I was chosen to save a madman. No one warned me he wasn't mad.
Elizabeth Bennet answered an advertisement for employment and came away married to a man the world wants locked away. Fitzwilliam Darcy returned from eleven years in a French prison with his mind in ruins, and his uncle means to have him declared a lunatic and seize Pemberley. The law allows him a single defense: a wife, beyond reproach, in a marriage no court can call false.Her task is simple, and impossible. Convince a hostile court the marriage is real. Keep herself above suspicion. And somehow reach the proud, ruined, razor-minded man she married — a man who cannot bear a closed door, who has nightmares in a language she does not speak, who swears he does not want her, and who is, beneath the wreckage, the most compelling man she has ever known.
She agreed to it for a fortune. For her family. For a marriage she could perform and never have to feel.
But the whole world must believe this marriage is real — and the longer she makes them believe it, the more terribly real it becomes to her.
She is falling for her own husband. She may never know if he can fall back.
HEARTLESS — a Pride and Prejudice variation. A marriage of necessity. A husband the law calls mad. A wife chosen to prove him sane. A love neither of them bargained for.
An emotionally intense, hurt/comfort JAFF Regency romance for readers who love a marriage of convenience that turns real, a hero broken before the first page, and a slow burn that makes them wait for every inch of it. The Darcy is the one you came for — proud, brilliant, exacting, brought to ruin and fighting his way back, terrified of the wanting he cannot allow himself. The Elizabeth is Austen's — sharp, dry, unbreakable, with a mind that will not stop working even when her heart is breaking. Marriage of convenience. A wife who must reach a husband who cannot be reached. A sanity on trial and a family that wants him caged. Forced proximity. Hurt-comfort and hard-won healing. Trust before trust is safe, want before want can be spoken. Touch-starved hero relearning how to be known. Witty heroine in command of every room but her own marriage. A love built from nothing because everything was taken first. Harrowing in its wounds, Austen in its bones — the Pride and Prejudice variation for readers who want the wit intact, the wounds real, and the surrender earned a page at a time. A standalone novel.
Reader note: Heartless is a more mature variation than my usual work. It contains intimate scenes between a married couple, depicted on the page. It also portrays the aftermath of captivity and trauma — night terrors, and a hero in psychological extremity — with care, but with intensity. Readers who prefer closed-door romance, or who are sensitive to depictions of trauma, may wish to be aware.
Genre: Historical Romance