Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Jasper leaned the back of his head on the lip of the enamel tub and closed his eyes, happy to be home.
The lodging house in Liverpool only had one shared water closet, located off the back of the house, and if a lodger wished to bathe, it was an extra shilling each week for a single bath.
Jasper had gone to a nearby bathhouse instead, as the facilities were cleaner and more spacious.
As he soaked in the water now, the sound of Mrs. Zhao humming in the kitchen helped keep the tantalizing image of Leo in the tub at Cowper Hall at bay.
He had too many things to see to in the next few hours to indulge in such thoughts anyhow.
A stop at Scotland Yard would be necessary, as he needed to send word to his superior officer in Liverpool that he would be out for an additional two days.
He also wanted to pull the record the Metropolitan Police had on file for the accidental death of Theodore Stroud.
“Would you like more hot water, Mister Jasper?” Mrs. Zhao called at the closed door to the water closet.
Though the house had been plumbed since before Jasper came to live with Gregory Reid, the pipes had since stopped working.
They could be repaired, or replaced, but neither he nor his adoptive father had thought the high cost necessary, especially since the water closet was conveniently located just off the kitchen.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Zhao,” he said, sitting forward. “I’m getting out.”
He’d been soaking for so long the water had turned tepid, and his fingertips had started to wrinkle.
“I have your dinner ready,” she replied, the merry tone of her voice enough to make him laugh lightly as he stepped out of the tub.
When he’d come through the front door earlier, Mrs. Zhao had run into the foyer with a rolling pin raised above her head, ready to use it against whoever was breaking into the house.
As her eyes took in the sight of him, and not some vile intruder, they had filled with tears.
She’d embraced him while scolding him for not giving her advance notice of his plan to return home.
Since then, she’d been a whirlwind of energy.
Jasper tied the belt on his dressing robe before emerging from the water closet. He inhaled the enticing scents of Mrs. Zhao’s cooking: buttery pastry, roasted lamb, and savory herbs.
“I think I’ve just gained back a bit of weight,” Jasper teased, referring to one of his housekeeper’s first observations: that he had lost weight while in Liverpool.
He did not think he had, as his trousers fit as they always did, but she’d simpered happily to learn that Mrs. Hart’s cooking had been both uninspired and flavorless.
He went upstairs to his room to dress, and by the time he returned to the kitchen, a plate of piping hot lamb pie was on the table next to a pot of tea. Mrs. Zhao fixed herself a serving as well and took the seat adjacent to his.
“Mr. Feldman said you and Miss Leo were asked to visit the viscount’s home,” she said as she picked up her fork. Jasper had wondered if Leo’s uncle would inform her of the summons, now that Mrs. Zhao saw him more often while caring for Flora a few days per week.
“For a will reading, yes.” Since learning of the will’s contents, the secret attachment his father seemed to have had to Francine Stroud had troubled him.
The questions of when they’d seen one another and how they had kept in touch led him to wonder if there was at least one person who might have known the nature of their relationship.
He split the pastry of his pie with his fork. “I need to ask, Mrs. Zhao…” He hesitated, wanting to know, and yet also not wanting to hear the answers. “It is somewhat delicate.”
She dabbed her mouth and said, “This is about Mr. Reid and Mrs. Stroud.”
He lowered his fork to his plate and stared at her. So, she had known. “Was it what I think it was?”
Although in her early sixties, Mrs. Zhao’s face was not heavily lined. However, two furrows now appeared between her thin black brows. “Yes,” she replied simply.
He nodded as a numbness stole through him. “I see.”
Mrs. Zhao had been a loyal employee to his father, but she’d also been a loyal friend. It shouldn’t have surprised him to learn that she’d known. What did surprise Jasper was the discovery of a facet of his father’s life that he had known nothing about.
“Was this after Emmaline had died?” he asked carefully.
“Of course!” she gasped, as though offended that he’d considered otherwise. “A few years had passed by then.”
Jasper didn’t know how he might have handled finding out that Gregory had conducted an affair while still married to his wife. He sank back into his seat with relief.
“Mrs. Stroud was the only person from that family who realized just how devastated Mr. Reid was by the loss of his family,” the housekeeper went on.
“She would call on him whenever she was in town, and I came to recognize her handwriting on letters that arrived for him in the post. I began to suspect it was more than friendship when, one morning, I came home from my sister’s in Limehouse earlier than anticipated.
” She raised a brow as if to insinuate her meaning.
Jasper understood: She’d found Francine had stayed the night.
“It was awkward, and Mr. Reid asked me not to say anything to anyone,” she said softly. “She was still married.”
Jasper presumed her husband had died, although he had not thought to ask when he’d passed.
“Where was I at the time?” Jasper asked.
“At school in Cheltenham.”
He’d attended the private boys’ school for four years, only coming home to Charles Street for short breaks.
Jasper had never wondered what his father had been doing during those years.
Working at Scotland Yard, he’d presumed.
He could understand now, however, that Gregory Reid might have been lonely.
“And when did it end?” he asked next.
“When you finished at school.”
“Right,” he said, experiencing a pang of guilt. Jasper’s return to London had meant Gregory could no longer have Francine at the house in secret. Had his father resented that?
“It wasn’t just your coming home,” Mrs. Zhao said gently, as though reading his thoughts. “Her son passed away, and then, not long after that, her husband did as well.”
Twelve years ago, the letter from Francine had stated. Jasper would have been about eighteen years old and in his final year at Cheltenham.
“I heard about her son.” He decided not to say anything about Francine’s request that he and Leo investigate Teddy’s death. He shook his head. “Why did he keep it from me?”
Emmaline had not been Jasper’s mother; he’d had no ties to her at all, no allegiance. After Francine’s mourning period for her husband had concluded, why had they never rekindled their relationship?
“Shame, I believe,” Mrs. Zhao replied to the question Jasper had asked her as well as the one not voiced.
“Because Francine was his late wife’s sister?”
The housekeeper pushed her plate away with a sigh. He’d lost his appetite too.
“And because of the money.”
Jasper peered at her quizzically. “What money?”
She winced. “Every year, the property taxes for this house were paid in full by an anonymous party; Mr. Reid believed it was Mrs. Stroud.”
Jasper slid back his chair and stood as a rush of energy overtook the numbness that had filled him.
For the last several months, ever since his father’s solicitor had handed Jasper the deed to the Charles Street address, he’d questioned how the property taxes had been paid.
Most people of Gregory and Jasper’s class leased rooms or houses; they did not own a home—especially not one in a neighborhood as affluent as this one.
The land the house sat upon was taxed, at a rate proportionate to the quality of the home and that of the other homes in the surrounding area.
The taxes would have drained Jasper’s meager savings, and he’d not been able to reconcile how his father had managed all these years.
“Why did no one tell me?” he asked, becoming angry now. Worry had plagued him for months; he’d lain in bed, harangued by the decision to either go broke trying to keep the home his father had clung to, as he had the cherished memories of his wife and children, or sell it.
“I did not know if she would continue with her generosity after Mr. Reid’s death,” Mrs. Zhao explained, her hands clasped in a nervous, pleading manner.
“And the solicitor, Mr. Stockton, he did not know who the anonymous donor was. I believe he was waiting to see if the money arrived as it always had.”
Jasper stalked away from the table, raking a hand through his hair, still damp from the bath.
“Mr. Reid could not tell you,” she went on, “without also admitting to the affair.”
Not to mention, it had likely been a longstanding bruise on his father’s masculinity.
Jasper had been shut out, and if his father were still alive, he’d have given him hell for it. But as he wasn’t, there was only Mrs. Zhao left, and he would not take his anger out on her.
“I need to get to the Yard,” he grumbled.
His housekeeper nodded as if understanding his anger and his need to leave the Charles Street home.
Jasper threw on his coat and hat at the door and left on foot for police headquarters.
The raw autumn air chilled his temper as he walked, his mind sorting through the mess just revealed to him.
Anger, disappointment, hurt—he didn’t know which one he felt most keenly.