He welcomed Jasper into his home, into his life, and loved him like a son. Leo couldn’t bear the thought that Jasper might have lied to the Inspector too.
The courtyard buzzed with commotion. Officers, both in uniform and plain clothes, were arriving and departing, and hansom cabs were lined up, ready for hire. Scotland Yard was a hub of activity, and in the past, she had always felt a pinch more alive whenever she was there. Now, however, it was a place she only wished to evade. Jasper was the reason, and she bitterly held it against him. Leo increased her pace, eager to return to the morgue. There, the next postmortem report would distract her, and she could push Jasper and his lies from her mind. For a little while, at least.
Up ahead, a familiar constable crossed under the arch that led into the courtyard behind headquarters. For several months, Police Constable John Lloyd had been courting Dita, and Leowould often join them when they went across the river to Striker’s Wharf, a nightclub and dance hall. John was an affable fellow and usually had a smile for Leo whenever he saw her. But now, as she walked toward him, tension creased his brow.
A fresh bruise discolored his swollen left eye, and gashes on his cheek and bottom lip were crusted with dried blood. Oddly enough, he wasn’t wearing his policeman’s uniform. His civilian clothes appeared rumpled, and in his left hand, he carried a brown leather valise. Leo slowed. It looked to be a lady’s valise, trimmed with floral embroidery. Only about ten or fifteen yards separated them, but Constable Lloyd had yet to see her. Leo lifted her arm to hail him, and his attention clapped onto her.
He stopped walking as abruptly as if he’d smacked into a wall. Then, he spun on his heel and started away in the direction from which he’d come.
“Constable Lloyd!” she called, worry mixing with curiosity. What on earth was he doing?
Beyond the archway that led into the yard, a man wearing a brown wool cap pushed off from the iron hitching post he’d been leaning against and stood to attention. His scowl was fierce, Leo noticed, and he seemed to be directing it straight at Constable Lloyd. The man shook his head, as if to say, “Don’t.”
Before she could think twice about the man, a pulse of light blinded her. A violent, crushing blast lifted her feet from the ground. Heat raced over her skin and through her hair, and the brutal percussion of an explosion thudded through her chest. The strike of it emptied Leo’s lungs even before she landed hard on her back, cracking her head against the ground.
The world went dark and still and silent.
She came to—how much later she was unable to tell—with a shrill chime filling her ears, followed by a burrowing pain. Slowly, she lifted her hand to her throbbing left ear. Acrid smoke filled her nose and throat, and she coughed as her eyes flutteredopen. A river of smoke flowed over her, with pockets of blue sky cutting through it, then disappearing again as the black haze blotted them out.
Bomb.
It was a bomb.
Muted shouts filtered through the strident ringing in her ears. And then, Jasper was hovering over her. He was all she could see, his lips forming her name, his dark green eyes filled with stark panic. She tried to sit up but found it impossible. In the next second, she was in the air again, this time firmly locked in Jasper’s arms. As he carried her back toward the building, her vision swam, and a surge of nausea gripped her. For over his shoulder, sprawled upon the ground, lay Police Constable John Lloyd.
Or what remained of him.
Chapter Two
Chaos swarmed the lobby as Jasper passed Constable Woodhouse’s now abandoned reception desk. Jasper’s pulse pumped hard, and his breaths came in short puffs. Leo batted at his shoulder with feeble pats and mumbled for him to put her down.
“I can walk,” she wheezed. Her lungs probably hadn’t yet filled back up with air; the force of the explosion would have driven it right out of her.
“Just let me carry you. You’re bleeding,” he said as he continued toward the detective department.
She kicked her legs in objection to his command, albeit weakly. “This is embarrassing. Put me down.”
When he’d heard the explosion, he’d sprinted for the yard, praying Leo had stormed away from him and their brief altercation fast enough to have cleared the bomb. But there she’d been, visible through the thick, gunpowder smoke, sprawled on her back and unconscious.
Jasper hadn’t drawn breath again until he saw her lashes fluttering, her brow pinching in pain, and her head moving sideto side. Blood trickled from her left ear, the blast rupturing her eardrum.
Men were running in every direction, and beyond the walls of the building, there was a cacophony of shouts and screams. It appeared Clan na Gael had followed through with the bombing. They’d sent the first warning months ago, informing them that police headquarters and a few other significant places in London would be bombed. Several letters like it had arrived every month, but prior threats had never been seen through. As such, no one had taken the warning letter for the thirtieth of May too seriously. Jasper certainly hadn’t.
He brought Leo into his office and lowered her gently onto a chair. She pressed a hand to her bleeding ear and winced.
“Where else are you injured?” He knelt on the floor before her, checking for more blood, from the crown of her head to the soles of her boots. She’d lost her hat in the blast, and her sable hair had come loose from its pins.
“Nowhere. I’m just sore,” she insisted, speaking loudly to account for the temporary loss of hearing in her ear. She tried to stand but then wobbled and sat back down. “It was John.”
Jasper stood, his breathing returning to its normal cadence now that he was sure she wasn’t badly injured. “John?”
“PC Lloyd. Dita’s beau.Oh no…Dita.” She tried to stand again, and he gripped her arm to keep her from tottering to the side. After momentarily allowing him to steady her, she wrenched free of his grasp.
“Don’t.” Leo shrunk away from him.
Jasper backed up, trying to deflect the sharp stab of insult. Of course, she wouldn’t want his help. She’d made it perfectly clear that she despised him. And he couldn’t entirely blame her.
The last two months had been hell. He’d tried to come to terms with the fact that Leo might never forgive him, that she might never speak to him again, just as she’d promised. Thatearly morning when he’d awoken to find her in his bedroom on Charles Street still felt surreal. At first, Jasper hadn’t trusted he was awake. A part of him believed he was asleep and dreaming as she came silently to the side of his bed. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d succumbed to a nighttime fantasy about Leonora Spencer, even though he’d wake from the unbidden dreams with a guilty conscience to some degree, anyway.
