And now the earl was talking about legitimising Felix, handing responsibility for some of the estates over to him, since, as he put it, ‘My other son seems to have disowned us altogether.’
The media was going to have a field day with that. And Jasper wanted to protect his mother from that, even if he couldn’t protect himself.
She needed a retreat, a bolthole, somewhere to hide away from the media, the public, and her husband for a while. Or for ever. And Stonebury Hall would be perfect for that.
Now he just needed to convince the earl to let him make it happen. His father might be the one who decided on the estate’s investments and built up the property portfolio, but the actual work of transforming these places into whatever it was they believed they could be—and make money as—was delegated to others.
And that work, that sort of huge development project, was exactly what Jasper had spent five years managing overseas. He could take it on, make it everything his mother needed. A home, perhaps with a small business involved to bring in income and give her something else to focus on. Perhaps a teashop. Or a stable yard, if the paddock at the back was large enough. He needed to examine the specifications again.
And then he needed to convince his father. Surely, once the sordid truth about him, about their marriage, was out in the world, the earl would understand that his wife needed an escape, a refuge. He wouldn’t begrudge her that, Jasper was almost certain. At least, not when he saw the inevitable backlash and scandal it caused.
It was possible that the whole announcement was just a ploy to get him back in the country, Jasper mused as he eased the car onto another tiny back road that led to another back road, and another, until they finally reached something wide enough for two cars to pass without one of them ending up in a hedge. Maybe it was all a cunning plan to appeal to Jasper’s pride, or even his greed, by threatening to give away his inheritance, responsibilities and status to Felix.
Which just showed how little his father knew him. He had plenty of money of his own these days, thanks to a lucrative career and some canny investments with his inheritance from his grandparents. And he took pride in the career and the life he’d forged for himself away from Flaxstone. As for the responsibilities, Felix was welcome to them, too. Living a life free from expectations, except the ones he placed on himself, had a lot going for it.
But he couldn’t leave his mother alone here to be humiliated and, worse, hurt. That was a step too far. If his father was going public, Jasper needed to be there when his mother found out the truth, and he needed to protect her, spirit her away from everything that followed. Preferably to Stonebury Hall.
And he was still thinking about his father.
Shaking his head, Jasper forced himself to focus on the road, the snowflakes starting to fall in earnest outside. The woman sitting next to him.
Anything except what had brought him home.
Although, he had to admit, the line in his father’s email about Tori had only added to his certainty that he urgently needed to return. He hadn’t imagined she’d still even be working for his father after all this time. And just one sentence—a note about how Felix had been working closely with her on estate business—had sent his mind spiralling back to that one night they’d spent together.
The night he’d found his father’s will.
The night before he’d confronted his father and learned the full, awful truth.
He’d left the country without speaking to her again, which was, he had to admit, a pretty shoddy move on his part. But then, she’d clearly regretted their night together because she’d got up early and crept out of her own bedroom, in her own cottage, to avoid him the morning after, so it wasn’t entirely on him.
‘So, shall we take the boring route home or the scenic one?’ he asked, grinning with a jollity he really didn’t feel.
Tori looked up from her phone, eyes wide. The silent journey so far apparently hadn’t bothered her at all—no surprise there, really. Tori Edwards was the most closed-off woman he’d ever met, so unlike all the other women he spent time with. Well, almost all the time...
He allowed himself a real smile at the memory of the one night he’d managed to slip under her defences and find the real woman hiding behind them. Tori had more battlements than Stonebury Hall, Jasper decided, remembering a time before his life had fallen apart, when trying to breach those defences had been a kind of game for him and Felix. A challenge. Something that niggled at him until he couldn’t help but strive to get her to react, to show something of her real personality—rather than those closed doors behind her eyes.
It hadn’t escaped his notice that the one time he’d succeeded was the night he’d felt more wounded and open than ever before.
Maybe it was all the thinking he’d been doing about his father, or maybe it was the snow and the enclosed space, but suddenly Jasper wanted to see if he could break through those battlements again—even if only for a moment.
‘Given the snow, I’d suggest sticking to the main roads,’ Tori said, her voice even, uninterested. At least, if a person weren’t listening carefully.
Jasper was listening very carefully. Which was why he caught the faint tremor underneath her words. She cared, one way or another, and suddenly he wanted to find out which.
He needed a new challenge—a distraction from his disintegrating family. Persuading Tori Edwards to open up a little could be the perfect entertainment for a snowy afternoon.
He smiled, and began his campaign.
* * *
‘The snow isn’t that heavy,’ Jasper pointed out, his lazy voice easy with lack of caring. ‘And the main roads will be packed with drivers avoiding the more interesting routes. We could cut across the moors and make it home before the real weather rolls in.’
Tori glanced out of the car window. The clouds above definitely suggested that there was a lot more snow to come.
‘The weather can be different on the moors.’ She bit down on her lower lip to dispel the memories. ‘The snow might have already hit there.’
‘Or it might miss it entirely.’
That didn’t sound likely. But he was irritatingly right about how busy the main roads would be in this weather. If they could make it across the lesser-used moor roads it would be quicker—unless the snow was heavier, or too many other people had the same idea, or there was a rogue tractor or sheep blocking the road...
They were idling now at the crossroads, the junction where Jasper had to choose which path to follow. Any minute now another car would come up behind them and start beeping its horn—not that Jasper seemed bothered about holding other people up. She wasn’t sure he’d ever realised that it was human to worry about anyone else’s feelings.
Normal, empathetic people didn’t leave the country for five years after sleeping with a person, and then never mention it again.
‘Don’t you ever take a risk?’ he asked, that wicked grin she remembered too well on his lips.
That grin had got her into trouble before. Well, that grin and half a bottle of gin—stolen from the earl’s drinks cabinet, of course—and a bad day that had lowered her defences, if she remembered correctly.
‘Unnecessary risk is the height of foolishness.’
Of course she took risks. That was a normal part of doing business. But personal risk? That was another matter. She’d taken enough of those in the past to know what happened when the risk didn’t pay off. Okay, she’d taken precisely one. But that had been more than enough to teach her a lesson.
Her single night with Jasper had just been an extra reminder. She’d known better than to get involved, however fleetingly, with someone for whom romance was basically a sport. But she’d put her fears aside and let herself believe that there might be more to him, that he might think more of her, only for him to prove quite comprehensively that she was as unimportant to him as she’d always imagined.
She didn’t need reminding again.
‘This risk is necessary,’ Jasper announced. ‘I’m starving, and I want to get home for dinner.’
‘Your stomach is not an emergency.’