To Con a Gentleman

Rose Wakefield grew up on the streets of London, where she learned to swindle gentlemen out of their money and never get caught. Her latest mark is a notorious rake, but she knocks on the wrong earl's door.

The man who answers is Carver Ashburn, Earl of Kensworth, and he is nothing like the rake she expected. He is a decent man carrying grief, and her scheme gives him a way to avoid it for a while. Instead of turning her away, he plays along and offers to marry her.

What begins as a convenient lie gets harder to manage once Carver takes Rose to his family estate. Circumstances leave them both unable to drop the act. Carver has his family's standing to protect, while Rose has only herself to look after, and her heart is starting to complicate that.

This Regency romance has a light, modern tone, and it opens the Dalton Family series. The question driving it is whether a pretense that suits them both can survive once one of them stops pretending.