Chapter 22 #2
She stifled a smile as he shook his head good-naturedly and tugged on the brim of his bowler. “Then I shall strive to make the lady laugh. I’ve locked the front door. You’ll be fine finishing up for the evening?”
Leo assured him she would be, and he hurried off with a spring in his step.
There wasn’t much else to see to before putting out the lamps.
Leo pocketed the envelope from Mr. Bloom, curious if it had been delivered while Mr. Sampson was on duty, between the hours of ten o’clock and four in the morning.
How else would his man have been able to gain access to her desk?
Unless Mr. Bloom’s men were trained in lock picking, which was entirely possible. They were criminals, after all.
As she fed Tibia, refreshed the cat’s water bowl, and laid out clean newspaper in her litter box, Leo mulled over the last line in his brief message. Must be in the blood. Had he been referencing her family?
Eddie Bloom had been the one to warn her against digging into her father’s activities, specifically what had led to him being murdered.
While Leo knew it was the Carter family who ran the East Rips that had given the order to kill her family, she hadn’t been able to tell Mr. Bloom how she knew that information—as it would have given away Jasper’s own involvement.
But he’d clearly known more about the night of the Spencer family murders than he’d divulged.
Jasper only knew that Leonard Spencer had betrayed the East Rips, not in what manner. Had her father been involved in some sort of spying?
Leo was inside the supply closet, checking that the shelves were fully stocked for the next day’s examinations when the scuff of feet behind her had her wheeling around, a firestorm licking her back and neck.
Jasper, his Thames-green eyes sparking with mischief, stepped into the closet. His lips formed a coy smirk. “How many times have I advised you to lock that back door?”
Leo’s heart buoyed at the sight of him even as it raced. The dizzying effect wasn’t altogether unpleasant.
“Numerous times, if I recall,” she replied, relieved that it wasn’t another intruder. “I may even take your advice one day.”
“I won’t get my hopes up.”
After several heartbeats spent grinning at one another, Leo held out her hand. Jasper tossed his hat onto a shelf, slid his fingers into her palm, and tugged her to him.
For the last few weeks, Leo had grown increasingly bold in her private thoughts of Jasper, especially at night when she lay abed, waiting for sleep to claim her.
Remembering the electric rush through her body as his mouth explored hers in a kiss, or the prickling of heat wherever his hands touched next, had been both pleasurable and frustrating.
The things Leo saw might be seared into her brain, but feelings were disappointingly elusive.
She’d forgotten the exact scent of his cologne—pine forest and sandalwood—until she was standing against him now, inhaling it deeply. The memory of the smooth bussing of his lips against hers, and the coarse, if thrilling, graze of his stubbled chin had elapsed until now, when he kissed her again.
As Jasper’s palms pressed possessively over the hips of her cotton skirt, Leo gave in to the warm, honeyed delight of his affection.
And to her own longing for him. He’d missed her just as keenly as she’d missed him.
The soft groan from the base of his throat when she pulled her mouth from his gave her confidence in that.
“There are dead bodies to think of,” she whispered.
“They do not care if I kiss you.”
“It might be considered disrespectful.”
Jasper chuffed a short laugh, then rested his forehead against hers a moment before stepping back. His hands, however, kept her waist firmly within their grasp.
“I’m happy you’re finally home,” she said.
“As am I.” His palms glided lower, along her hips again. They paused as they came upon the outline of the envelope in her pocket. There was nothing inherently dodgy about storing something in her skirt pocket, but Leo’s knee-jerk reaction—to shift away, out of his hold—stirred his suspicion.
He peered at her. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said as she slipped past him and out of the closet. But while she could lie convincingly to others, she had never been able to with Jasper. The note from Eddie Bloom had worked its way under her skin, and it showed.
Before Jasper had returned to Liverpool, Leo had come clean about Eddie Bloom’s interest in the Lydia Hailson case. Unsurprisingly, he had been furious and worried. He did not like or trust Mr. Bloom, and while Leo didn’t trust him either, she did not believe the man was an outright danger to her.
“What is in your pocket?” Jasper asked in the notably deep, serious tone he reserved for suspects as he followed her from the closet. Leo supposed she shouldn't have been surprised at how observant he was; he hadn’t been made a detective inspector for nothing.
Not wanting to keep anything from him—even things that might upset him—she sighed and reached into her pocket.
“This was on my desk this morning,” she explained, extending it to him.
His jaw clenched in preparation of bad news, then opened the envelope and withdrew the ten-pound note. A dark blond brow shot up. Then, when he extracted the message within and read it, he let out a long exhale.
“Bloom.”
“Yes,” she replied.
Jasper returned the money to the envelope but took a second look at the message. He was reading that last line, no doubt.
“What do you think it means?” she asked. “About it being in my blood?”
He folded the paper along the crease and stuffed it alongside the money. “It’s probably just Bloom playing games.”
“Do you think my father might have been acting as a spy of some kind?” she pressed on. “He betrayed your family—”
“The Carters are not my family.” The sharp words flayed, and Leo lifted her chin, startled. Jasper swore underneath his breath and tempered himself visibly. “Forgive me, Leo.” He held out the envelope, and she took it.
“You’re right, they aren’t,” she said. “The Inspector was your family. As is Mrs. Zhao. I know that. My point is that if my father betrayed the Carters, maybe it was because he was spying on them.”
Jasper hesitated, then turned to retrieve his bowler hat from the shelf in the closet. He appeared conflicted when he came out again, and it took him another moment to speak.
“I understand that you want to know why your family was killed. But Leo, as much as I distrust Eddie Bloom, he was right to tell you to stop asking questions. I don’t know why he’d bait you with this,” he said, gesturing toward her pocket, where she’d put the envelope again.
“I can only think it’s for his own benefit. ”
She blinked back a sudden pricking of tears.
For years, Leo had struggled with not knowing why she’d survived the night of the murders.
Why the shadowy figure in the attic had saved her.
Now that she had an answer for that long-held question, her mind had turned to a new quandary.
If her father was the reason her family had been brutally murdered, why?
What had he done to deserve such punishment?
As much as she yearned for the truth, however, she valued Jasper’s safety more.
So far, his cousin, Andrew, was the only one in the Carter family who knew who he truly was.
Poking around for answers about her father would draw the attention of other Carter family members.
If they looked too closely at her, they would see Jasper, too. She couldn’t risk it.
Andrew Carter’s attention was enough of a risk to manage as it was. Now that Jasper was back in London for good, Leo wondered how long it would be before Andrew approached him. Then again, she knew it was useless to worry about something before it even happened.
“You’re right, I’m sure,” she said with a nod. “I’m half-inclined to send back his ten pounds.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. You earned that fee.” Jasper tensed his brow and frowned. “I was wrong when I suggested you couldn’t solve a murder inquiry on your own. Even though it was dangerous, and I will always object to anything that puts you in danger, you did well, Leo.”
She hadn’t expected such praise, and it flustered her for a moment. “That means a great deal to me, Jasper.” She smiled, slightly abashed. “Though, I admit, working alone was not as satisfying as the times we’ve worked together.”
He had confessed something similar to her at St. Thomas’s.
It had been lovely to hear, even if his sentiment would not change the rules set out by the London Metropolitan Police against lady investigators.
Before Jasper could remind her of that, she turned her attention to putting out the gasoliers in the postmortem room.
“Now that you’re back, we can move forward with leasing the murder house,” Leo said as she turned for the office, with Jasper in her wake.
They hadn’t had a chance to discuss what to do with the house on Craven Hill before he’d left for Liverpool, but they had touched on the subject in correspondence while he was there.
As two murders had been committed at the house, it seemed an apt name for the place.
Though it was a fine home in a superb neighborhood, neither of them wished to ever set foot inside it again.
At first, Leo had puzzled over why Francine Stroud would bequeath it to them.
But when Jasper explained what Mrs. Zhao had confessed—that Francine had been helping the Inspector pay the property taxes on the Charles Street home so that he could keep it, and that theirs had been a romantic relationship, hidden from what would have been judgmental eyes of the world—Leo thought perhaps her reason had been slightly more pragmatic.
“I wrote to Stockton,” Jasper said, referring to his solicitor. “He agrees the yearly lease for a Craven Hill address will provide a nice income for us both.”