Page 45 of Cloaked in Deception (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #4)

Chapter Twenty-Four

L eo glanced at the clock in her bedroom. It was nearly ten, hours after Jasper would have left Scotland Yard for the evening. She’d remained dressed for much longer than usual, believing he might still call on her.

But as the clock’s hands came together at the top of the hour, she sighed and started to undo the collar buttons on her shirtwaist. He was likely at the Rising Sun with the other officers, celebrating the arrests.

She couldn’t begrudge him that, even though she’d hoped to see him.

And not just to give him her typed witness statement.

Leo had finished it after Constance Hayes had departed the morgue.

She’d been baffled by her visit, and the more Leo parsed through their awkward conversation in the morgue lobby, the more she’d started to doubt Constance had truly come to thank her for helping George.

Rather, she’d seemed to want a confrontation regarding Jasper.

He is in love with you. Who was she to make such a statement?

And to do so while her eyes were filled with disbelief, as if questioning how it could possibly be so.

Or perhaps Leo was overthinking it all.

She’d just released the clasps on her skirt’s waist when there came a knocking at her bedroom door: Claude’s signature two quick raps.

“You’ve a visitor,” he called through the thin wood.

With a leap of her pulse, she refastened the clasps, then started on the shirtwaist buttons. When she’d made it to her collar, she opened the door. Still standing in the upstairs hallway, Claude had one snow-white eyebrow raised.

“Jasper is here. He came to the kitchen door and is waiting for you in the front room. He looks to be in a terrible mood.”

The detective inspector’s caution in going to the back door was certainly meant to protect Leo’s reputation; even though she lived with her aunt and uncle, a man calling so late at night might be noted by nosy neighbors.

She didn’t care about such things—she was already a woman of questionable reputation, considering her work at the morgue—but Jasper’s care touched her.

Claude didn’t follow her downstairs. He bid her a goodnight and reminded her to lock up once the inspector left.

It had been a long afternoon and evening for her uncle.

Flora’s sobs earlier that morning when muttering about a baby boy had left her in a morose state for the rest of the day; it had similarly affected Claude as well.

When Leo brought it up a little bit ago, he’d sighed and brushed it off, but she could tell her aunt’s deterioration was truly weighing on him.

Soon, they’d need to have a frank conversation about what was to be done on the matter. But not tonight.

Leo reached the bottom of the stairs and turned into the front sitting room.

Flora had done the small room in dove gray and rose ages ago.

The floral paper on the walls had faded somewhat, and the fabric on the chairs and sofa was a bit threadbare, but the room was tidy and not overly cluttered.

Usually, Leo’s attention went directly to the hearth mantel, where four framed photographs were positioned.

One was of her parents; another showed a young Leo holding her baby sister, Agnes, with Jacob standing next to them; a tintype of a much younger Claude and Flora; and finally, a portrait of Leo, taken the year she turned eighteen.

It was this portrait she found Jasper looking at as he stood in front of the hearth, waiting for her.

“I’ve never liked that photograph,” Leo commented. He turned to her, his hat in his hand. “I look far too grim.”

“You look determined,” he replied, coming away from the line of photographs. “Maybe a little angry.”

She hadn’t liked sitting for the photographer, but Flora had insisted.

Her aunt had hoped that, at eighteen, Leo would begin to take an interest in finding a husband, as most young women did.

But she had been a disappointment in that area.

Her only interest had been in joining Claude at the Spring Street Morgue.

In the corner of the room, her uncle kept a decanter of brandy for guests. Leo went to the small table and wiped the dust from the glasses with her sleeve before pouring them each a drink. Jasper preferred whisky, but as Claude did not keep other spirits in the house, this would have to do.

“How did everything proceed at the Yard?” she asked as she extended a glass to him. “I have my statement. I can get it, if you like.”

“No,” he said, sipping the brandy as soon as he had it in hand. “Not right now. I don’t really want to talk about the case.”

He lowered himself onto the sofa. It wasn’t nearly as wide or as long as the Chesterfield in his study on Charles Street, so when Leo joined him on it, she was within arm’s reach of him.

“At least tell me if Paula Blickson is going to be charged.” The woman could not be entirely absolved of wrongdoing—she had played a role in every crime that Felix and Esther Goodwin had committed.

But Leo hoped her cooperation at the theatre and, ultimately, her choice to put George’s best interests above her own would reduce the charges brought against her.

“She will likely be shown some leniency,” Jasper replied. “It will help that Stanley isn’t going to bring charges against her. Miss Hayes said as much when she came to the Yard earlier. She brought letters from Nurse Radcliff to Martha Seabright, detailing the adoption.”

Constance had mentioned she was on her way to see Jasper, though Leo kept quiet about her earlier visit to the morgue.

“These were the letters Martha used to blackmail Mr. Hayes over the years,” Leo presumed. “And they were what Mrs. Hayes found in Martha’s home?”

Jasper lifted his glass as if to toast her for being correct.

“Apparently, Mrs. Hayes was mortified to learn what her husband had done. She feels strongly that Paula has the right to know George and deserves empathy not punishment.”

Leo found she agreed. She hoped that Melanie Hayes might go so far as to allow Paula into George’s life in the future. Perhaps even his uncle, Gavin.

“Is there any word on Gavin Seabright?” she asked. “He should be informed that he is no longer suspected of murder.”

“Nothing yet that I know of,” Jasper said. “Though once the arrests are reported in the newspapers, he will deduce that for himself.”

Leo hoped that would be the case.

“Moles,” Jasper said, peeling back his drink just as he was about to sip it. He squinted at her. “That is how you knew they were mother and son instead of sister and brother?”

Leo had explained to Oliver on their carriage ride, and she could see the viscount had relayed the information to Jasper.

“It’s what convinced me. I’d already suspected, what with her longstanding obsession with Edward’s supposed death.

Gavin said she never really recovered.” Leo looked to the mantel, to one of the photographs there.

“My siblings were taken from me, and eventually, I was able to move on. I’m not sure I would have been able to if it had been a child I’d borne. ”

Then again, she could not speak from a place of knowing. She had not yet borne a child, after all. With a furtive glimpse at Jasper, she sipped her drink.

“It’s much sweeter than whisky, I’m afraid,” she said.

He grunted. “It’s drinkable.”

Leo shifted on the sofa and braced an arm on the curved wooden backing. “My uncle was right; you’re in a wretched mood.”

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t offer anything more for an excuse.

“It’s all right. I think I understand.”

Jasper shifted on his cushion to face her. “Do you?”

“This case. It’s unsettling to feel some sympathy for Esther and Felix Goodwin.

He killed in cold blood, and she threatened to as well, and yet…

they were both severely wronged by their victims with the exception of Harold Yardley.

I can see how they became furious enough to blindly go after revenge once they discovered what Martha had done. ”

“You would not have done what they did,” Jasper said, secure in his belief.

“No, I wouldn’t have,” she agreed.

There were just some things a person knew they could not do.

Lines they would not cross. Not too long ago, Jasper had confessed the reason why he could not go back to his family after running away: Had he returned, they would have made him into a killer.

A cold-hearted criminal. And that was something Jasper had known, even at a young age, he could never be.

“What did Matron Westover have to say on the matter?” Leo asked.

“By the time I got to the orphanage after reading your telegram, she was gone.” Leo nearly spilled her brandy as she sat forward in surprise.

Jasper held up a palm. “I’ve had word from the sergeant in Twickenham that she was tracked down in Putney.

The adoption was strictly legal, so I doubt any charges will be levied against her.

But she’ll most definitely lose her position at the orphanage as matron. ”

Leo thought she deserved markedly more than a stripping of her title and livelihood for the anguish she’d put Paula through. But she was learning to accept that justice was often delivered via meandering routes.

Caroline Westover would come to rue the day she facilitated the adoption of Edward Seabright. And who knew how many more children she had placed with other families without their parents’ permission?

Jasper was staring into the fireless hearth, the only sound the steady ticking of the tall standing clock behind them. He looked done in. The lamplight caught on the shadow of a honey-gold beard on his cheeks, chin, and upper lip. He hadn’t taken a razor to it that morning.