The Wicked Guardian

Twelve years ago, Julian Ashcombe signed away the woman he loved to a man twice her age, on paper and in a solicitor's office with the door closed. He told himself it was protection. He told himself he would return the money. He never did. He built a fortune from it, and Linnea Ashcombe built a widow's grudge that has outlasted her late husband and every man in London. She has only just discovered the loophole that ties her to Ashcombe Hall for one more Season. She can leave penniless, which is what he wants. So she stays. One summer of house parties, a locked cabinet, and a ledger of shares bought back for twelve years in her name, not his, changes what she thinks she knows. The man she hates has been keeping her alive at his own expense, and refusing to say a word about it. The reunion is not a proposal. It is a deed in her name, presented across a desk — with the door open this time, by her hand. A steamy Regency second chance romance with a heroine who keeps her own accounts.