Outside, Jack could a horse’s hooves on the gravel of the drive and wondered angrily if it were the Honourable Gerard coming back home. ‘Coming back from the rape of another poor innocent,' he thought sourly, wishing he could get his hands on the man. He'd not be molesting girls for a long while if he ever did.
Jack took a deep breath and straightened himself and addressed a spot somewhere to the right of Lord Exham’s shoulder. ‘My daughter, Eleanor, she came back home t'other day, broken and beat and raped, sobbing into her mam’s arms, crying fit to break your heart. Beat and raped by a fiend of a man who give not a toss for her. When I saw my Ellie all broken and bruised, I wanted to cry for her, take her pain myself. Mary tried to talk to her, find out what had happened.
‘Oh, I mean i
