Derick raised a brow, and finally the butler reached out and took the offering with his bare hand rather than the customary silver tray. This being a country manor, Derick