It was late when Jack finally got his daughter, Phryne-Rose, home. Prising her out of Miss Fisher's parlour was harder than stopping Miss Fisher attending a crime scene. Her birthday dinner, organised by Phryne herself after the original had fallen through, had been a roaring success. A delicious meal at a restaurant especially opened for her, with her father and grandmother, and Phryne Fisher herself, had been more than she could have wished for. They had even made a fabulous cake for her.
Jack should have known when he had asked Miss Fisher, in desperation, to help him after the restaurant his mother had booked had been closed, that it would be more elaborate, more fashionable than they would usually attend.
He'd tried to keep his private life away from his professional life, including Miss Fisher, but it was inevitable that one day his daughter would meet her namesake. There had been times when she had seen the Honourable Phryne Fisher's name in the papers and she had asked if she was named after her.
"After all, dad," she tipped her head, so like him his mother often noted, "how many Phryne's are there in the world?"
"Oh," he cleared his throat, "I expect there are more than you think," he turned his attention to her mathematics homework in order to distract her.
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When Jack had come home from the war settling back down to life as a copper hadn't been easy but he had managed it. Rosie, his wife, had been supportive as much as she could and they had muddled through. He worked hard and he still loved her and when his daughter was born and he asked to name her Phryne-Rose she had smiled and said it was rather unusual and she liked it. He liked to keep his promises even though there was little chance he would ever see the original Phryne again ... or so he thought.
When she blew into his life, like a tropical storm, he didn't know whether he was surprised or not. She was even more lovely than he remembered her and he was not in the least regretful of their past 'meetings', even though he had been unfaithful to his wife. Rosie had died six years previously so it was easy to be comfortable in her company, to accept her dinner invitations, post case whisky and draughts. He often wondered if she recognised him, she never gave him the least suspicion. True she flirted with him, but he was a widower, so he actually enjoyed the attention, not that he wanted her to know that.
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Phryne Fisher may have been a freight train, a charming one at that, but she could also be subtle, astute, and when she happened across Inspector Jack Robinson in Lydia Andrews' bathroom she recognised his need not to be recognised - by her.
Phryne had an almost photographic memory for faces and she had never forgotten Jack, the soldier who declared he was going to name his daughter after her. Until they had worked a few cases together she wasn't sure if he had any children, of either gender. He let it slip one night, after they found Janey's body. He admitted he could not imagine what she was going through, though he had lost his wife.
"I don't know how I'd cope if I lost my daughter," he sat with her in the parlour drinking whisky, "she is very precious to me."
"How old is she?" Phryne asked, her voice small and sad.
"Nine," he smiled, "and a little minx. My mother helps with her, seeing she has clothes and is fed. My work ..."
"Not conducive to family life," she sipped her drink.
"Not as a single father, no," he admitted, "but we muddle through, somehow."
"I think she must be a very lucky girl to have a father like you," Phryne added wistfully, not being able to imagine him ever beating his daughter or locking her in a cupboard to break her spirit.
"That's decent of you," he smiled, "but I think I am the lucky one, having a daughter like her."
And so it was not until that fateful tenth birthday that Phryne-Rose met her namesake, the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher, and all because she and her father had cleared up a smuggling ring.
