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 r**e 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 r***d, sobbing into her mam’s arms, crying fit to break your heart. Beat and r***d 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
