Christmas With The Duke. Katrina Cudmore

      

      Reunited with her first love...

      For an unforgettable Christmas

      Ciara Harris hoped her first Christmas working back at Loughmore Castle would mark a fresh start, but the return of Tom, now Duke of Bainworth, threatens to uncover feelings she thought long buried. Being snowed in on Christmas Eve with Tom forces Ciara to face the truth—there’s still something magical between them. As the castle’s fires burn warm and festive, so do Tom and Ciara’s feelings of hope...

      A city-loving book addict, peony obsessive KATRINA CUDMORE lives in Cork, Ireland, with her husband, four active children and a very daft dog. A psychology graduate, with an MSc in Human Resources, Katrina spent many years working in multinational companies and can’t believe she is lucky enough now to have a job that involves daydreaming about love and handsome men! You can visit Katrina at katrinacudmore.com.

       Also by Katrina Cudmore

      Swept into the Rich Man’s World

      The Best Man’s Guarded Heart

      Her First-Date Honeymoon

      Their Baby Surprise

      Tempted by the Greek Tycoon

      Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

      Christmas with the Duke

      Katrina Cudmore

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      ISBN: 978-1-474-07824-5

      CHRISTMAS WITH THE DUKE

      © 2018 Katrina Cudmore

      Published in Great Britain 2018

      by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 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.

      ® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Ava, my modern girl full of wit,

      intelligence, acceptance and ambition.

      The world is yours to conquer.

      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

       EPILOGUE

       Extract

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘GOOD GIRL, CIARA, just another foot to go and you’ll be there.’

      Despite her shaking legs, Ciara Harris could not help but grin to herself at her boss’s good-natured encouragement. Sean was the head gardener at Loughmore Castle and, having known Ciara since she was a teenager, at times still treated her as one despite the fact that she was now thirty years of age.

      Her smile soon faded, however, when she made the fatal mistake of looking down from her twenty-foot-high perch up on the stepladder. The Connemara marble floor of the Great Hall swam up and then back down in a sickening vortex.

      She grasped the stepladder’s metal rail for dear life and cast an unhappy eye over the reason she was twenty feet up in the air. The fine-boned angel, dressed in gold silk, her cheeks painted with a dash of pink blush, calmly considered Ciara back, as though wondering why she