Snowbound with the Heir

by Sophie Pembroke

  Rather than draw attention to what she’d said, he slipped under the duvet beside her, tugging it to get her to release enough to actually cover all of him. The bed was an excruciatingly tight fit, and the duvet far too small for two grown adults anyway. Jasper shifted self-consciously to try and get comfortable while still maintaining an acceptable distance between them, forcing himself not to think about the last time he’d been this close to Tori Edwards.

  He’d been younger then. Stupider. Lost and unsettled and in need of something real, something grounding. Like Tori.

  And she’d been...beautiful. Soft to touch and melting in his arms, under his kisses and—He really needed to not be thinking about this. If she got the slightest hint that he was—and his body was more than ready to give that to her if he let it—then he’d be on the floor faster than an avalanche, even if his father did fire her for letting him freeze to death.

  Which he was pretty sure he wouldn’t. He got the impression that, these days, Tori and Felix were more his father’s children than he was. Not that he cared.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ Suddenly, Tori twisted under the duvet, reaching around to grab his hand and pull him close against her back, curved around her body like a question mark.

  Jasper took a lot of deep, calming breaths.

  ‘Trust me, there is no other way for two people to get any sleep in this bed together,’ she said, her words muffled against the single pillow.

  ‘Speaking from experience?’ He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Tori in this bed with another guy, even if she wasn’t really there with him now.

  ‘I wasn’t always eight,’ she said, caustically. ‘I was eighteen when I left this place.’

  Why? The question battered at the inside of Jasper’s skull, desperate to get out. But he knew Tori better than that—even if he was realising by the moment that he didn’t know her as well as he’d thought. She’d never tell him, and it would only make the whole situation more awkward.

  But maybe she’d tell him something else.

  ‘What made you move in here with your aunt and uncle in the first place?’ Maybe she’d be more comfortable talking about those long-ago, and hopefully happier, times.

  ‘They’re not really my aunt and uncle,’ Tori said, her voice blurry with encroaching sleep. ‘Liz was my mum’s best friend since primary school. When my dad left us... Mum brought us here and Liz and Henry took us in without questions. Mum worked the bar, or the kitchens, whatever they needed. And she baked cakes and things for the local mums’ groups in the village who started meeting here for coffees on weekday mornings. She ran a book club, a babysitting circle...she really made this place home.’

  It sounded idyllic. But something in Tori’s exhausted voice told him the ending wouldn’t be quite so happy.

  ‘When she died, Liz and Henry kept me anyway. It was that or foster care, and Liz wouldn’t let that happen.’

  ‘How old were you?’ His heart hurt at the pain in her voice. He knew she wouldn’t be telling him any of this if it weren’t for the situation and the lateness—it was always easier to talk in the dark, and this snow-buffeted, muffled night was darker than most.

  But he couldn’t help but be grateful for this glimpse behind the barricade.

  ‘Fourteen,’ Tori said. ‘It was a long time ago now. Nearly half my life.’

  But Jasper would bet money she still thought about it every day. That it still caused her pain, all the time.

  ‘When was the last time you were here?’

  ‘Eight years ago. Before I came to Flaxstone.’ Her voice was slurring, sleep overtaking her. He was almost certain she wouldn’t have given him such an easy, honest answer otherwise. She was speaking on autopilot now.

  He was about to ask something else, to really push his luck and the power of the moment, but then Tori’s breathing changed, and when he peered over in the thin light coming under the door from the corridor outside, he could see her eyes were closed, her mouth a little open as she slept.

  The moment was gone. And it was probably just as well. He didn’t want her regretting tonight in the morning—the way she obviously regretted the last night they’d spent together, albeit for different reasons. Even if, at the time, she’d been a more than enthusiastic participant.

  He slumped back against the mattress, keeping his careful position around Tori’s body, and closed his eyes. He should sleep too. It had been a long day, and who knew how tomorrow would pan out?

  But he couldn’t stop wondering what could have been so awful it had driven Tori away from the home and the people who had taken her in and loved her when she had no one else.

  * * *

  Tori awoke with her nose and cheeks freezing and the rest of her...pleasantly warm. Cosy, even. Cocooned in blankets and—wait.

  Her muscles tensing, she slowly turned her head to look behind her. She’d just pat around with her hands but, if her memory was right, she didn’t want to risk finding out what parts of a person her fingers might accidentally come into contact with...

  Jasper’s aristocratic profile was irritatingly perfect in the blurry, morning light. The sun must still be on its way up over the horizon outside, but the whiteness of the world after the snowstorm made the early light brighter than it would otherwise have been. The whole world felt muted, muffled, as if they were protected away in a cotton-wool landscape where nothing could ever hurt them.

  Except she was in her room at the Moorside, in bed with Jasper, so clearly that couldn’t possibly be true.

  He breathed in, deep and sudden, and Tori realised she was staring. But really, who could blame her? She’d never get away with studying him like this while he was awake. He’d tease her for all eternity about it—or read more into it than there was. He was an attractive man. Those long, dark lashes against his cheek. The fall of his black hair against his forehead. His neck, sloping to meet strong shoulders somewhere under the blanket...not to mention everything else that was covered out of sight, but that she could still feel pressed up against her sleep-heavy body. She was, you know, human. She noticed these things.

  Which didn’t mean she was going to do anything about it. This time.

  Besides, while she was studying him, she wasn’t remembering all the secrets she’d given up to this man in the anonymous dark the night before. Wasn’t worrying about how he might use those secrets, either.

  At least she hadn’t told him everything. So, he knew about her mother. Knew about her father, too.

  He didn’t know about Tyler. That was the important thing.

  The only people in the world who knew about Tyler were Aunt Liz, Uncle Henry and herself—and even they didn’t know all of it. The most awful, terrible parts. And Tori knew she needed to keep it that way.

  She couldn’t bear the guilt, otherwise.

  Beside her, Jasper stirred, and she quickly snapped back into position facing away from him, before he caught her staring. Now she wasn’t focussing on his face, she could hear the inn coming to life below them. She supposed that no one would have slept particularly well, however exhausted they were after a difficult day. Everyone was waiting to move on—for the roads to open, the snow to clear. To return to their real lives.

  Just like her. Because none of this—not this place, not her family, and definitely not sharing a bed with Jasper—felt at all like the Tori she’d become since she walked away from the Moorside and never looked back.

  Conscious of Jasper starting to move behind her, Tori slipped out from under the duvet and winced as her bare feet hit the cold floor. Still, frostbite was still less alarming than actually waking up in bed with him again.

  Last time that had happened, she’d run before he’d woken up at all. And they’d been in her bed. Finding herself outside, barely dressed and without her phone, purse or keys had been awkward—as had climbing back in through her bathroom window late
r that day—but still less awkward than sharing a morning after with Viscount Darlton.

  Tori wasn’t sure what it was exactly about Jasper that rubbed her up the wrong way—or the right way, her mind added unhelpfully—but she thought it might have something to do with his eyebrows. The way they twitched up in a quizzical manner whenever she spoke, as if he was trying to find the truth behind her words. As if he was trying to understand her.

  Only one person had ever really understood Tori, and he hadn’t liked what he’d discovered, in the end. She had zero reason to think Jasper would be any different from Tyler, in that regard. And given how badly it had gone last time...being understood was not a phenomenon she wished to repeat in a hurry. Or ever.

  Liz and Henry already saw too deep, too much. They knew her, and maybe even what she was capable of. She had no idea how much Tyler had told them, while she was gone. Maybe they already knew everything, after all. Another reason she wasn’t exactly keen to extend the family reunion. She liked her secrets hidden at best, or at least unspoken.

  Time to go.

  Wriggling back into her clothes at speed—it was too damn cold out to risk another half-dressed escape—Tori kept one eye on Jasper as he stirred again, one arm flung over his eyes as he flipped to his back and started to stretch. Definitely waking up.

  Grabbing her boots to put on later, Tori slipped out of the bedroom door, checking the corridor was clear before padding down the stairs. Hopefully, Liz and Henry would be busy enough with their unexpected guests that they wouldn’t notice her sneaking out.

  She was in luck. Dodging a couple of small children racing out of the restaurant dormitory, she manoeuvred herself towards the exit and, pulling on her boots, back into the snow. The knee-high leather boots weren’t really suitable for the snow, but neither was the suit she’d worn to tour Stonebury the day before. But they were the only clothes she had with her, so they’d have to do.

  The guilt landed on her within the first few snow-crunching steps, but guilt was a feeling so tied into her connection with the Moorside Inn she found it easy enough to shrug off. Yes, she should have stayed to help Liz and Henry serve breakfast to the other stranded travellers, but she had at least left them Jasper as a dogsbody. And besides, she just couldn’t stay there a moment longer, fighting off the memories.

  She’d just walk as far as the road, she decided, and find out what the situation was. If she was really lucky they’d already have opened it—although she suspected someone would have been up to the inn to tell them that already if they had. But perhaps they’d be close to doing so. Perhaps she’d be able to return to the Moorside with the good news that they’d all soon be free to get on their way again.

  But she should have known better than to hope for that sort of luck.

  ‘Can’t see them opening it today, to be honest,’ the young policeman guarding the police cordon told her. ‘There’s more snow scheduled this afternoon for a start, and there’s already been a mini rock slide in the canyon.’

  ‘What about opening it the other way?’ she asked, a little desperate. If they couldn’t cross the moors the quick way, surely they could go back the way they’d come and escape to the main roads?

  But the policeman shook his head. ‘Too much snow. They’ve closed it that way too, right back at the turn off from the main road, to stop anyone else stupid enough to try and cross the moors in this weather.’ He seemed to realise what he’d said a moment too late, as his cheeks turned even pinker than they already were from the cold, but Tori waved away his stuttered apology.

  She didn’t care what some stranger thought about her plan—or, actually, Jasper’s plan—to take this road. The only people alive whose good opinion mattered to her were her business associates, and her aunt and uncle.

  And they probably weren’t thinking lovely thoughts about her for skipping out this morning.

  With a sigh, Tori turned away from the road and trudged back to the inn, pulling her phone from her pocket and dialling as she walked.

  ‘Tori? Everything okay?’ Felix’s voice came sharp over the line as he picked up on the first ring. ‘I got your text last night, but it didn’t make a lot of sense...’

  Probably because she’d said as little in it as possible. Felix was a friend, a good one. But he didn’t know about the Moorside or her family, and she had no intention of telling him now.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ she said, calmly. ‘Like I said in my text, we got caught in the snow and a road closure, so stayed the night at a local inn.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And it looks like we might be stuck here a little longer, too. Apparently it could be tomorrow before the roads are clear again.’

  ‘So you and Jasper are stuck in the middle of nowhere together?’ Felix barked a laugh. ‘Well, try not to kill each other, yeah?’

  ‘No promises,’ Tori said dryly. ‘Can you let the earl know what’s happening?’

  ‘Yeah, of course. Now, while I have you, I had a couple of questions about the set-up for the Christmas market...’

  By the time she hung up, the inn was almost in sight again. At least the fresh air had cleared her head a little—and she’d escaped from an awkward morning-after-the-revelations-before moment with Jasper.

  She wondered how he was coping with being cooped up at the Moorside with all those families and kids. He’d grown up in Flaxstone Hall, probably with a whole suite of rooms to call his own, and the ballroom to use as a playroom. The Moorside, with its low ceilings and poky rooms—and especially in its current state of overcrowding—wasn’t at all what he was used to. Last night it had all still been a game to him. Tori suspected that by this morning he’d be losing patience.

  But as the inn came fully into view, so did Jasper, his head visible above the wall that surrounded the grounds of the Moorside. His companions, however, were hidden by the snow-covered stone.

  She could hear them, though.

  ‘Jasper! Jasper! Use my scarf for the Mummy snowman!’ one of the kids chattering around him called.

  ‘But then your neck will get cold,’ Jasper pointed out, taking off his own scarf and wrapping it around the neck of his snow creation.

  There was a whole row of them, Tori realised, of varying shapes and sizes. Big snowmen, little snowmen, and something that might have been a snow dog, with a stick in its mouth.

  ‘How long was I gone?’ she asked as she reached Jasper’s gang, still amazed at the sight of Viscount Darlton playing with a horde of little kids. ‘We seem to have been invaded in my absence.’

  Jasper looked up at her voice and gave her a careful smile. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she’d done a runner this morning again, then.

  ‘The grown-ups are all eating breakfast inside,’ he explained. ‘But kids eat fast, and it just seemed cruel to keep them all cooped up when there was all this snow out here to play with.’

  Tori raised her eyebrows. ‘If all the grown-ups are inside, what does that make you?’

  He shrugged, and this time his grin felt real. ‘Maybe I’m just young at heart.’

  Handing a carrot that she imagined he’d filched from the kitchen to the tallest of the children, Jasper moved past the crush to join her by the wall, calming their groans of complaint with a promise that he’d be back to play more soon. ‘You went to check the road?’

  Tori nodded. ‘Still closed. Both ways. The policeman I spoke to reckons it won’t be open until at least tomorrow; there’s more snow forecast for this afternoon, but hopefully temperatures might rise after that.’

  Jasper looked back over at the kids playing by the snowmen. ‘Looks like I’d better come up with some more activities to keep this lot entertained, then.’

  Pushing away from the wall, he headed back to his little gang, clapping his hands together and asking, ‘Who reckons they can take me in a snowball fight?’

  As a dozen hands went up, and Jasp
er used the distraction to toss the first soft snowball at the nearest kid, Tori laughed, despite herself.

  This was definitely a side of Jasper she hadn’t expected to see this week.

  Then she turned to go inside and saw Uncle Henry waiting for her, and her smile disappeared again.

  Time to face the music.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JASPER’S FINGERS WERE taped together for the thirteenth time. The little girl—Sasha—sitting on his right stifled a giggle as she looped another strip of paper perfectly through the last circle, selected a piece of tape from the edge of the table beside them and taped it in place, another brightly coloured loop in the paper chain.

  ‘Obviously this is a job for little fingers,’ Jasper said as he shook off the tape again. But he reached for the next paper strip anyway, and fed it dutifully through the loop and taped it in place.

  All around him, Christmas music hummed softly from the speakers hidden behind the ceiling’s wooden beams, the sound of jingle bells and children’s choirs ringing. A fire crackled and popped cheerily behind a fireguard—and far away from kids with kindling—and an old, skinny greyhound lounged in front of it, clearly happy with its lot. Outside, snow was falling again; big, fat flakes that tumbled onto the already white-covered ground. The sun had already started to dip behind the horizon, and Jasper knew that soon Henry would want to start on dinner, and that he would go and help again, because at least that way he was being useful, he was doing something in this world of forced inactivity.

  Across the room, Tori’s Aunt Liz sat cutting festive wrapping paper into strips to add to their piles, smiling at him approvingly. All around him, industrious kids were adding to the, to quote Sasha, ‘most epic paper chain in the history of paper chains’. Jasper suspected it would loop around the whole pub several times over by the time they were done.

  The kids’ parents sat at the bar, obviously grateful for the ongoing reprieve from having to entertain their children while they were stranded. Tori’s news—and the subsequent visit from a policeman who looked about twelve to confirm that the road would be closed until at least tomorrow—hadn’t gone down well with anyone. Well, except maybe the kids, who were having a whale of a time. And Jasper.