Forced VowsThe Lords of Eton - Book OneA viscount raised by a tyrant. A carpenter's daughter who refuses to be rescued. A marriage made under pressure that becomes a vow freely chosen.When four boys meet at Eton, they survive fathers, rules, and growing pains by making their own kind of family. Summers at the Hale workshop teach them an uncommon lesson for gentlemen: how to set a hinge true, mend what you break, and measure a life by the work of your hands.Years later, Rowan Ashford-now Viscount Ashford-returns to the only home that ever felt honest. Leonora "Lio" Hale has grown into the quiet general of her parents' household: ledger-minded, tender-spined, and inconveniently in love with the one man she swore would never be her rescue. A scandal in a berry thicket forces a swift wedding the village demands-but Rowan makes a promise Lio does not expect: he will not touch his wife until she asks him to.Ashford Hall is beautiful and broken. Together they confront false accounts, failing roofs, and the ghosts of Rowan's cruel upbringing. As they rebuild the estate-side by side with tenants and friends-their guarded hearts begin to learn a slower craft: trust, consent, and the kind of desire that chooses patience over pride. When a midnight fire threatens everything, Rowan's courage puts his life at risk and lays their truth bare at last.Forced Vows is a tender, slow-burn historical romance about competence and care, found family and second chances inside a first marriage. It launches The Lords of Eton, where each of four friends must unlearn the lessons of hard fathers and become the men-and husbands-they choose to be.For readers who love marriage-of-convenience, class-gap longing, capable heroines, honorable heroes, village life, and a romance that blooms like jasmine-softly at first, then all at once.