Leo then voiced her second thought: “Did Miss Hailson work at Gleason’s Department Store?”
At this, Connor blinked at her, taken aback. “I don’t know. It’s been some time since we last saw each other. Why?”
“Her dress,” she explained, gesturing toward the bodice and skirt, which were fashioned from fabric with thin blue andyellow stripes, identical to what Leo had just seen Dita wearing. “It is the shopgirl’s uniform at Gleason’s.”
Chapter Six
Jasper leaned the back of his head on the lip of the enamel tub and closed his eyes, happy to be home. The lodging house in Liverpool only had one shared water closet, located off the back of the house, and if a lodger wished to bathe, it was an extra shilling each week for a single bath. Jasper had gone to a nearby bathhouse instead, as the facilities were cleaner and more spacious.
As he soaked in the water now, the sound of Mrs. Zhao humming in the kitchen helped keep the tantalizing image of Leo in the tub at Cowper Hall at bay. He had too many things to see to in the next few hours to indulge in such thoughts anyhow. A stop at Scotland Yard would be necessary, as he needed to send word to his superior officer in Liverpool that he would be out for an additional two days. He also wanted to pull the record the Metropolitan Police had on file for the accidental death of Theodore Stroud.
“Would you like more hot water, Mister Jasper?” Mrs. Zhao called at the closed door to the water closet. Though the house had been plumbed since before Jasper came to live with Gregory Reid, the pipes had since stopped working. They could berepaired, or replaced, but neither he nor his adoptive father had thought the high cost necessary, especially since the water closet was conveniently located just off the kitchen.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Zhao,” he said, sitting forward. “I’m getting out.”
He’d been soaking for so long the water had turned tepid, and his fingertips had started to wrinkle.
“I have your dinner ready,” she replied, the merry tone of her voice enough to make him laugh lightly as he stepped out of the tub.
When he’d come through the front door earlier, Mrs. Zhao had run into the foyer with a rolling pin raised above her head, ready to use it against whoever was breaking into the house. As her eyes took in the sight of him, and not some vile intruder, they had filled with tears. She’d embraced him while scolding him for not giving her advance notice of his plan to return home. Since then, she’d been a whirlwind of energy.
Jasper tied the belt on his dressing robe before emerging from the water closet. He inhaled the enticing scents of Mrs. Zhao’s cooking: buttery pastry, roasted lamb, and savory herbs.
“I think I’ve just gained back a bit of weight,” Jasper teased, referring to one of his housekeeper’s first observations: that he had lost weight while in Liverpool. He did not think he had, as his trousers fit as they always did, but she’d simpered happily to learn that Mrs. Hart’s cooking had been both uninspired and flavorless.
He went upstairs to his room to dress, and by the time he returned to the kitchen, a plate of piping hot lamb pie was on the table next to a pot of tea. Mrs. Zhao fixed herself a serving as well and took the seat adjacent to his.
“Mr. Feldman said you and Miss Leo were asked to visit the viscount’s home,” she said as she picked up her fork. Jasper had wondered if Leo’s uncle would inform her of the summons, nowthat Mrs. Zhao saw him more often while caring for Flora a few days per week.
“For a will reading, yes.” Since learning of the will’s contents, the secret attachment his father seemed to have had to Francine Stroud had troubled him. The questions of when they’d seen one another and how they had kept in touch led him to wonder if there was at least one person who might have known the nature of their relationship.
He split the pastry of his pie with his fork. “I need to ask, Mrs. Zhao…” He hesitated, wanting to know, and yet also not wanting to hear the answers. “It is somewhat delicate.”
She dabbed her mouth and said, “This is about Mr. Reid and Mrs. Stroud.”
He lowered his fork to his plate and stared at her. So, she had known. “Was it what I think it was?”
Although in her early sixties, Mrs. Zhao’s face was not heavily lined. However, two furrows now appeared between her thin black brows. “Yes,” she replied simply.
He nodded as a numbness stole through him. “I see.”
Mrs. Zhao had been a loyal employee to his father, but she’d also been a loyal friend. It shouldn’t have surprised him to learn that she’d known. What did surprise Jasper was the discovery of a facet of his father’s life thathehad known nothing about.
“Was this after Emmaline had died?” he asked carefully.
“Of course!” she gasped, as though offended that he’d considered otherwise. “A few years had passed by then.”
Jasper didn’t know how he might have handled finding out that Gregory had conducted an affair while still married to his wife. He sank back into his seat with relief.
“Mrs. Stroud was the only person from that family who realized just how devastated Mr. Reid was by the loss of his family,” the housekeeper went on. “She would call on him whenever she was in town, and I came to recognize herhandwriting on letters that arrived for him in the post. I began to suspect it was more than friendship when, one morning, I came home from my sister’s in Limehouse earlier than anticipated.” She raised a brow as if to insinuate her meaning. Jasper understood: She’d found Francine had stayed the night.
“It was awkward, and Mr. Reid asked me not to say anything to anyone,” she said softly. “She was still married.”
Jasper presumed her husband had died, although he had not thought to ask when he’d passed.
“Where was I at the time?” Jasper asked.
“At school in Cheltenham.”
