It's 1900, and Kathleen Mountford is twenty-one years old, independently wealthy, and still imprisoned by her dead father's rules. She cannot ride to the hunt with the men. She cannot marry without approval. And she cannot stop longing for Captain Jack Torrance, the dangerous charmer who represents everything her cautious upbringing warns against. When Kathleen defies convention and marries the wrong man, she sets in motion a chain of events that will test her will, her faith, and her capacity for redemption. Ruth Lamb's forgotten novel captures the particular anguish of Edwardian womanhood: the ache for autonomy in a world that grants women neither money nor freedom nor authority over their own hearts. This is a romance steeped in moral seriousness, where love is not merely a feeling but a choice that demands sacrifice. For readers who crave Victorian fiction that treats its heroine's intelligence with respect, A Wilful Ward offers a spirited defense of stubborn hearts and a quiet argument for second chances.
