Thunder claps, lightning strikes and her imposing new mansion looms high, but Miss Marchant is not one to be afraid. Not willful, beautiful Sydony Marchant.

If the house doesn't shock her, the arrival of Viscount Hawthorne does. No longer the boy she once kissed-- Bartholomew is a man with a ruthless glint in his eye.

He's here to uncover a truth and ruin Sydony. But they are soon entangled in secrets darker than they know. And as the tension crackles between them, the memory of their innocent kiss is no longer enough....

Deborah is the author of more than twenty historical romances and novellas, including a USA TODAY bestselling anthology and two finalists in the Romance Writers of America's annual RITA competition.

A native Ohioan, Deborah graduated cum laude from Wittenberg University and was a journalist before writing her first novel, Heart's Masquerade, published in 1989. Although she has strayed from her favourite settings once or twice, she prefers regency romps, with a lot of humor and mystery, as well as medievals, such as her popular series on the de Burgh family. Deborah has sold more than two million books in North America, and her work has been translated and published in twenty-four foreign countries, including illustrated editions in Japan.

Deborah cites as her greatest influences her still-cherished collection of Nancy Drew mysteries, the beloved Gothics she discovered in seventh grade and pioneering historical romances of the 1970s and 1980s.

A member of Romance Writers of America, Novelists Inc. and the Authors Guild, Deborah makes her home in rural Ohio with her family and pets. Readers can reach her through her Web site.