A Ruinous Forever: A Marriage of Convenience, a Decade-Long Fraud, and the One Woman Who Refuses to Be Controlled

Rosalind Carr does not deal in sentiment. She deals in documentation, precision, and the methodical construction of a life entirely her own. For seventeen months since her guardian's death, she has been dismantling the legal architecture of a wardship that controlled her fortune — calmly, thoroughly, and alone. The last obstacle standing between her and full independence is a single signature from Sebastian Croft, the Marquess of Alcott, who has been declining to meet with her for six weeks.

Not refusing. Declining. There is a difference — and Rosalind has catalogued it.

Sebastian Croft has spent eight years deploying a version of himself built for social navigation: effortlessly charming, magnificently unreachable, and carefully insulated from anything that requires genuine contact. He is not hostile to Rosalind Carr. He simply hasn't decided what kind of engagement her particular situation demands. Then she appears in his entrance hall, turns from his grandfather's portrait with the expression of someone who has finished assessing the evidence, and he understands immediately: the charming version will not be sufficient here.

What begins as a business arrangement — three things needed, one meeting, a document folio — becomes something neither of them planned for. Because the wardship discrepancies Rosalind has uncovered are not bookkeeping errors. They are the fingerprints of a premeditated, decade-long fraud: an elaborate legal trap designed to strip three wards of their inheritances, one failed marriage at a time.

With August first looming and the clock running on Rosalind's deadline, she and Sebastian must decide whether a practical engagement is the most logical solution — or whether what they have been carefully, methodically building toward each other is something that defies any list she has ever made.

A Ruinous Forever is the third and final installment in the Masquerade Marriages Trilogy — a smart, slow-burn Regency romance built on sharp wit, legal intrigue, and two people who have been keeping parallel files on each other since the very beginning. For readers who love the crackling intelligence of Evie Dunmore, the enemies-to-lovers tension of Mimi Matthews, and the layered emotional depth of a romance that earns every beat, this is the conclusion the series has been building toward.

Perfect for fans of: slow-burn romance, Regency historical fiction, forced proximity, enemies-to-lovers, strong heroines, marriage of convenience, mystery romance, and series finales that deliver.

© 2026 PublishDrive (E-bog): 6610001186548

Udgivelsesdato

E-bog: 17. marts 2026