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He was right, of course. But there were two dead men sprawled on the crypt floor. Jasper would have to give an account as to what happened. Anything having to do with the Carters would only lead to more questions and trouble.
“What will you tell the police when they arrive?”
Jasper slipped his arm from around her shoulder and stood on his own. “I’ll figure it out. But you need to go. Explaining why you are here will only complicate things.”
Reverend Thorpe had gripped the small cross strung around his neck and now knelt next to one of the dead men, praying.
Jasper led Leo up the narrow stairs, but instead of moving toward the front doors, he directed her to a side entrance. It emptied into a narrow alley. Police whistles shrilled in the distance.
“Minor wound or not, you’ve been shot,” Leo said. “You need to see a doctor.”
“I’m certain the bullet grazed my side, nothing more,” Jasper replied.
His stoicism infuriated her. “There are vital organs along the right flank, Jasper. Your kidney. Your large intestine. Your liver and gallbladder.”
“Christ, not my gallbladder,” he muttered sarcastically. “I’ve grown rather attached to that one.”
“The gallbladder is important,” she shot back, unamused. “Even flesh wounds can become infected if not properly treated. You have no idea how many people die from sepsis related to infected wounds.”
“I am not going to develop sepsis, and I am not going to die. But on the off chance…” He grasped her wrist. “You should kiss me before I expire.”
Her next argument dissolved on her tongue as he tugged her to him and crushed his lips to hers. She gave in to his kiss, allowing it to melt her agitation.
Just then, a police whistle, closer than before, pierced the air.
Jasper pushed her from the doorway into the alley. “Find a cab. Go to Charles Street. I’ll join you there as soon as I’m able. Please, Leo.”
She hated to leave him, but he was right. “I’ll wait for you there.”
With that, Jasper stepped back inside and closed the door behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Leo’s frantic worry dissolved as she traveled back to Charles Street. All evidence pointed toward Jasper’s wound being superficial. Men who were seriously wounded or dying did not kiss feverishly or make humorous quips as he had while shuttling her out of St. Emmanuel’s. But she did continue to stew over what explanation he would give the Metropolitan Police constables when they arrived at the church. Deep down, she’d known Jasper would not leave the scene. He had a duty as a police officer, and he took it seriously. It was one of the reasons she loved him.
The windows of Number 23 Charles Street were dark when her hansom pulled up. Mrs. Zhao was still with Claude and Flora, it would seem. Most likely, the housekeeper would not leave until Leo returned to Duke Street.
Using the key the Inspector had given her many years ago, which she kept in her handbag, she let herself in. She set about bringing the house to life, lighting gas sconces, stoking the coal braziers in the study and in Jasper’s bedroom, and adding wood to the cottage range in the kitchen.
His home, so much larger than her own, was drafty and difficult to keep warm, but she tried to prepare it as Mrs. Zhao might have. An hour passed. Then another. Leo had made herself a few cups of tea and had tried to read the newspapers in Jasper’s study, but she was too restless and found herself in the kitchen, wondering how miffed Mrs. Zhao would be if she were to attempt cooking something.
Thankfully, she heard the front door open before she could try.
“Leo?”
The sound of Jasper’s voice accelerated her walk toward the foyer into a run. In the front hall, she found him shrugging out of his coat, his waistcoat darkened with even more blood than before.
“Have you seen a doctor yet?” she asked.
He tossed the coat onto the newel post. “There wasn’t a chance. Mrs. Zhao keeps her kit in the kitchen. Top cupboard, next to the range,” he told her, then started up the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“My room,” he answered. Then, with a playful smirk lifting the corner of his mouth, “I believe you know where that is.”
Heat gathered under Leo’s skin as she returned to the kitchen. She noticed a tremor in her fingers as she took the kit down from the cupboard. Flexing her hands, she chastised herself for being so easily flustered. It wasn’t like her at all. Nor was the warmed honey consistency of her legs as she made her way up to Jasper’s bedroom. Composing herself, she entered the room—and promptly lost her breath.
He sat on the edge of his bed, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Peering at his wound, dabbing the deeply gashed skin with a kerchief, Jasper was too distracted to see her gazing at his muscled chest and abdomen in stupefaction. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen him stripped to the waist. However, those earlier instances had been prior to their declarations of love, and especially of their longing for one another.
