Dear Reader,
One of the questions writers often receive is “Where do you get your ideas?” In the case of The Untamed Heiress, the story simmered at the back of my mind for so long, I’m not sure where or when the idea originated. I just knew that someday, when the publishing world permitted, I wanted to write Helena’s story.
Growing up in a cruel isolation imposed by her father, Helena Lambarth is a wild creature who comes to London with absolutely no preparation for entering the highly structured world of Regency England. Wary of society and even more wary of men, she goes her own way with fierce independence. Until Adam, Lord Darnell, her reluctant host and sponsor, begins to touch her heart by demonstrating that men of honor, courage, integrity and compassion do exist. If only he hadn’t already pledged his hand to the wealthy, oh-so-conventional Priscilla Standish….
I hope you will enjoy as much as I did watching Adam melt the walls of ice Helena has erected around herself—even as her untamed spirit inspires him to find a way to meld duty with passion.
Happy reading!
Julia Justiss
Praise for the books of Julia Justiss
The Courtesan
“With its intelligent, compelling characters, this is a very well-written, emotional and intensely charged read.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub, Top Pick
“These delightful lead protagonists display honor and loyalty…a solid secondary cast adds to a wonderful gender-bending Regency romance.”
—Harriet Klausner
Wicked Wager
“Unique true-to-period characters, intrigue and up-to-snuff action make for very enjoyable reading.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
My Lady’s Honor
“Julia Justiss has a knack for conveying emotional intensity and longing.”
—All About Romance
My Lady’s Pleasure
“Another entertaining, uniquely plotted Regency-era novel…top-notch writing and a perfect ending make this one easy to recommend.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
My Lady’s Trust
“With this exceptional Regency-era romance, Justiss adds another fine feather to her writing cap.”
—Publishers Weekly
The Proper Wife
“If The Proper Wife is not a perfect love story, it comes darn close.”
—The Romance Reader
“A spirited Regency-era romance that far outshines the usual fare…Justiss is a promising new talent.”
—Publishers Weekly
Julia Justiss
The Untamed Heiress
To my editor, Margo Lipschultz, for helping to mold
this story so that Helena’s wild spirit shines free
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER ONE
THE SHRIEKING WIND whipped her tangled black hair into her eyes as the sea crashed and foamed onto the rocks behind her. Ignoring both, Helena Lambarth kept her face turned inland toward the two laborers in the field beneath the cliffs, digging steadily into the stony soil.
The grave was almost ready.
Euphoria sent her spirits swooping like gulls on an updraft. A joyous burst of laughter trilled from her throat as she finally let herself believe it.
He was truly dead. She was free.
Though she knew any sound she made should have been lost in the cacophony of surf and cawing seabirds, one of the grave diggers paused to glance up. As he raised his arm to point, the second man saw her. A look of fear passing over his face, he crossed himself and batted his companion’s hand back to his shovel. An instant later the two men went back to their task with renewed vigor.
Did they think her a ghostie? Helena wondered, her lips curving in a wry smile. Or did they remember her from that grim morning nine years ago when she’d managed to escape Lambarth Castle and flee to the village, only to have a group of townsmen, deaf to her pleas for help, quickly return the “poor, mad girl” to her father.
For a moment the memory engulfed her: standing, barefoot and sobbing, within a circle of wary onlookers who murmured to each other as they took in her torn clothing, dirty face and disheveled hair.
“Such a wee lass…”
“Mind’s completely gone, her papa says…”
“Her mother’s fault, running off like that…”
Her lip curled as a familiar fury coursed through her. Papa’s lies would keep her a prisoner no longer. Today she would leave this accursed place and search for the mother from whose side she’d been ripped just as they were about to leave her father’s land. The mother who, Helena believed with all her heart, had never stopped loving her.
A movement in the distance brought her attention back to the present. The grave diggers stood, shovels in hand, as the funeral procession picked its way down the narrow track from the castle to the small graveyard. Its listing markers and barren, windswept grounds were a picture of neglect but for this new grave and one other, just inside the rusted iron gate.
A pang pierced Helena’s chest as her gaze rested on that still-unsettled mound of dirt hugging the boundary wall, its occupant an interloper in death as she had been in life. If “Mad Sally,” the old hermit medicine woman dead two months now, had not lived in Lambarth’s woods, Helena mused, she probably would not have survived her captivity.
Would Sally have been happy for her today? Helena wondered. Though the old woman babbled nonsense most of the time, in her occasional lucid moments, she’d displayed a shrewd perception. Along with some of the villagers, who crept into the woods begging Sally’s help when the local doctor’s efforts failed, Helena had also prized the woman’s uncanny talent as a healer.
Others believed the chanting crone possessed dark powers and avoided her—which was why her father, ever the coward, had let the woman live on his land undisturbed.