The Rebellious Heart

Ireland is a green and pleasant land, but not everyone who makes their way there from England in Regency times does so by choice. Ethan Hawthorne, dashing young heir to an earldom in Ireland, is invited by the present earl to leave the entertainments and attractions of London to come learn more about the estate that would be his. Reluctantly, he realizes he should not refuse. Melissa Preston, small, prickly, and restless, is also dispatched to Ireland to stay with her brother, now a marquess there, by her exasperated mother because she refuses to take seriously her mother’s belief the only acceptable pattern for her life is to make a socially desirable marriage. 

Ethan and Melissa were acquainted during the extravagant frivolities of the Season, but although they danced together once or twice, neither was impressed with the other. Discovering they are staying with families related to each other, they choose not to admit their earlier knowledge of each other, but their antagonism grows.

It is only their mutual dissatisfaction with rural Ireland that leads them to work out a joint escape to Dublin. The short stay they planned lengthens as the British Isles suffer through the bitterest winter known for generations. Travel becomes inadvisable. Can cold without lead to warmth within? 

Choices they do not consciously make lead to decisions no one would have predicted.