Jasper shrugged and looked away. ‘I mean, I was pretty bored too. They might have been entertaining me, for all you know.’
She laughed at that, bright and surprised, and he was glad she didn’t know the truth. That kids were easier for him to interact with because they’d had less time to build up all the secrets and lies.
Maybe that was the real reason he wanted to solve the puzzle of Tori Edwards. If he knew all her secrets, maybe he could let her in, for real, and tell her his. If Felix hadn’t already.
Maybe they could have that one night again. And maybe he could get back that feeling he’d had when he was with her. Soothed and relaxed and hopeful. As if the world was shining with possibilities, not tarred and dull with lies and deception.
Maybe if one person, this person, gave up their secrets voluntarily, he could have faith again. Faith that some people could live without secrets, or without deceptions meant to hurt others or protect themselves.
Jasper knew, suddenly, somehow, that if he ever had faith in anyone, it would be Tori Edwards.
And he wanted it so much that it hurt.
CHAPTER SIX
TORI STARED AT the single bed. Somehow, it looked even smaller than it had last night.
‘Do you want me to sleep on the floor tonight?’ Jasper asked, obviously catching her studious observations of their sleeping place. ‘I mean, I probably won’t freeze to death. Much. And even if I did, I don’t reckon my dad would fire you.’
Rolling her eyes, Tori yanked back the covers. ‘But after today, Henry and Liz would never forgive me, and I’d have seven kids after my blood if you weren’t around to throw snowballs at tomorrow.’
‘True.’ Jasper flashed her a smug smile. It really shouldn’t be as attractive as it was. ‘I am easy to love.’
Did she imagine it, or was there a brittleness to his words? As if there might actually be some vulnerability behind the bravado and self-confidence. Something she’d never even really looked for until now.
Tori shook her head. It seemed unlikely.
But then, so did Viscount Darlton sitting on the floor of the Moorside Inn making paper chains with children.
They prepared for bed in silence—at least, they were quiet. In the absence of conversation Tori could hear the whole inn settling down for the night. Kids protesting bedtime; adults laughing over one last pint; the faint strains of Christmas hits from yesteryear still playing through the ancient speakers. Downstairs, Henry would be wiping down the bar, and Liz would be fetching the keys, ready to lock up. No need to shoo out the last of the patrons tonight; with the snow still thick on the ground, no one was leaving.
How many nights had she hidden in the shadows on the stairs, watching Henry and Liz put the pub to bed? Feeling so safe, so loved, here at the Moorside?
But that was a long time ago. Before Tyler.
‘What are you thinking so hard about?’ Jasper asked, softly, as she climbed into the bed beside him.
‘Tyler,’ she whispered back, without even thinking about what she was saying.
He stilled behind her. ‘Henry told me that the paintings we talked about earlier were painted by their son, Tyler. The same one, I assume?’
Tori nodded. She didn’t trust herself to answer. But she had nowhere to go and nowhere to hide from this conversation now she’d started it. And maybe she’d spent too many years not talking about Tyler anyway.
Maybe Jasper would understand. Not if she told him everything, of course—then he’d just know the truth. He’d know that Tyler’s death was her fault, the same way Henry and Liz knew it, and then she’d never be able to look him in the eye again.
And Jasper had nice eyes. Despite herself, she couldn’t deny she liked looking at them. At him.
He touched her shoulder, and she turned to face him. She could barely make out his features in the darkness and the moonlight, but she knew his face well enough to picture it through the gloom. Knew his body too, even after only one night. One night she’d spent a lot of years pretending to forget.
She hadn’t forgotten any of it.
‘You and Tyler were...together?’ Jasper asked. There was a twist of his mouth, even in the dark, that Tori knew was distaste for the idea. Maybe even jealousy.
Something about that warmed her, even though she hated herself for it. There was no point being jealous of a dead man, after all.
‘Ever since I was sixteen,’ she said. ‘Henry and Liz weren’t thrilled about it, but...it wasn’t like we’d ever been brought up as brother or sister or anything, and we weren’t actually related, so there wasn’t much they could do. Well, except for Henry’s epic “not under my roof” talks.’
‘Which I’m sure you ignored.’
‘Not for the first year or two,’ Tori admitted. ‘Although we did decide that the barns at the far edge of the pub lands didn’t really count as his roof.’
It had been so exciting, sneaking off together, honestly believing that no one else knew where they were going or what they were doing—although as an adult, Tori realised that they probably all had. No one who had watched them together could have seen anything but young, first love. The infatuated kind. The kind that blinded a person to the whole rest of the world.
Until it didn’t, any more.
‘So, what happened?’ Jasper asked. ‘Where is Tyler now?’
Tori shut her eyes. ‘He died. While I was away at university.’
She heard his sharp intake of breath, felt the pity in his gaze even if she couldn’t see it. His fingers twitched against her hip as if he wanted to hold her close, to take away the pain.
But the pain was eight years old now. Dull and aching like an old injury that only hurt when it snowed. Tyler was with her every minute of every day, a ghost looking over her shoulder.
But if she didn’t turn around, didn’t look back, at least she didn’t have to see the accusation in his eyes. The hate and the blame.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Jasper said, after a long time.
‘Yeah.’
Because what else was there to say? Other than, It was my fault. I killed him the day I went away.
Tori turned to face away from him again, holding her hurt tight inside, even when all she really wanted to do was curl into Jasper’s body and let him hold her while she cried.
She didn’t deserve the tears. Not when she was to blame.
So instead, she tried to sleep. Even though she knew that Tyler would be waiting in her dreams.
He always was on nights like this.
That was what she deserved tonight.
* * *
Jasper woke suddenly, unsure of what had disturbed him. He’d been luxuriating in a particularly relaxing dream—one so opposite to his actual life he’d known even as he experienced it that it couldn’t be real. In it, he and Tori were walking beside a frozen river, gloved hands clasped together. He looked up to see the strange battlements of Stonebury Hall rising against the winter sky ahead of them, snow coating them like icing sugar on one of Felix’s mother’s cakes.
They didn’t talk at all—which was probably just as well, as an argument would have ruined the perfect peace of the dream—but Jasper knew he was happy, content, in a way he didn’t remember being since he’d discovered the truth about his father and his half-brother.
Of course, it couldn’t last.
Jasper blinked into the darkness, trying to put his finger on what had jerked him out of the dream and wondering if he could get back to it if he fell asleep again quickly enough. But then Tori cried out—a sound of such pain and torment it twisted his heart—and he knew that he wasn’t going to be sleeping again any time soon.
‘Tori? Tori.’ He pressed a hand to her shoulder, feeling the heat of her skin burning through her T-shirt despite the chill in the air. ‘Wake up.’
She didn’t, though. Instead, she sob
bed again, and buried her face in his chest, crying in a way he’d never even imagined Victoria Edwards was capable of.
All those battlements were broken, the mask cast aside and the brittle shield she kept up, always, shattered.
Jasper knew she’d never have let him see her this way under any other circumstances. He was pretty sure that the moment it was over Tori would pretend that it had never happened. He couldn’t blame her; he wouldn’t want her—or anyone—to see him so broken, either. To see deep inside him where the pain lived. Hell, he’d moved continents to avoid it. Staying at Flaxstone with his father and Felix would have made that hurt raw and visible every day—and so he’d left, and only returned when he knew his defences were strong enough to hide it.
But now, holding Tori, he wondered if any emotional defences were strong enough to hide behind, in the end. Maybe everything always came out, eventually. Just like secrets and truths.
‘Tori, sweetheart.’ He whispered the words against her hair, kissing her head softly as her cries lessened. ‘Wake up, love.’
And she did.
Lifting her head, she blinked up at him, tears still glistening in the half-light. ‘I was dreaming...’ She shuddered at the memory.
‘About Tyler?’ he asked gently. She nodded. ‘Would it help to talk about it?’
This time, she shook her head, her hair whipping around in defiance. ‘I just want to forget.’ She looked up at him again, and there were no tears this time. Just a new fierceness to replace the armour she’d lost. Her body shifted, and suddenly every inch of her seemed to be pressed up against him, tempting and hot and everything he’d never even dreamed of.
That was a lie. He’d dreamed about it. Often. Especially since the night they’d spent together.
But he’d never imagined it could actually happen again, not here and now.
She raised her mouth, pressing it firmly to his, her tongue sweeping out across his lower lip, and his whole body shuddered with want and desire as he kissed her back. The kiss was deep and desperate and everything he remembered about their other night together. When she pulled back, just far enough to kiss her way along his jawline, Jasper could barely remember his own name.
‘Help me forget?’ she murmured against his ear.
And suddenly the heat faded.
Not completely, of course. The lust she’d inspired was still coursing through his blood, and certain parts of his anatomy were absolutely on board with her plan—right now, preferably.
But his brain, that frustrating, overthinking part of him—the part that had come up with a dream of a frozen river and this woman’s hand in his—had other ideas.
‘Tori...’ He pulled away, as far as he could without falling out of the narrow single bed. ‘Tori, not like this.’
God, he wanted her. But he wanted her to want him, too. Not just forgetfulness, not just oblivion. He’d had enough of that sort of relationship himself, when he’d first moved away from Flaxstone. The kind of sex that just blocked out the world for a time, that helped him pass out and sleep without dreaming of the life he’d thought he’d had and the lies that had lurked behind it.
He didn’t want that with Tori. Not this time.
Last time had been freeing—for him, at least. She hadn’t just helped him to forget his worries, she’d given him new hope for what came next. Hope that had only lasted until the next day, when he’d confronted his father, but still. It hadn’t been despair or desperation that had driven him to her, not like it was for her now. Now he wondered again what it had been for Tori that had allowed her to let him in that night.
Whatever that was, he knew that if they were to have that connection again, he needed it to be something more. Tori meant something more to him, now. Seeing her at the Moorside these last couple of days had convinced him of that, if nothing else.
She mattered. It might not be love or for ever or any of the other impossible things his dream had seemed to promise him. But it was more than this—more than forgetting who she was in his body for a while.
And he knew, if he took what she was offering right now, he’d never be worthy of anything more.
‘Tori. Tori, no. Not like this.’ He said it again as gently as he could, but hurt flashed across her face all the same. He was so close he could see it, pale in the moonlight.
But then she nodded in acceptance. ‘I know. I just...it still hurts.’
‘I imagine it always will.’ He didn’t know about this sort of emotional pain, not really. But he understood about having a whole world he thought he knew being snatched away from him.
What sort of a future had Tori imagined with Tyler? How much must she have loved him to have not even been able to come back and see her family because the pain was so great?
Jasper wasn’t foolish enough to imagine she might ever love him that way—wasn’t even sure he’d know what to do with that kind of love if she did. But just for a moment, in the darkness, he wondered how it would feel. To be loved so much.
Had his father loved Felix’s mother that way? Did his own mother love his father enough that she’d love him still when the truth came out?
He didn’t know. He’d run away before he could ask those questions.
But suddenly, holding a silent Tori in his arms, he wondered.
How had they loved each other? And could he forgive them, if it was enough?
Maybe, with the thaw, it would be time to find out.
* * *
Tori woke alone, this time. Hardly surprising, given the way she’d behaved the night before. She cringed even to remember it.
But Jasper hadn’t mocked her, hadn’t been smug or even dismissive. He hadn’t even said just no.
He’d said, ‘No, not like this.’
And he’d been right.
Of course, the odds were good he’d tease and joke about it this morning, make comments about his ego and her flattery of it being good for the soul or something. But the more time she spent with him on this abortive road trip, the more she came to realise that those jibes and barbs weren’t the real Jasper. They were the thorns and brambles he used to keep people away. To stop them from seeing the man inside.
But she’d seen him. Well, glimpsed him, at least. Watching him with the children, or helping Henry. Feeling his arms around her as she cried. And the strain in his voice as he told her no, more telling than his words of how much he was giving up.
She’d felt the real Jasper in his kiss. And she knew for certain now that he was nothing like the entitled, shallow man he pretended to be.
Tori wasn’t entirely sure what to do with this information just yet.
Make fun of him, probably. Wasn’t that the way their relationship went?
But maybe it didn’t have to, any more.
She was still thinking about the possibilities as she headed downstairs thirty minutes later, washed and dressed and as presentable as she was going to get while wearing the same clothes she’d had on for three days now. Not that it could matter all that much; Jasper had seen her at her worst last night, in the grips of a nightmare and covered in sweat, and he’d still wanted her. And Liz and Henry...well, they’d seen her in her teenage Goth phase, so nothing would alarm them now.
Jasper was perched at the bar when she walked in, surprised to find the place less busy than it had been yesterday. Across in the dining room she could see people folding sheets and packing bags through the open doorway.
‘The roads are open?’ she guessed.
Jasper nodded. ‘Well, the way back to the main road is open. The moors road is still closed, so we’ll have to go the long way round. But when you’re ready we can head out and go...home.’
There was a slight pause before the last word, as if he realised that Flaxstone could never really be her home, not while the Moorside still stood, not even if she never came back here ever again. She�
��d had home once. She didn’t expect to be so lucky as to find it twice.
Except maybe he was thinking of his own complicated feelings about the place. Tori didn’t know what had driven him away from Flaxstone, or what had persuaded him to return, but she knew he hadn’t seemed at ease on the estate ever since he’d arrived back in the country.
The time they’d spent at the Moorside Inn might not have been planned, or convenient, or even what she’d have chosen if she’d had any say in the matter at all. But Tori had to admit that it had changed them. It had given them the space to see deeper into each other, behind their defences.
And it had given her the chance to be part of a family again.
Walking away from that a second time somehow felt far, far harder than it had been eight years ago, deep in the grip of her grief and guilt over Tyler’s death.
‘You’ll come back and see us soon, won’t you, Vicky?’ Aunt Liz said, holding her hands tight as Jasper loaded their stuff into the car. They seemed to be leaving with more than they’d arrived with—including two of Uncle Henry’s steak and ale pies from the freezer, something that had made Jasper beam. There was something else, too—something wrapped in Christmas paper, that she hadn’t been allowed to examine too closely. Tori was fine with that. Christmas presents smacked too much of family, and togetherness, and all the things she needed to say goodbye to again.
She wasn’t ‘Vicky’ any longer. She’d been Tori since the day she walked out. Vicky and her dreams and ambition and selfishness had got Tyler killed. And even that hadn’t been enough for her to give them up entirely.
She didn’t want to be Vicky again. It hurt too much.
But Aunt Liz looked so hopeful, her grip on Tori’s hands so desperate, that she couldn’t tell her that. ‘Sure. I’ll come soon.’
‘For Christmas maybe?’ Aunt Liz pressed.
‘Maybe.’ Tori gave a faint smile, and pressed a kiss to Liz’s cheek. Her skin felt more papery, older than Tori remembered.
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