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Leo and Mrs. Zhao exchanged a guarded look; each of them knew how fragile a moment it was. To be safe, Leo backed out of the kitchen to go upstairs while Mrs. Zhao commented that violet was a favorite color of hers as well.

As she climbed the stairs, Leo removed the letter from her pocket. Like Flora, Leo could not think of her mother without also thinking of her violent death. For a reason Leo had never been able to understand, she had trouble remembering anything about her life from before the night of the murders. As perfect as her memory was, her life before was trapped behind a dense, impenetrable wall. She wanted memories of her mother; happy, normal ones…but they were impossible to recover.

All Leo had were the facts known to the police about her mother’s death.

When the Inspector had given Leo the file he’d kept on the Spencer family murders, he’d advised her to open it only when she was ready. She thought she had been, but after flipping through photographs of her slain family members, some of the images overexposed or blurred, an inexplicable and unrelenting panic had gripped her. She’d closed the file and stored it under her bed. And yet nightmares had persisted, invading her sleep. These nightmares, she knew, were simply memories, startling in their newness and debilitating in their horror.

Although Leo still did not know how her father had betrayed the East Rips, pieces of information had come to her over the last year. The latest had been compliments of a criminal named Eddie Bloom. The owner of a dance hall and casino, it had been Mr. Bloom’s opium that was stolen for use in the illegal operation Leo had uncovered at Gleason’s Department Store. To thank Leo for her efforts in exposing the thieves, Mr. Bloom had sent Leo a note along with a hefty ten pounds. The note included a strange comment: You’ll make an excellent spy. Must be in the blood.

Indicating that someone in her family—her father? her mother?—had been a spy had prompted Leo to draw the file out from under her bed for the first time in months. This time, she’d gathered the appalling photographs, flipped them over, and shuffled them to the back. With a clenched stomach, Leo had perused case notes, interviews, constable reports, and newspaper clippings. Unsurprisingly, there had been no mention of Leonard Spencer’s involvement with the Carters or anything to do with clandestine spying. Disappointed, she’d stuffed the file under her bed once more. But the papers she’d read were all still in her memory, every typed word, available for perusal whenever she wished.

The temptation arose now and then, but as she entered her small bedroom and lit a paraffin lamp, the only thing tempting her currently was the letter from Andrew Carter. She set it on her bed. Her eyes drifted toward it several times as she changed into a somewhat more stylish ensemble for dinner at the Lewises’. As she sat at her vanity, re-pinning her hair in front of her mirror, the reflection of the white envelope on the bed drew her attention again.

Leo gritted her teeth. “Blast it.”

She stood and snatched up the letter. The envelope flap wasn’t sealed with wax. Although it was a breach of trust to open, let alone read, someone else’s correspondence, Jasper was just going to tell her what Andrew wanted anyway. Surely, he would.

With that in mind, Leo felt marginally less guilty as she withdrew a square of paper. The only writing on it was a place and time: Charing Cross Station, tomorrow morning, eight o’clock.

Andrew wanted to meet. Her stomach turned to lead as she sat on the edge of her bed. She replaced the note in the envelope and then dropped it into her small handbag. She didn’t want Jasper to go near his cousin. But she had no choice. If she didn’t give him the letter, he would not arrive at the meeting place, and Andrew might react badly. Dangerously.

Downstairs, a few knocks on the front door drove her to her feet. It had to be Jasper, coming to take her to dinner. Picking up her handbag, Leo went down to open the door, but Mrs. Zhao had already done so, allowing the detective inspector to come inside. He wore a dark green, woolen Chesterfield coat, unbuttoned to reveal a fine black suit and tie, and a burgundy satin waistcoat. Leo had always acknowledged that Jasper was a handsome man, but only over the last year had she come to recognize just how attractive he was. How a flutter of her pulse and a yearning in the very center of her body came alive whenever she saw him enter a room or step through a doorway.

Like now.

He kept his serious gaze hinged on her, as if he knew where her private thoughts had wandered. Jasper took Leo’s coat from the hook on the front hall stand and held it up for her to slip into. After thanking Mrs. Zhao for staying with Flora, they departed for the hired carriage waiting outside. As Leo took a seat on the bench, a bubble of anxiety simmered in her stomach at the thought of giving Jasper Andrew’s note. It would plunge him into a wretched mood and distract him during dinner too.

But she had to tell him.

“Jasper,” she started to say as he shut the carriage door and took the seat next to her.

Leo didn’t get out another word before he’d reached one arm behind her back, the other under her legs, and lifted her from the bench entirely. She yelped in surprise as he hauled her onto his lap—and covered her mouth with his.

She went to pulp in his arms, her shock dissipating as she leaned against him, and into the kiss. Notes of oaked whisky on his tongue and the warm musk of his sandalwood cologne wrapped around her as possessively as his arms did.

With every kiss they had shared so far, there was a slowly dissolving sense of propriety between them, one that they’d yet to discuss but which Leo knew they both felt. There was also growing familiarity and trust. For instance, Leo knew that she could place her palms against his waistcoat and delight in the feel of his muscled chest without startling him. Likewise, Jasper knew she would not draw back from him when his hand explored the length of her leg, from ankle to hip. The barrier of his gloves and of her skirt and petticoats prevented him from touching her skin, but Leo took pleasure in imagining what his warm, calloused palm might feel like on it.

The carriage slowed and hit a crater in the cobbled road, causing their locked mouths to part.

“I thought you said you were looking forward to the carriage ride home,” Leo teased, gripping his shoulders as the carriage took a corner. With his arms bracing her, she stayed firmly on his lap.

“I’m an impatient man,” he replied and then claimed her mouth again.

If they continued kissing like this, the bristle on his chin would abrade her skin—something Roy and his wife would surely notice during dinner. Leo pulled back and told him as much. He groaned in annoyance but did not try to kiss her again. He did, however, keep her ensconced on his lap.

“There is something you should know,” Leo said.

The letter in her handbag would ruin the moment. Jasper would shift her from his lap and likely keep space between them. He hated his blood ties to the Carters. When Andrew had told him he was aware of his true identity, Jasper had tried to walk away from Leo, claiming that he would only be a danger to her. She hadn’t accepted his stance, though, and Jasper had relented. But if Andrew pressed hard enough, Leo wasn’t certain what Jasper might do in the name of protecting her.

With him now waiting for her to continue speaking, his dark green eyes searching hers, she took a breath. “The doctor Sebastian Lawlor hired to treat his wife was likely a fraud and an accomplice,” she said, cringing with a smidge of guilt. But the letter, she reasoned, could wait until after dinner.

“Henry Gray is the physician who wrote the famous medical text, Gray’s Anatomy. Connor believes a real doctor would have noticed the signs of long-term arsenic poisoning. Instead, this Mr. Gray diagnosed stomach cancer.”

Jasper made a musing sound in the back of his throat as he frowned. “I wondered about the doctor. Especially after what I discovered on my visit to Lawlor Antiquities earlier.”

His palm continued to gently massage her hip, and Leo was tempted to kiss him again. But she was too intrigued to know what he’d found out.

“It appears the shop is owned by a Roger Lawlor, and he has no earthly idea who Sebastian is,” he said, his eyebrow arching. “And he’s never heard of Augusta Lawlor.”