Redeeming Jack Read Free

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    She was four and twenty and had been married to Jack for seven years. Did he care that she’d grown up? Did he care that another man was escorting her around London? It was impossible to tell. All she sensed was his disapproval. After five years apart, she wasn’t sure she knew him anymore, or if she would even like him. To think he was once the sun moon and stars to her…
    “Carys, are you all right?”
    As Carys slid the last pin back into her hair, Anna, Lord Rice’s sister, peered around the door.
    “Yes, I’m fine.” She tried to smile. “It was just such a surprise…”
    Anna nodded, her blue eyes full of sympathy. “I would say it was. You arrive at a ball with my brother and your long-lost husband turns up! It’s worthy of a comedy of errors at Drury Lane.”
    “It’s not funny, Anna. I have to find a way out of this muddle. I’ve been trying to convince myself that Jack will agree to my plans and simply disappear again. But my husband is never predictable.”
    She shivered as she recalled the contemptuous expression in Jack’s brown eyes. He had tried to make her look like a dithering peahen. She was certain that without Oliver’s calm intervention, she and Jack would still be bickering now. How was she supposed to deal with a man who hadn’t contacted her since his return from God knows where? Was she to be forever chasing after him like a little girl with a crush on her brother’s best friend?
    Anna came to sit beside her. Carys was grateful for her undemanding presence. Soon, she would have to leave the sanctuary of the retiring room and go out to face the questions of her friends and, most importantly, Lord Oliver Rice.
    The man who expected to marry her.

Chapter 2
     
    JACK PICKED UP the uneaten piece of bread and followed the duke up the servant’s stairs. He narrowly avoided banging his head on a lintel when the duke made an abrupt left turn. In the dark passageway, Jack used his free hand to trace the rough brick wall. He was surprised at the heat beneath his fingertips until he realized they tracked the curve of a chimney breast.
    Eventually, the duke pushed open a door into his well-lit study, bypassing the crowded entrance hall. He crossed to the main door and checked it was locked before turning to Jack. “Please take a seat.”
    “Are you hiding your association with me, Your Grace?”
    “Hardly. I’m keeping the
hoi polloi
out, not you in. Since the government decided to make me out to be some kind of hero, hysterical females and other fools accost me in public. They shower me with compliments and insist on shaking my hand or kissing my cheek.” The duke shuddered and brushed at his immaculate sleeve. “It is most fatiguing. Her Grace, of course, finds it highly amusing.”
    Jack studied the concealed door in the bookcase that matched one on the opposite side of the fireplace. The second door led into the office of Michael Waterstone, the duke’s secretary. He finished up the crust of bread and deliberately wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
    “What an exciting life you lead.” Jack sat in the chair indicated and took the glass of brandy the duke poured for him. “Concealed stairways, code-breaking and assassinations…”
    The duke ignored Jack’s remarks and sat behind his desk. “Now, where shall I start?” He fanned the papers out and laid them in front of him. “You are Lord Jack Augustus Owen Llewelyn, born on September the twenty-fifth in the year of our Lord, seventeen-eighty-four, at Llewelyn Hall in Wales. You were originally destined for the church but ran away from home and enlisted in the army.” The duke looked up. “Why in God’s name did you enlist in the Forty-Eighth Foot? They are based in Northamptonshire. Why didn’t you choose a Welsh regiment?”
    Jack gave an exaggerated sigh. “Because I didn’t want my father to know where I was. If I’d enlisted in Wales, someone might have recognized me.”
    The duke nodded. “Of course. How