“Dita would never compromise herself.”
“This isn’t about her. It is about you, Leo.”
“Or is it about you?” The question shot from her mouth before she even knew it had formed.
He narrowed his stare. “Me?”
A notion took shape, one that made her voice shake when she spoke. “Yes, you, and how you might be perceived at the Yard amongst your colleagues if I were to join a private agency. Would it beyouwho is ridiculed, for associating with me?”
His superiors already didn’t approve of her, and she wasn’t convinced it was only because she’d become involved in some of Jasper’s cases. Her work at the morgue was distasteful to many.
He stepped closer to her, still holding himself rigid. “You know as well as I do that the Met cares about the private lives of their officers.”
She did know. “Especially of their inspectors,” she said.
They were so often in the public eye, representing the entire Metropolitan Police Force, and they had to meet certain standards. It was always a struggle to maintain the public’s support and trust, and news reporters were incessantly searching for any reason to disparage officers.
Jasper relented with a nod. “I would be lying if I said I haven’t considered what my superiors will think when they learn about you.”
“But they already know about me,” she said, confused.
He stepped closer to her, the exasperation in his eyes softening to a degree of amusement. “I meant, when they learn I am courting you.” More heat built under her skin as he reached for her hand. “If that is what you want.”
Leo stared at him, her ears beginning to chime. She took a shallow breath, then another as she held his earnest stare. His hand closed around hers, and the warmth of it fired up her spine.
“Are you asking permission to court me…during anargument?”
Had that been what he and Claude were discussing when she’d entered the sitting room?
“I suppose the timing could be better,” he admitted, still holding her hand. He brought her palm to his chest; she could feel his steady heartbeat beneath her fingertips. “But yes, I want to court you, Leo. Properly.”
A smile formed on her lips, and an answer—yes—leapt to the tip of her tongue. But she held it there.
“Jasper, you worry what your superiors will say even now, when I am just a morgue assistant. Let alone if I dare to find employment with a private detective agency.”
His chest rose under her palm as he drew in a deep breath. “If the woman I’m courting is compromising herself, then yes, there would be talk. Consequences, even.”
Leo tugged her hand out from underneath his and stepped backward. “I would never compromise myself, Jasper. And not just because of how it would reflect upon you at the Yard. I would have thought you trusted me enough to know that.”
Regret rushed through her, leaving behind an ache in her chest.
“I’ve never fit into any conventional role, as you surely must know,” she went on. “I didn’t think you cared about that.”
“I don’t,” he insisted. “I wouldn’t want you to be anything other than who you are.”
Jasper closed the space she’d put between them, and his hand rose to cup her cheek. His woodsy pine scent and the coarseness of his palm warmed her. It compelled her to close her eyes and turn her cheek into his hand, until her lips grazed his skin.
“Leo,” he whispered. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes, and though she expected him to kiss her, he only held her gaze. “Do you wish to court me?” he asked softly.
Despite the complication that had just arisen, albeit unexpectedly, her heart knew her answer. “Yes. You know I do.”
After an initial twitch of a grin, Jasper’s expression clouded. “But?”
“But what if who I am doesn’t fall in line with what Scotland Yard wants from one of its finest inspectors?”
From the delay in making his reply, she could see he understood what she was questioning.
