The Untamed Heart

Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Hamilton is celebrated throughout England as Hamilton of the Hollow Road—the officer who held the line at Waterloo when all seemed lost. Society calls him a hero. Horse Guards wants his portrait hung as a symbol of British courage. Marcus knows better.

He remembers the smoke, the blood, the men who never came home—and the terrible cost of the order that made him famous.

Miss Eustacia Foxworthy has no patience for myths, medals, or men who expect to be flattered. Commissioned to paint the reluctant war hero for a Waterloo anniversary exhibition, she expects a difficult subject. She does not expect Marcus Hamilton: proud, wounded, infuriatingly guarded—and far more compelling than any legend.

Marcus wants only to survive the sittings without being exposed. But Eustacia sees too much. The pain beneath his restraint. The guilt behind his silence. The honour he cannot forgive himself for possessing.

As portrait sittings become battles of wit, will, and reluctant desire, Eustacia must decide whether to paint the heroic officer England demands… or the broken, brave, deeply human man she is in danger of loving.

And Marcus must learn that some truths are not meant to condemn a man—only to set him free.