Forever and a Duke

Burrowes’s delightfully geeky and warm third Rogues to Riches Regency (after When a Duchess Says I Do) lets its protagonists impress each other not with riches and beauty, but with intelligence and attention. Charming “Rex” Wrexam, Duke of Elsmore and major stakeholder in Dorset and Becker Savings and Trust, needs a way to discreetly examine his family’s disastrous finances before the lawyers of his sisters’ suitors do. He asks his colleague Quinn Wentworth, Duke of Walden, to lend him the services of unnervingly meticulous auditor Eleanora Hatfield. Ellie focuses on the work while keeping her distance from Rex, as she distrusts nobles and is embarrassed about her family’s criminal activities, but long hours over ledgers turn to trysting, and she allows herself to indulge, despite the seeming impossibility of the two developing a long-term relationship. The likable leads regard each other with intellectual and personal respect, and the investigative threads of the story bond them as partners independent of their attraction. Meanwhile, the caricatured, corrupt fat-cat villains will be fun for readers to hate. Burrowes’s fans will find this an excellent continuation of a very strong series. (Nov.)