“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.
Chapter Sixteen
The lumps in the armchair kept Leo awake most of the night. So did worry. Though Claude had been certain Jasper didn’t have internal injuries, he’d expressed concern for the state of his head.
“He is in and out of consciousness,” Claude informed her, when she’d reentered Jasper’s bedroom several minutes after leaving hastily. She wasn’t sure what had come over her, openly undoing his shirt buttons like that. Even in his deplorable condition, Jasper had known to stop her from undressing him further.
“I don’t believe his skull is fractured, but it is possible his brain might swell if it was injured badly enough in the beating,” Claude explained.
She’d approached the bed, her stomach cramping at the sight of the fresh sutures closing his gashed brow, the purpling bruises on his stomach, and those peeking out from his cotton linen-wrapped chest. The helpless panic was unlike anything she’d ever felt before.
“How will we know if that happens?” she’d asked, and the answer—seizures—had only exacerbated her worry.
Claude said he’d check on Jasper hourly throughout the night, but Leo had stayed awake too. When she’d found her uncle sleeping on the guest bedroom’s slipper sofa, with Flora snoring softly in the bed, she’d decided to keep watch over Jasper herself. Each time she eased him awake, he’d murmur nonsense, still half asleep even though his eyes were open. She’d felt his forehead countless times, checking for fever. Her eyes had grown hot and dry, her mind muddled as she forced herself to stay awake, watching for any sign of a seizure.
At some point before dawn, she must have drifted to sleep anyway. She now shook herself awake at the sound of her name.
“Leo?”
She winced at a crick in her neck and a tightness in her legs as she straightened them. She’d tucked them underneath her as she slept, slumped against the broad wing of the armchair.
Jasper was sitting up in bed, the sheet and blanket around his waist. It was reminiscent of how she’d found him when she’d entered this room a few months ago at dawn, the same muted morning light coming through the gaps in the curtains. She’d been too single-minded in that moment to allow his undressed state to affect her. Now, however, the impropriety of it came at her from all directions.
“Did you sleep in that lumpy chair?” he asked, his voice cracking. Mrs. Zhao had left some water in a glass by his bed. He reached for it, groaning as he did.
“I didn’t intend to.” She got to her feet, blinking rapidly and trying not to stare at his bare skin. Especially not at the scar on his upper left pectoral. She’d inflicted it long ago with the jagged shard from her china doll.
He lowered the glass and sat back against the headboard, breathing heavily as though already fatigued. His left eye was swollen and discolored, his split lower lip starting to scab.
“How is your head?” she asked, averting her attention from his chest and the welts and contusions on the well-defined planes of his abdomen.
“Ask again tomorrow. I might have a more favorable answer.”
“I’ll fetch my uncle,” she said, eager to leave the room.
“Wait.” Jasper shoved off the blanket and tried to stand.
“What are you doing? Sit back down at once.” She charged toward him as the blanket dropped. At least he was wearing trousers this time.
“I can stand just fine.” He did, though with some assistance; he gripped the edge of his bedside table. “You need to stop looking into anything having to do with the Yard bombing.”
His concern was understandable. His attack last night was a result of their visit to Mrs. Stewart. “But we don’t know if the Angels don’t want you asking questions about Niles Foster, or if they don’t want you asking questions about Mrs. Bates’s connection to them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jasper replied. “I don’t want them paying you a visit the way they did me.”
“I was with you yesterday,” she reasoned. “If they’d wanted to threaten me, they would have by now.”
He gritted his teeth. “Leo. Just…stop. This is serious.”
“I’m aware of that. I did find you unconscious on the kitchen floor, if you recall. And I stayed up all night, fearful that your brain would swell!”
A knock landed on the open door. Claude stood there, peering between them. “I’m quite sure the Inspector’s head could do without you raising your voice, my dear.” He came inside the bedroom. “I’m glad to see you’re up. Leonora, you should have woken me during the night.”
She gathered her temper, sorry that she’d shouted at Jasper. A little, anyway. “I didn’t want to bother Aunt Flora.”
Her aunt had been confused about where they were last evening, even though she’d been to the Charles Street house several times over the years. It wasn’t their regular routine, though. Mrs. Zhao had helped to calm her, and after adding a little brandy to her tea, Flora had fallen asleep easily.
