Jasper shot her a glare. ‘Perhaps this is something we can discuss in private. Father.’ The emphasis was obvious, an attempt to stake a higher claim on their boss’s attention. And it made Tori’s blood boil.
To think she’d been starting to actually like the guy. Had confided in him. Found comfort in him.
Kissed him.
Grabbing her tablet and notes, she gave the earl a quick nod. ‘By all means. I wouldn’t want to come between family.’
And then she walked out of the office before she threw something at the Viscount Darlton’s far too gorgeous head.
* * *
‘Well. I think you’ve got some making up to do there,’ Jasper’s father said as they both watched Tori stalk out of the office. ‘I was hoping that some time away together would help you two find some common ground, build a friendship perhaps, but...’ He sighed. ‘So. Tell me why you think Tori is wrong about Stonebury Hall.’
An uncomfortable feeling settled in Jasper’s stomach. ‘I don’t think she’s wrong exactly.’ But that was what it had sounded like, he realised now. No wonder Tori had stormed off. ‘Stonebury could be all the things she thinks it could. But at its heart, that house is a home—and I know she felt it too. But she’s thinking about your property empire and her job. I’m thinking about our family. And your plans to ruin us.’
There was an echo of that desperate, clenching, wrenching feeling in his chest—the same one he’d felt when he’d first read his father’s email, thousands of miles and a few weeks away from there.
It’s time to be upfront and honest with the world. Felix deserves my acknowledgement as my son.
No consideration about what Jasper deserved and—more importantly—no thought of how it would affect his mother, the earl’s dutiful Lady Flaxstone for almost thirty years. His father was just doing whatever he thought was best, or simply whatever he wanted. Just as he’d done when he’d had an affair with Felix’s mother while engaged to Jasper’s.
Other people were the last thing the Earl of Flaxstone thought about.
The earl sighed again. ‘You’re still against me publicly acknowledging Felix as my son.’
‘Yes! Of course I am!’
‘I never realised the Flaxstone reputation mattered so much to you, Jasper. I would have thought, if you were so concerned about our legacy and your place in it, you might have stayed to help protect it personally.’ There was an edge to his father’s words now. One a younger Jasper would have swerved away from, made nice to avoid that sharpness of the earl’s temper.
But Jasper wasn’t a child any longer. He knew his own mind. And he knew when his father was just plain wrong.
‘I am deeply concerned about my mother’s well-being. I can’t stop you doing this—God knows, no one ever stopped you doing anything you wanted—but if you insist on making our private lives public then at least give Mother somewhere to take solace and refuge from the media chaos that will follow. Buy Stonebury, let her retire there until everything blows over.’ Jasper remembered those incongruous battlements and crenellations. That was what she needed. Protection. Defences. She’d never really had any of her own, and so Jasper would have to give her some.
‘If there’s any decency left in you, don’t drag her down with you,’ he said. Then he turned and walked out on his father, pushing past Felix as he appeared in the doorway.
‘Jasper?’ his one-time best friend said, but Jasper ignored him.
Felix’s paternity wasn’t his fault—Jasper knew that logically. But hiding the truth from him for so many years was. Felix had known the truth ever since his mother died, years before, and not told him. Jasper wasn’t ready to forgive that just yet. Not until he knew that his mother was protected.
At least he’d given his father something to think about. And now...now he was rather afraid he had to find Tori and explain himself. Maybe even apologise.
He pulled a face, even though there was no one to see it. He hated apologising.
Perhaps he’d make a stop for one of Henry’s pies, first. For the energy. After all, he’d asked Mrs Rawkins, the cook, to put one on to warm for him before they went to meet his father. It would be a shame for it to go to waste, and Tori would probably take a little time to calm down, anyway.
He veered left, down the corridor that led to the kitchens, and took a moment to appreciate the aroma of steak and ale pie, wafting towards him. Yes, this was definitely the right decision.
Then he walked in, and saw Tori lifting a forkful of his pie to her mouth. He froze. She gave him a wicked grin, then ate the mouthful right in front of him.
‘Mmm...’ she said, licking her lips. ‘Delicious. Shame there’s hardly any left.’
‘Henry gave us two pies.’ Jasper shot an accusing look at Mrs Rawkins, who folded her arms across her ample chest.
‘Don’t you give me that look. Tori told me everything.’ Sadly, Mrs Rawkins had known him for his whole life, and any respect she’d had for his title or station had long since faded away in a litany of stolen food, broken plates, and his and Felix’s teenage attempts to fix themselves food when returning late from the pub.
‘What, exactly, did she tell you?’ Jasper asked. And when had Tori got Mrs Rawkins on her side anyway? He shook his head. ‘Never mind, I can imagine.’ Probably the truth as she saw it, embellished to make him out to be as evil as possible.
Tori deserved to know the real truth—about his family, his father, his half-brother, and why he was acting the way he was. She was stuck in the middle of it all, another pawn in his father’s game, and he owed her the full story, however hard it was to tell it.
But more than that, he wanted her to know. Because he couldn’t bear her looking at him again the way she had when they were in his father’s office. Not when she’d finally started to look at him differently, while they were away.
And who knew? Maybe it would even do him some good to have someone to talk to about the whole sordid affair. Although, if his father got his way, soon he’d be able to discuss it with the whole world.
The thought didn’t cheer him at all.
He looked at Tori, who was happily cutting herself another piece of pie. ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to share that, are you?’
Tori shook her head as she chewed another mouthful, her expression blissful. ‘Nope. But, like you say, there’s another one.’
‘In the freezer,’ Mrs Rawkins added. ‘Take hours to cook now, that will.’
Jasper sighed, and sank into the chair opposite Tori to watch her eat his pie.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Consider me punished. But when you’re finished, perhaps you’ll do me the courtesy of letting me explain myself.’
Tori’s eyebrow’s shot up in obvious surprise. ‘Okay,’ she said, after a moment of chewing. ‘When I’m done.’
‘Great.’ Jasper sank back in his chair and prepared to endure his punishment.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HENRY’S PIES WERE always delicious, but watching Jasper’s pained expression as she ate it in front of him made the whole dining experience even more sublime for Tori.
Eventually, she set her cutlery down on her empty plate, thanked Mrs Rawkins—who had been a dear ally ever since she’d discovered that Tori knew her way around a kitchen and could be a big help when there was an event on and not enough trained hands on deck—and turned to Jasper, her arms folded across her middle.
‘Okay. Explain.’
And it had better be something more convincing than, I’m a poor little rich boy who always got everything I want so I don’t know any better.
‘Not here.’ Jasper’s gaze darted around the kitchen furtively, as if he thought Mrs Rawkins might intervene or take sides—which she’d totally already done, so it seemed a bit pointless. ‘Let’s go take a walk by the river.’
‘Yay. More snow and ice,’ Tori replied, lett
ing the sarcasm flow. But, actually, the kitchens were warm and stuffy, and she could do with walking off some of that pie before she fell into a food coma, so she followed him all the same.
They paused in the boot room to grab hats, gloves, scarves, warm coats and walking boots—all the things Tori wished they’d had with them when they were stranded on the moors. Maybe then they could have escaped to somewhere other than the Moorside Inn. Anywhere else would have been ideal.
Not just because of having to see Aunt Liz and Uncle Henry again. If she was honest, having that time with them had been kind of...lovely. Her guilt still sat heavy in her chest, too easily revived by being back in that place where her romance with Tyler had flourished and died. But feeling part of a family again? That part she’d enjoyed.
No, the reason she so bitterly regretted their pit stop in her past was walking beside her, as they strode out from the manor and towards the river that ran along the edge of the woods on the far side of the estate.
Spending time with Jasper had helped her see him in a new light. A more hopeful one. She’d got to know a man she’d thought she could actually like. Maybe even care for.
But the minute they’d returned to Flaxstone he’d reverted to type. People didn’t really change—she knew that. And trying to make someone into something they weren’t never ended well. She’d learnt that with Tyler. Or maybe he’d learnt it from her—the very hard way.
Jasper was what he was: a spoilt only child who went through women as she went through chocolate, and who hadn’t ever learned to think about anybody but himself.
‘I want to explain exactly what was going on in my father’s study earlier,’ Jasper said as the river came into view.
‘Besides you being a Grade-A tosser?’ Tori asked cheerfully. He shot her a glare, and she added, ‘If you want to change my mind about that, you really should have started with an apology.’
Jasper sighed. He looked exhausted, she realised suddenly. Probably at least partly because she’d kept him up half the night with her nightmares.
Maybe she owed him a little bit of an apology too. But not unless he said sorry first.
‘I apologise,’ Jasper said stiffly. He seemed nothing like the joking, carefree guy she’d known when she’d first started at Flaxstone, or the irritating, sarcastic one he’d been since his return. And he definitely wasn’t the relaxed, smiling man who’d built snowmen and paper chains with kids at the Moorside. Was she missing something? What exactly was going on here? ‘I shouldn’t have dismissed your ideas in front of my father like that.’
‘So why did you?’ Tori asked, feeling an echo of the hurt she’d felt back in the office. But the look of pain that flashed across Jasper’s face was far more intense. And intriguing. ‘Did you honestly not agree with me?’
‘It wasn’t that exactly...although I still think Stonebury is better suited as a family home.’
‘Except that’s not what we’re in business for,’ Tori pointed out.
‘No.’ Jasper sighed again, then glanced back over his shoulder as a burst of laughter cut through the air. Over the crest of the rolling hill behind them appeared a group of tourists, being led by Felix, presumably through to the Christmas market taking place around the old stable yard for the whole week before Christmas. The event was well signposted, but every year some visitors arrived at the wrong entrance and got promptly lost. It was obviously Felix’s turn to round them up and get them where they needed to be that afternoon.
Jasper grabbed her arm and led her further away, down to the edge of the river, as if he was afraid of being overheard. And remembering his behaviour in the kitchen, Tori realised he was afraid of just that.
What on earth was he about to tell her? What could make Viscount Darlton look that vulnerable?
The river was frozen, icy white and solid. A robin hopped across the frozen surface, searching for food. With the backdrop of the naked trees and the winter white sky, it looked for all the world like a scene from a Christmas card.
But Tori was too tense now to appreciate the beauty.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, when it became clear that Jasper wasn’t about to talk without prompting.
He stopped beside a bench, looking out over the river to the woods beyond. Brushing a thin layer of powdery snow from the surface, he motioned for her to sit down, then sat beside her, close enough that his gloved hand lay beside hers.
‘It’s about my father,’ he said slowly.
Tori rolled her eyes. ‘I’d guessed that much. Is he ill? Is there anything I can do?’
‘He’s not...that’s not what’s going on.’ Jasper took a deep breath, and swallowed so hard she saw his throat bob. Still staring out at the wintry scene ahead of them, he spoke so seriously, so deliberately that even Tori didn’t dare interrupt.
‘Five years ago I discovered that my father has another son, by a woman other than my mother. That son is Felix, and now the earl wants to make that knowledge public to the world.’
Tori blinked at him, and wished with all her heart that Henry had sent them off with a decent bottle of something highly alcoholic, too.
It looked as if they were going to need it.
* * *
Jasper wished he could say that telling Tori his family secret lightened the load he felt on his shoulders, but if anything hearing it out loud only made it feel more real. An inescapable hurricane about to rip his family and life apart because his father hadn’t been able to keep it in his pants and had a misguided belief about the ‘right thing’ to do.
Tori stared at him. He stared back, waiting to see which way she was going to jump.
He realised, a little belatedly, that he was putting an awful lot of trust in his beliefs about Tori Edwards. If she wasn’t the sort of person he thought she was, then telling her even this much could bring about all the outcomes he’d come home to try and avoid.
He watched the emotions and thoughts flickering behind her eyes, and decided he was comfortable with the risk.
She wouldn’t run to the papers. He was pretty much certain of that. Not only would it be detrimental to her own career—because he couldn’t imagine the scandal was going to do a huge amount for Flaxstone Enterprises, either—but she wasn’t that sort of person.
Exactly when he’d come to know Tori well enough to be sure of that...well, he could pinpoint it quite precisely, as it happened. It was last night, when she’d fallen apart in his arms, then put herself back together again.
‘That’s why you left,’ she said finally. ‘I always wondered.’
‘I couldn’t stay.’ Jasper looked back out at the tiny robin, scratching the ice for food. ‘I just... I didn’t know how to deal with it. With any of it. My father, Felix, all the lies... I needed to be somewhere where I didn’t care if people were lying or telling the truth. I needed to not care for a while.’ Because he’d cared so damn much while he was at Flaxstone. All the conflicting emotions he’d experienced on finding out the truth had threatened to burn him up from the inside out, otherwise. ‘Felix never told you?’
Tori shook her head. ‘I had no idea. How did you find out?’ He sensed it wasn’t the question she wanted to ask, which only made him more nervous about what that would turn out to be. He had no doubt that she’d get around to it eventually.
‘I came across a copy of my father’s updated will on his desk one day. Talking about his two sons and heirs. The earl was away and I couldn’t even talk to him about it until the next day.’
‘That was the night you came to me,’ Tori said, putting it together far quicker than he’d expected. ‘I knew there was something different about you that night.’
Jasper looked down at his hands. ‘I felt like a different person that night.’
‘I liked the man I saw that night.’ She pressed her gloved hand over his, and he gripped it tightly, grateful for the small show of c
omfort. ‘So, the next day you confronted your father for a full confession?’
‘Yeah. Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’
Tori shrugged. ‘Some people would prefer to pretend they’d never seen that paper, that they never knew the truth. Or save it for a later time when they could use the information.’
Jasper stared at her. He couldn’t imagine doing anything other than seeking out the truth at that point. Secrets were bad enough. Why live with them longer than necessary or, worse, add another layer of deception to the whole situation? ‘Would you have?’
‘Probably not.’ She gave him a wan smile. ‘I just...sometimes the truth can be the worst thing to hear, you know?’
‘I know,’ he replied darkly. He remembered all too well that feeling, hoping against all the evidence that it would prove to be a mistake, that his father still had just the one child, only to find out that the truth was far worse than he’d even imagined.
His half-sibling wasn’t some random stranger, conceived and born before his father had met his mother, or even through some awful affair since.
He was his best friend, the boy he’d grown up with. Felix.
‘How did Felix take the news?’ Tori asked, as if she’d read his mind. Or maybe his thoughts were just that clear on his face. He didn’t hide things well—he knew that much about himself.
Unlike his half-brother.
‘Turns out it wasn’t quite the surprise for him that it had been for me.’
‘He already knew?’ Tori, at least, sounded suitably stunned at that revelation. ‘When you asked if he’d told me, I assumed you meant since you left. But he knew before?’
Jasper nodded. ‘I... I went to him first, of course.’ It had been so natural. They’d been each other’s confidant since they were small boys together. Felix had been there for him through every argument with his father, every incident at school, and Jasper had supported him too, against jibes from school mates about Felix being a scholarship boy—a scholarship funded, Jasper realised now, by their father—all the way to Felix’s mother’s death when they were seventeen, and the grief and torment that had followed. Felix knew all his secrets and he knew Felix’s—or so he’d thought.
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