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“Who did this to you?” Leo asked, her damp cloth dabbing at his lip again. He winced and lifted his arm to stop her. Miraculously, his arm wasn’t broken. He recalled a kick that had felt as if it should have splintered the bone below his shoulder in two. Jasper stilled her hand.

“That hurts,” he said.

“Because you’ve been badly beaten,” she replied. “Mrs. Zhao said there were four men. They caught you by surprise and piled on.”

Only four? “It felt like a dozen.”

A swift knocking came, and Leo jumped from the edge of the sofa.

“Is he awake?” Claude appeared, a leather bag in hand as he came to stand over him.

“Were you at Duke Street?” Jasper asked. If the Angels had come here so soon after his and Leo’s visit to Holloway, they may have also gone to Leo’s house.

“Yes,” Claude answered.

“Everything was fine there?”

Bending at the hip, the old man took an incisive look at Jasper. “Why wouldn’t they be? I think you’re concussed. Quite badly, by the look of you.”

Jasper tried to prop himself up on his elbow but gave up when his brain felt as if it were flipping over inside his skull.

“Mister Jasper.” Mrs. Zhao appeared beside Claude. “My poor boy. I thought they would kill you.” Her throat squeezed over the last few words, and her hand covered her mouth. She was on the verge of tears, her eyes swollen from prior sobbing.

“I’m all right,” he tried to assure her, even though he currently felt as if he’d been run over by an omnibus. “I think I am, at least.”

Leo guided the distraught housekeeper from the room, suggesting they go to the kitchen to prepare tea and some poultices.

Claude continued to inspect him, murmuring to himself under his breath.

“You’ve some gashes to your face that will need sutures, and that blackened eye is impressive, but I’m more concerned about your head and ribs.

I’ll need to have a look at your torso, Inspector. ”

Jasper nodded and, with a hand from Claude, sat up slowly. He paused, waiting for the wicked throbbing throughout his skull and the surge of nausea that came with it to subside. He and Claude were attempting to slip the sleeves of his coat off when Leo returned to the room.

“Mrs. Zhao said the intruders mentioned angels.” Her eyes rounded. “The Spitalfields Angels?”

“Yes,” he answered, dispensing with his coat at last. He started with the buttons of his waistcoat. “It seems our visit to Holloway and what we discussed with Mrs. Stewart was noted after all.”

Leo stared at him, horror and guilt slashing her expression. “I didn’t believe you when you warned me… I’m so sorry, Jasper. This is my fault.”

His lingering nausea weakened for a moment. “It isn’t your doing. The warder…”

“Miss Hartley,” she said, biting the name off.

“You can discuss that later,” Claude said. “We need to get you into bed, Inspector. I’ll be better able to assess your torso there.”

Claude gave him his arm, but the old man was too frail, and Jasper too unsteady. His head became an eddy of pain as he rose to his feet. He was about to go down when Leo braced him at the waist and draped his arm over her shoulder.

“I’m fine.” It wasn’t true, and he felt pathetic for it.

“Don’t be so proud,” she said as she and Claude led him from the sitting room, up the stairs slowly, then toward his room. By the time they settled him onto the edge of his bed, his ribs were on fire. He refused to allow Claude to undress him and began to open his waistcoat buttons on his own.

“I’m sure it’s just some broken ribs,” Jasper said, wincing.

“What if he’s bleeding internally?” Leo asked her uncle with an edge of panic. It was at least nice to know she didn’t want him to die. He huffed a laugh at his own thought, and she glared at him. “It is entirely possible, you know.”

With an impatient sigh, she came forward and batted his fumbling fingers away from the small abalone buttons on his shirt. Leo bent at the hip and began to pop them free.

“I’ve seen corpses at Spring Street that expired from ruptured spleens or livers, or lacerated intestines.

They are all serious conditions. I think we should take you to hospital.

The closest one is St. Thomas’s,” she said as she deftly undid his buttons, leaning close enough for him to breathe in the faint scent of honeysuckle. Her soap, perhaps, or perfume.

All swirls of nausea subsided, pushed out by the shock of Leo next tugging the bottom of his shirt from his trousers so she could continue with her task.

“I don’t need to go to St. Thomas’s.” Glancing toward Claude, who looked on with a raised brow, Jasper lifted his heavy arms and stilled Leo’s wrists with his hands. “And I can take it from here.”

He heard a small intake of air. As she froze, he knew Leo had realized what she’d been doing.

“Oh. Yes, of course.” She backed away, taking the sweet, floral scent with her. “I’ll see to helping Mrs. Zhao.”

As soon as she left, with his buttons taken care of, Jasper tried to shrug out of his shirtsleeves.

And then, without realizing how, he was on his back, opening his eyes to see the ceiling above. Time had passed. How long, he didn’t know. But his boots were off, his bare chest was wrapped snugly in linen, he was tucked under a sheet, and Claude was seated beside him, measuring his pulse.

“I have assured my niece that you are not bleeding internally,” he said conversationally. “However, your concussion is quite severe. Rest. But I’ll need to wake you every hour.”

He felt ill with fury. The Angels had broken into his home, terrified Mrs. Zhao, and bested him. Damn it . He felt like a weakling just lying there. It wasn’t the pain that bothered him the most. It was the powerlessness; it wasn’t anything he was accustomed to.

“Who is with Mrs. Feldman?” Jasper asked. A thready panic remained that the Angels might still pay Leo’s home a visit.

“She is here. I brought her with me. Now rest. All is well,” Claude answered.

Jasper closed his eyes. A minute later, or what felt like a minute, he opened them to find Leo perched on the edge of his bed.

“My uncle fell asleep,” she whispered.

“You need rest too. I’ll be fine.” Shifting in bed, his ribs screamed that it was a lie. He groaned and shut his eyes. The soft brush of cool fingertips drifted over his brow. Somehow, the touch loosened the stiffness in his chest and abdomen, and a languid sleep claimed him.