Page 6 of Cloaked in Deception (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #4)

“I’ll have him sacked,” he growled as he punted the front door open. A hansom cab waited at the curb in the street, and Jasper hastened them toward it.

Leo let out a laugh, though it shook in her throat. “I’m not sure he deserves that. In retrospect, a drenched woman hurrying into his station, demanding Scotland Yard be contacted had to be the most outlandish thing he’d seen in a long time.”

Once settled in the cab, Jasper removed his suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “I don’t care; I’m still having him sacked.”

“You’re not angry with him,” Leo pointed out, the warmth of his jacket penetrating her skin and seeping into her muscles. She nearly groaned from the comfort of it. “You’re angry with the masked men from the benefit dinner.”

The cabbie, seated high on the driver’s bench behind the enclosed cab, had started his horses forward toward the river. The blue light of dawn was just barely beginning to push out the night.

Seated on the single bench beside her, his arm still around her shoulders to provide another source of heat, Jasper grimaced. “Tell me what happened.”

“They let me off in Battersea Park. They kept their masks on the whole time, but there are some things I observed that might help you in your search for them. For instance, the man who took me, the tall one, he’s left-handed?—”

Jasper swore under his breath, startling her into silence.

“None of that matters right now. Christ, Leo. They could have killed you. I thought…these last few hours…” He shook his head, frustration brimming.

And something else: fear. “I thought for certain your body would be found in a ditch somewhere.”

Hunkered under his jacket, growing warmer by the second, she laid her palm on his chest. “I’m all right, Jasper.”

He looked at her again, the tension along his jaw still jumping. “You weren’t…” He hesitated. “Interfered with?”

His voice was a rasp, as if he could barely bring himself to say it. Leo understood his question and the reason he’d asked it. Five men had abducted her. While alone with them in the coach, the notion had streamed through her mind too.

She shook her head. “I’m unharmed, I promise.”

He exhaled again, the sound a bit shaky, and nodded. Leo had known that he’d be worried, and from his perspective, it made sense for him to have feared the worst had happened to her.

He scrubbed his cheek, appearing exhausted. “I’ll bring you home. We don’t have to discuss anything more until tomorrow after you’ve rested.”

“Kid gloves aren’t necessary.” Her shivering had subsided, and she felt safe, nestled as she was under Jasper’s coat and his arm. It was an intimate position, and it brought forward the memory of their kiss. As well as the distance they’d each kept since.

“I’d rather speak of it now,” she said, wanting to focus on the crime at hand.

He assented with a nod.

“What I don’t understand,” she began, “is why that man would so callously murder Mrs. Seabright but then keep his word to let me go when no one followed them.”

“Mrs. Seabright,” Jasper said, as if the name was unknown to him.

“I saw her name placard,” Leo explained, then wondered, “What happened after I left?”

He grunted. “You mean after you were abducted.”

“All right, yes, abducted,” she said, though she didn’t want him to dwell on it. She didn’t wish to either. “What happened?”

Their cab had crossed Battersea Bridge and now drove along the Chelsea Embankment, the horizon over the Thames bluing rapidly.

“I don’t know. I left straightaway for the Kennington station to contact Scotland Yard and to organize a search party,” he answered. “But this man, the one who did all the talking—I saw that he was left-handed too. Was anything else revealed when they had you in the coach?”

His arm flexed and relaxed around her shoulders as he visibly worked to hold in his ire.

“Killing Mrs. Seabright wasn’t part of the original plan,” Leo said, recalling the shorter masked man who’d started to remove his head covering. “The other men were upset that someone was killed.”

She thought of the other things she’d noticed, such as the long scar on the shorter man’s hand and the paint-chipped brass plate on the interior wall of the coach with the word Best still visible.

But with the rattle and sway of the cab, the heat burrowing into her bones and driving out the cold, and Jasper’s solid arm around her, her eyelids began to droop.

Perhaps it would be better to wait until tomorrow to give her statement after all.

Her eyes had been closed for several moments when Jasper’s warm palm grazed her cheek. Parting her lashes, Leo acknowledged that they were huddled close. Close enough so that if he lowered his head a few scant inches, he could bring his mouth to hers again.

Countless times over the last many weeks, Leo had pored over the memory of that kiss, mining it for every detail, no matter how small. Now, she allowed her eyes to drift over his lips. If he were to lean forward and kiss her in the cab, she would let him.

But he didn’t.

“Tell me the rest tomorrow,” he said, still cupping her cheek gently.

He turned away, facing forward to watch the road ahead.

The cab wended through the empty streets quickly, and within a half hour, they arrived on Duke Street. The windows of her home were dark. It was a startling thought that she could have been through so much overnight while Claude and Flora slept peacefully, totally unaware.

“I don’t have my key,” she said. Her handbag and wrap had been taken at the door of the chief coroner’s home.

Jasper helped her to the pavement, and together, they walked to the front door. Leo brought down the knocker. Although it was nearing dawn, she still felt guilty waking her uncle from his slumber.

As they waited, Jasper said, “I’ll send a messenger to Quinn. He was worried about what would become of you when I last saw him at Sir Eamon’s home.”

“Oh.” Leo blinked, surprised at herself. She hadn’t thought of Connor once during her ordeal. “That’s thoughtful of you.”

The unbolting of the locks on the door sounded, and then her uncle was peering out at them in utter confusion. “What in the—Leonora, what has happened? Inspector?”

“I’m perfectly fine, Uncle,” she preempted. “I’ll tell you everything once I get into some dry clothes.”

She slid out from under Jasper’s suit jacket and handed it back to him. He folded it over his arm, then, with a departing nod, returned to the waiting cab.

“My dear?” Claude said, as she went inside, and closed the front door. He rarely frowned, as he was doing right then. “I am not going to like this tale, am I?”

“I’ll meet you in the kitchen. You’d best make some tea,” she replied as she climbed the stairs, dreaming of a warm nightdress, robe, and slippers. “And Uncle? Make sure you add a splash of whisky.”