Heartless Roman beast (4)
I believe the answer is:
roan
'beast' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both animals as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'heartless roman' is the wordplay.
'heartless' means to remove the middle letters.
'roman' with its centre taken out is 'ROAN'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for roan that I've seen before include "Reddish-coloured horse" , "Horse - leather" , "Of horse, with coat sprinkled with white or grey hairs" , "Horse with coat speckled with white or grey" , "Nora (anag) - horse" .)