Laura Martin - Reunited With His Long-Lost Cinderella

The Society lady

And the return of her first love...

Part of Scandalous Australian Bachelors. When widow Lady Francesca attends a masquerade ball, she’s shocked to meet Ben Crawford again. She’d loved him once, before her awful marriage, before he’d been transported to Australia as a convict. Ben is now a wealthy landowner, and his contempt of her burns almost as strong as their attraction. She knows he believes she betrayed him—so she must put the past right, before it’s too late...

LAURA MARTINwrites historical romances with an adventurous undercurrent. When not writing she spends her time working as a doctor in Cambridgeshire, where she lives with her husband. In her spare moments Laura loves to lose herself in a book, and has been known to read from cover to cover in a single day when the story is particularly gripping. She also loves to travel—especially to visit historical sites and far-flung shores.

Also by Laura Martin

Under a Desert Moon

Governess to the Sheikh

A Ring for the Pregnant Debutante

An Unlikely Debutante

An Earl to Save Her Reputation

The Viscount’s Runaway Wife

The Eastway Cousins miniseries

An Earl in Want of a Wife

Heiress on the Run

Scandalous Australian Bachelors miniseries

Courting the Forbidden Debutante

Reunited with His Long-Lost Cinderella

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Reunited with His Long-Lost Cinderella

Laura Martin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08897-8

REUNITED WITH HIS LONG-LOST CINDERELLA

© 2019 Laura Martin

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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For Sophie—your friendship is one of the greatest gifts.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Surveying the ballroom, Ben found himself unable to believe he was actually there. Dressed in the finest evening wear, cravat tight around his neck and jacket tailored to precision across his broad shoulders, the son of a land steward was attending one of the most exclusive balls in London.

‘I’m not sure these masks conceal our identities,’ George Fitzgerald said from his position beside him.

Ben shrugged. ‘I’m not sure they’re meant to.’

They were standing at the perimeter of the Scotsworths’ ballroom for what Ben had been informed was an annual masquerade ball. The women were dressed in flamboyant outfits and their masks were nearly all elaborately decorated. Many of the men had gone for a more subtle and less time-consuming approach of wearing their normal evening jackets and adding simple black or single-coloured masks that covered their eyes. Ben’s was black, but did have a rather annoying feather protruding from one edge that every so often would flop in his face and tickle his forehead.

‘Why are we here?’ Fitzgerald asked shrewdly.

Since arriving in London three weeks ago they’d attended a number of balls and soirées, even once braving the unknown world of the opera, but tonight was the first night Ben had actually insisted they accept an invitation.

‘To enjoy the magic of a masquerade ball,’ Ben said with a straight face.

Fitzgerald laughed, clapped his friend on the shoulders and shook his head. ‘Keep your secrets for now, Crawford—one day I’ll find out what you’ve been up to these last few weeks.’

Ben grinned, but it was almost entirely forced. He hoped no one would find out quite how pathetic he’d been in the weeks since their arrival in London. When Sam Robertson, the third member of their little group, had suggested the trip back to their homeland from Australia, Ben had quickly agreed. He had told his friends that he wanted to see his family again, at least what was left of it. Eighteen years ago, he’d left his father and younger brother behind in a sleepy Essex village. For four years he hadn’t heard a word from them—the post never arrived for prisoners held on the hulk ships on the Thames or during the eight-month voyage to Australia. Only once he was working as a convict worker for the late Mr Fitzgerald the elder did he receive a tattered and torn envelope.

His father had written every month and must have paid considerable sums of money to ensure his communications were loaded on to the ships heading for Australia. Ben had no doubt most of these letters had never left England and could be found disintegrating at the bottom of the Thames. But one had got through—one conscientious and kind pensioner guard had taken Ben’s father’s money and promised to do his best to place the letter in Ben’s hand and, nearly a year later, he did just that.