An accomplished scholar and author met a dashing, seemingly rich bachelor onboard the QE2 in 1987 — and now 30 years later she says the duplicitous Don Juan wormed his way into her life and took off with $1 million of her savings, according to a new lawsuit.

Retired child psychologist Dr. Susan Butler, 77, of Montreal, is asking a court to force the ailing Norman Ross, 94, of Greenwich Village to return her dough.

When she first met Ross on the luxury cruise ship nearly 30 years ago, he gave “the impression that he was wealthy and that the did not have to work,” her Manhattan lawsuit says. But now she believes he “inhabited such venues for the purpose of ingratiating himself into the personal and financial affairs of single, apparently vulnerable, mature women,” according to court papers.

Butler, whose literacy books for children have sold over 500,000 copies, says Ross engaged her in “casual conversation” on the luxury steamship, the suit says.

A year later, Ross showed up uninvited at Butler’s home in Australia where he eventually “wormed his way into her confidential affairs,” the suit says.