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.