Tori shook her head. She’d never be a guest at the Moorside. It was too much a part of her. ‘I want to help. And so does Jasper.’ She nudged him with her elbow until he nodded.
‘In that case, if you could set up the dormitory in the restaurant, like we did that time they closed the roads and we had the—’
‘England rugby team staying,’ Tori said along with her. ‘Absolutely.’
As she turned away to go and find blankets and pillows, she could hear Jasper talking as Aunt Liz showed him to the kitchens. ‘The England rugby team? Now, that I want to hear more about...’
Tori stepped through to the empty restaurant and breathed in the silence. Perfect.
This was going to be a very long night. She could feel it. And she needed a little personal space before she faced it.
Especially before she had to talk to Uncle Henry.
* * *
Tori’s Aunt Liz led Jasper through the mass of people gathered in the main bar, behind the bar itself, and through a door that took them along a narrow passageway and down a short set of stairs into the kitchens. Jasper took in everything as they walked, especially the dramatic paintings that lined the walls—all slashes of dark greens and browns and purples, showcasing the landscape of the moors at its most impressive.
This place felt almost a part of the landscape itself, he realised. As if it had been here as long as the rocks and rises.
He ached to know what could have driven Tori away from it. What secrets she was hiding behind those emotional battlements.
Were they as all-consuming as his own?
And another, niggling question that had been at the back of his mind for five long years, before emerging for re-examination tonight: Did she already know his secrets? She and Felix had always been friendly, far more than she had been with him. Felix had known. Had he told her?
Jasper had to admit to himself that it seemed unlikely. But Tori was good at keeping secrets, that much was obvious. If she did know about Felix, Jasper was sure she was very capable of keeping it from everyone—including him.
‘Henry?’ Liz called out as they entered the kitchens. ‘Brought you some help.’
A large, grey-haired man, broad at the shoulder and his head almost grazing the lower of the ceiling beams, ducked out from a side room that, from what Jasper could see, appeared to be full of freezers and fridges. He was wiping his hands on a clean tea towel.
‘Help? Think I’m too old and slow to do this on my own?’ He smiled as he said it, though, so Jasper was almost sure it was a joke.
‘Not me.’ Liz jerked her red curls in Jasper’s direction. ‘He arrived with Vicky. She thought he might be able to give you a hand down here.’
Henry stilled, the tea towel taut between his hands, his white knuckles giving away his reaction to Liz’s news even though his expression didn’t change. ‘Vicky’s here?’ The words were barely more than a whisper.
‘We, uh, got caught up in a road closure on the moors,’ Jasper explained. ‘A crash behind us and a chance of the snow bringing down rocks on the valley ahead.’
‘I know the place.’ Henry’s words were clipped. ‘Police direct you here with all the others, did they?’
‘That’s right.’
Henry sighed. ‘Too much to think she’d come back of her own accord, I suppose. So, what are you, then? Fiancé? Boyfriend?’
‘Colleague,’ Jasper corrected him quickly. He could just imagine Tori’s face if he let her family believe there was anything more between them.
However much he might enjoy remembering the night when there was.
‘Humph.’ Henry sounded faintly disbelieving. Oh, well, that was Tori’s problem. He’d told the truth. She hadn’t told him anything.
‘So, what can I do around here? Tori’s setting up beds somewhere, I guess.’
‘Tori, is it?’ Henry asked. ‘Well. You can help me pack up these ploughman’s boxes for our unexpected guests. Each one gets one of each of the things set out on the table. Should be simple enough.’ The words ‘even for you’ were unspoken, but Jasper couldn’t help but hear them anyway. He got the feeling that, arriving in Tori’s company, there was nothing he could have done to make a good impression on her uncle.
But that wasn’t going to stop him trying, all the same. After all, how else was he going to uncover some of those secrets Tori was still hiding? If there was even a chance she knew his—and even if she didn’t yet, she would soon if his father got his way—he wanted to know some of hers too. That was only fair, right?
‘I’m sure I can,’ he said with a grin, and picked up the first of the plastic boxes and started work.
Each ploughman’s box got a hunk of bread, some cheese, a thick slice of ham, a small pot of chutney, an apple and some celery.
‘I’ve got a giant pot of soup heating too,’ Henry explained. ‘We can take that up and dish it out in cups, to help people warm through. It’s not much, but—’
‘It’s more than any of us would have got stuck out on the roads in this snow,’ Jasper interrupted. ‘And I’m sure they’ll all be as grateful as I am for it.’ Even if he still lusted after the steak and ale pie Tori had promised was the best in the county. Maybe he could come back another time and try it. In better weather.
‘Humph,’ Henry said again, but this time he sounded more mollified. ‘So. If you’re Vicky’s “colleague” what sort of work have the two of you been up to?’
He was in tricky waters here, Jasper realised suddenly. If Tori hadn’t been home for who knew who long—maybe since she first showed up at Flaxstone—then her aunt and uncle probably didn’t know she was working for the earl. Or that she had stayed so close to home. How much would she forgive him for giving away?
‘We were visiting a property that our...boss is looking to invest in, up at the north of the moors.’ That was neutral enough, wasn’t it? ‘Tori didn’t mention that she had family so close though, or I’d have suggested we stop by without the snow forcing us on you.’
Henry barked a laugh at that. ‘Which is exactly why she wouldn’t tell you, I’d wager.’
‘She does like to keep her cards very close to her chest.’ Jasper watched Henry carefully, looking for the right way in, to get the man to tell him something, anything, that would explain the strange feeling that had settled over the place since they’d arrived.
There was so much to this story that he didn’t know. And Jasper hated not being in full possession of all the facts, always had. Especially since everything had gone down with Juliet, and he’d discovered that everyone else in his world had known a lot of truths about her that he, as her boyfriend, also should have known—but hadn’t. How could he possibly make good decisions if he didn’t know what he was basing them on? Telling Juliet he loved her, for instance, had been a spectacularly bad one.
Especially since it had turned out she had been in love with his friend Fred, and everyone else had known it. At nineteen, it had seemed the worst thing that could possibly happen to a guy.
But right now, he wasn’t thinking about the past. He was trying to decide how far he could push Tori to tell him her story. To let him in.
Maybe it was just the residual instinct to push at those walls of hers, that instinct that had plagued him since they were both barely more than teenagers. Or maybe it was something more—the sadness in her eyes that he’d only really noticed since his return. Or the way she bristled whenever he said anything at all...
Whatever it was, he needed to solve the puzzle of Tori Edwards. And here was her uncle, holding the key.
But all Henry said was, ‘She has her reasons. Heaven knows the girl has never talked when she doesn’t want to. She’d always run away instead, even as a child. Hide in the strangest of places, until...well, until someone found her. Now, are you done with those boxes?’
Jasper nodded, his mind occupied
with Henry’s words. And the certainty that he’d been about to say a name there, when he was talking about who usually found her. What had stopped him?
Or rather, who?
‘Let’s carry these up, then.’ Henry hoisted the first, heavy tray of ploughman’s lunch into his arms, and Jasper followed suit with the second. ‘We’ll come back for the soup.’
‘If my arms can take it,’ Jasper muttered, staggering a little on the stairs. But he knew he’d do whatever Henry told him to, really.