Page 1 of Cloaked in Deception (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #4)
Chapter One
A knot in the pit of Jasper Reid’s stomach tightened as he entered the room. He should have listened to instinct and stayed away.
Sir Eamon Giles’s front parlor wasn’t nearly large enough to hold the thirty men and women packed into it.
The guests stood shoulder to shoulder while sipping drinks and making insipid conversation, all of them waiting for the gong of the dinner bell.
To avoid being drawn into any of the close throngs of discussion, Jasper quickly claimed a spot in the far corner of the room, next to a window.
The raised sash let in gusts of rain-scented evening air, and he breathed it in as he took a snifter of whisky from a passing server’s tray.
He hadn’t the patience for idle chatter.
His father was the only reason he’d come here this evening.
Before falling ill, the late Gregory Reid, Detective Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard, had sat on the Board of Governors for the Metropolitan and City Police Orphanage.
The orphanage was a charity for the families of police officers killed in the line of duty or whose injuries sustained on the job prevented them from working again.
Jasper’s father had championed the orphanage, once even traveling southwest of London to Twickenham for a day’s visit.
So, when an invitation to its annual benefit dinner was extended to Jasper two weeks before, in honor of his late father’s dedication to the charity, he’d accepted without hesitation.
Since then, however, he’d come to regret his decision.
Frenetic laughter erupted near a wall of bookshelves.
In the close quarters, it felt like knives flaying Jasper’s eardrums. A woman adorned in an outrageous display of diamonds and sapphires—the value of which could have easily funded the orphanage for at least a year—was fawning over the City of London Police Commissioner, Sir James Fraser, and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Frederick Danvers.
The Metropolitan Police Force and that of the City of London were two separate organizations, the latter holding jurisdiction over just one square mile in the city center, from the area around Temple to the Tower of London and up to the ward of Cripplegate.
The Met policed the much larger London metropolitan area, with a much larger force.
However, when it came to the orphanage fund, the two came together in its support.
The working men of both forces only had so much to give to charity, so into the mix of benefactors came the wealthy, titled men and women of London—like the lady flirting with Commissioner Fraser as she touched the sapphire pendant resting on the mounds of her generous décolletage.
They’d turned out in their finest, all poised to give generously to the less fortunate.
The merging of class and status had stuffed the room to the cornices, and with it came an inevitable friction.
Jasper drained his snifter of whisky and caught the attention of a uniformed server.
If he had to be here, he might as well take advantage of the good liquor.
The server parted through a few circles of guests to make his way over to him.
As the crowd shifted, the other side of the room opened into view.
There, in the opposite corner of the parlor, a young woman stood alone with her back to the room.
She was statue still as she gazed out a window into the falling dusk and the coming rainstorm.
The server entered Jasper’s line of sight. “Another drink, sir?”
He nodded and set the empty glass on the tray, then canted his head to observe the woman again.
Jasper knew her by her dark, sable hair and the lithe lines of her neck and shoulders, which were modestly covered by the high, ruffled neck of a spruce green gown.
The trim tuck of her waist drew his eyes next.
A month ago, Jasper had settled his hand there.
He still recalled how it felt under his palm.
Even more familiar to him, however, was her posture. It radiated cool detachment. She didn’t want to be here either. He couldn’t think of why she would be in the first place.
Although he knew the young woman was Leonora Spencer, when she turned to face the crowded room, Jasper still lost his breath.
It had been two weeks since he’d last seen Leo—they had both testified in court against Emma Bates, the woman who’d been found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and the planning of a bombing outside Scotland Yard.
It had been a busy afternoon, and the proceedings at court hadn’t allowed them much time to exchange anything but pleasantries.
Especially nothing having to do with the kiss they’d shared at the end of May, after Leo and Jasper had caught and arrested Mrs. Bates for her crimes.
They’d been in his study, alone in his home.
After a heated exchange, they’d been standing close.
The temptation to kiss her had been all-consuming, and when he’d given in to it, she’d welcomed him—briefly, at least. She’d left, unnerved and yet also flushed with pleasure.
Leo had enjoyed the kiss; that much, he knew.
What he wasn’t as certain of, however, was if she could forgive him for the secrets he’d kept for as long as he’d known her: his true identity and the role he’d played the night of her family’s murders.
Leo had claimed she needed time to think, and although she’d promised she would not stay away for months, as she had when she first learned the truth of his past, it had now been four long weeks. Each one had passed with glacial speed.
Across the parlor, the soft, full lips Jasper hadn’t been able to stop thinking about curved into a benign grin. Leo wasn’t directing her smile at him though.
A well-dressed man appeared at her side, extending a small glass of red wine to her.
She accepted it, her hands encased in matching long, green silk gloves, and murmured her thanks.
Jasper recognized the man as the Spring Street Morgue’s new assistant coroner, Mr. Connor Quinn.
The sudden buoyancy of Jasper’s stomach and chest upon seeing Leo faltered.
The waiter returned, again blocking Jasper’s view.
He took his drink from the proffered tray, and when the waiter moved along, a pair of intense hazel eyes collided with his.
Across the room, Leo went still, the glass of wine paused at her mouth as she stared over the rim at him.
He dragged in a breath and, in that moment, knew he’d been wrong to have waited weeks for her to come to him.
Though he hadn’t a clue what he would say to her, especially now that a month had passed, he started across the overcrowded room to where she and Quinn were standing. Leo seemed to brace herself, lowering her glass and hitching her chin as though preparing to meet an adversary.
Christ . He’d given Leo too much time to think, to remember how he’d deceived her all those years.
He should have gone to her straight after their kiss.
But he’d hesitated, honoring his promise to give her the space and time she’d requested of him.
Now, it seemed he had given her too much time, had hesitated too long, and, as his father had often said, hesitation is just a long route to regret.
It seemed Jasper had plenty of regret when it came to Leonora Spencer.
He joined them, and when neither he nor Leo did more than nod awkwardly in greeting, Connor Quinn cleared his throat.
“Detective Inspector Reid, I didn’t realize you would be here tonight, though I suppose I should have. Your father sat on the Board, correct?”
“He did.” Jasper was curious as to how the assistant coroner would have known that.
He must have asked the question with his expression because Leo provided the answer. “Mr. Quinn’s grandfather is also a governor on the Board.”
She kept her voice soft, even, and, like her posture while staring out the window just a minute ago, distant. He noticed she wouldn’t meet his eyes for more than a second before averting them.
“I’ve been forced to attend my grandfather’s charity galas since I started medical school,” Quinn said with a good-natured grin, but when Jasper and Leo both remained straight-faced, he turned serious again. “This year, I thought it would be an opportune time to introduce Miss Spencer to him.”
Gregory Reid’s warning about hesitation resounded between Jasper’s ears again. Connor Quinn’s grandfather, he belatedly recalled, was Sir Eamon Giles, a knighted barrister and the city’s chief coroner.
Leo sipped her wine, still avoiding his eyes.
“I think it went rather well, don’t you?” Quinn asked her, a touch too jovially. He was either oblivious to the tension around him or desperate to ignore it.
“Time will tell,” Leo murmured.
The three of them fell into another drop of quiet. Where in hell was that dinner gong? Jasper sipped his whisky and seriously contemplated begging off for the evening. His appetite had soured, and he wasn’t sure the whisky was worth staying for.
Besides, staying might only encourage the Board of Governors to extend an official offer to join their ranks. Commissioner Danvers had already pulled Jasper aside a few days ago to suggest he take his father’s seat.
“If you’ve an eye toward remaining at the Met, these are connections you’d do well to cultivate, Reid,” the commissioner had suggested, adding, “Especially after the last few tumultuous months you’ve had on the force.”