“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 oneof 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 shesat 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.
“I’m sorry. You didn’t want to talk about the case,” she said. Though, she wondered what he might like to talk about instead. His work was such a large part of his life. He didn’t leave his role as detective inspector at the door whenever he returned home each day. Like the Inspector had, Jasper lived and breathed detective work.
She knew him well, and yet, she also wondered if there was a side to him that he’d never shown her. What did he do with his time off from the Yard? Did he even take a day for himself during the week like he was entitled to do?
When he grinned half-heartedly, Leo suspected it was more than just a bad mood plaguing him.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
He was wrestling with something. He’d swallowed the rest of his brandy and was now staring intently into his empty glass. At last, he said softly, “We cannot go out to dine.”
Leo’s pulse fluttered. “It is a little late in the evening for that, I admit,” she said lightly, though she suspected that wasn’t what he’d meant.
Jasper met her gaze but held his tongue. He had something difficult to say, and she thought she knew what it was.
“You regret kissing me, is that it?” Leo whispered, an invisible spear sinking into her heart.
He winced. “No. In fact, there is little else I’ve been able to think about. Even while working.”
His work was everything to him. And she had made that difficult at the Yard, among his fellow officers and superiors. He’d told her a few times now that he needed to keep her out of CID inquiries, or else.
“Is it Chief Inspector Coughlan? Or Superintendent Monroe? Have they reprimanded you because I was involved with the case?” For the slimmest second, she felt regret and guilt. But then, Jasper had been the one to invite her to Gavin Seabright’s room to view a dead body and interview the woman who would ultimately be the nefarious mastermind behind the whole murder plot.
