Cinderella and the Duke (the Beauchamp Betrothals #1) by @JaniceGPreston @HarlequinBooks

Cinderella and the Duke by Janice Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Four point five stars.

Cinderella And The Duke is a Regency romance from Mills & Boon / Harlequin. The book is set in 1812, with dual locations of Buckinghamshire and London.

Thirty year old Rosalind Allen has complicated family relations. She has run away, with her crippled brother, to the safety of a house on the Foxbourne Manor estate, and sent her step-sister, Nell, to London to prepare for her first social season, hopefully in time to find a husband before Nell’s obnoxious guardian, Sir Peter Tadlow, can marry her off in a deal to pay off his gambling debts. Forever the ‘poor relatives’, Ros and Freddie lack the social standing to prevent Tadlow taking advantage of his guardian role.

Ros meets Antony Lascelles, the new owner of neighbouring Halsdon Manor, and Leo Beauchamp, the widowed Duke of Cheriton, who is visiting his cousin with friends who wish to buy horses from Ros’ family friend and landlord.

To protect herself and her siblings, Ros calls herself Mrs Pryce and makes it known that she is a widow. Leo too, prefers some anonymity whilst in the shires, using the name of one of his lesser titles. This way he hopes to prevent endless introductions to marriageable young ladies.

Ros and Leo meet at first by accident and then again when they rescue a young runaway child. Ros becomes quite attached to the child, who becomes an excuse for the pair to continue meeting and their friendship grows.

Messages from London have both Ros and Leo urgently heading to the capital. Ros must take the place of Nell’s chaperone for the season and Leo must attend to his family. But when they meet in society, long kept secrets come to the fore. Will they be able to trust each other? Will the gap in their social standing keep them apart?

A very well written story which I enjoyed, both settings worked well and the characters were easy to fall in love with. I enjoyed the part played by Hector the Wolfhound too. Definitely a book I would recommend for readers of this genre.

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Book Description

Falling for a duke in disguise!

Never welcomed into society circles, Rosalind Allen gave up her marriage prospects long ago–life has taught her she’ll only get hurt. So she’s shocked when an encounter with a mysterious stranger makes her long to reconsider…

Little does Rosalind know that her mystery man is Leo Beauchamp, Duke of Cheriton, traveling in disguise to evade the ladies of the ton! Impoverished Rosalind is the first woman to captivate Leo–but can he persuade this wary Cinderella to trust him with her heart?

About the author

I grew up in Wembley, North London, with a love of reading, writing stories and animals. After leaving school at eighteen, I moved to Devon and any thoughts of writing became lost in the hectic rush of life as a farmer’s wife, with two children and many animals to care for. When my children left home for university, I discovered a love of history and of the Regency period in particular and began to write seriously for the first time since my teens.
Real life then got in the way and I didn’t write again until 2009. I joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association in 2012 and my first Regency romance was accepted for publication by Harlequin Mills & Boon in late 2013.
I now live in the West Midlands with my second husband and two cats and I continue to write Regency romances for Harlequin Mills & Boon.

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