Duchess 02 - Surprising Lord Jack by Sally Mackenzie

beautiful. “Oh dear, you are managing to twist me up.” She must be the girls’ teacher. She looked to be about Frances’s age.
    “But you are both correct,” Jack said. “I do like to see the girls’ best manners, but I most want to see them.”
    Oh. For some reason a lancing pain twisted in her heart. If only her father . . .
    Stupid! She was a grown woman. She didn’t need a father. She had done very well without one for her twenty-four years.
    “Milord.” The stout man finally reached them. He was puffing with effort and his face was red. “We didn’t”—he gasped for a breath—“expect you.” He took hold of the horses.
    “I didn’t expect to come, Joseph.” Jack climbed down, and the little girls immediately latched onto him, hugging whatever part of his person they could reach. “Hey now,” he said, laughing, “I was just here last week.” He picked up what looked to be the smallest child, a girl of perhaps three. “How are you, Anna?”
    Anna smiled around the thumb stuck in her mouth and laid her head on Jack’s shoulder.
    “I’m so sorry to disturb your lessons, Miss Weatherby.” He smiled at the teacher, and the woman blushed. Of course she did. Jack was looking at her as if he really saw her, his smile warm and personal, not the perfunctory expression of a lord to a servant.
    Hmm. The woman was likely far more than a teacher to Jack.
    Frances suddenly felt extremely out of sorts.

Chapter 5

    The truth always comes out eventually.
    —Venus’s Love Notes

    “Would you take the baby from Francis, Miss Weatherby?” Jack asked. Thank God Bea had come out. All his teachers were good, but not all of them were good with babies. Bea was, not that she could help this infant with what he most needed at the moment. “And tell Mrs. Understadt we’ll want a wet nurse immediately.”
    “Baby?” Bea looked at the blanket in Francis’s arms. “Oh dear.” She hurried over to take the infant and then frowned at the excited, chattering bevy of little girls bouncing around him. “I . . .”
    “Don’t worry. I’ll take charge of your pupils.”
    “Thank you, milord.” She gave him one of her fleeting smiles and hurried away to find the capable woman who ran the home for him.
    It had been a good day when he’d met Bea at the Blue Maiden, one of the better brothels. Ned’s wife and son had just died, and he’d been in the deep dismals. Bea had been exactly what he’d needed—quiet and restful. Unfortunately, most men did not value those traits in a bedmate. Three months after their first meeting, just after he’d purchased this house, he stopped by the Blue Maiden as Madam Celestine was throwing Bea out into the street.
    Fortunately, Bea was a much better teacher than whore.
    “Did you bring us sweets, Milord Jack?” Jenny asked, tugging on his breeches to get his attention.
    “Not this time, Jenny. I’m afraid I came out in a bit of a rush.”
    Jenny, dressed in her favorite blue, smiled up at him. She was six, with dark hair, blue eyes, and an indomitable will, thank God. Her spirit—and her strong lungs—had saved her. A year ago, he’d heard her screaming when Lord Botsley, rumored throughout the ton to like little girls far too much, was forcing her into his carriage. She’d even bitten the bastard’s hand hard enough to draw blood.
    Botsley hadn’t wanted to give up his prize, but Jack had persuaded him—with his fists. He’d knocked him unconscious into the muck of a London gutter. Damn, that had felt good.
    Botsley had been forced to flee to the Continent a few weeks later, after he’d touched a peer’s daughter instead of a whore’s, but rumor was he was back in Town. Could he be the Silent Slasher? He’d never killed as far as Jack knew, but his heart was certainly black enough.
    Someone—little Eliza—tugged on his other leg. “Can I pet the doggie?”
    He glanced back at the curricle. Shakespeare was still sitting on the seat. Francis, now free of the