Snowbound with the Heir Read online

  Cozying up in a snowstorm...

  ...rekindles an old flame!

  Stranded together in a snowstorm, Tori Edwards and Jasper, Viscount Darlton, are reminded of their earth-shattering kiss five years ago. Back then, Tori almost risked her heart falling for Jasper, but she had to walk away. Now, despite their best efforts, their attraction is as strong as ever. Working through the secrets that pulled them apart, Jasper is determined to prove that this Christmas they deserve a second chance.

  What had brought the errant Viscount Darlton home to Flaxstone, after five long years away?

  Tori found herself wondering—not for the first time—as they toured the rest of the upstairs of the house, then made their way back to the wide entrance hall. Before he’d left, he’d been laid-back, funny and insatiably curious about everything to the point of serious annoyance. Since he’d returned, he was still all those things, but with a darker edge under them somehow, which she didn’t quite understand. And it niggled at her, not knowing what had changed.

  If she had more of an ego she’d think he’d returned purely to make her life hell, except she was certain she didn’t rank that high in his thinking or priorities. Except for that one night, just before he’d left. He’d definitely been thinking about her then, as he’d kissed his way across her naked body, whispering her name against her skin in the darkness.

  But that night was something she definitely wasn’t thinking about. Ever again. It was another thing that was better left in the past.

  Dear Reader,

  Is there anything more festively romantic than a snowbound inn? The Moorside Inn, where Tori and Jasper get stranded for part of their story, is a composite of many wonderful English pubs, inns and boutique hotels I’ve had the good fortune to visit over the years. It’s the sort of place that welcomes you in, sits you in front of the fire to keep warm, brings you a glass or mug of your favorite tipple, and leaves you to read your book in peace. (Not that Tori and Jasper do much quiet sitting and reading!)

  I hope this story gives you the same feeling this Christmas season. The feeling of being somewhere safe, warm and welcoming, with holiday music playing softly in the background and the knowledge that, somehow, everything will be all right and love will win out. Even if it takes Tori and Jasper a while to see that...

  Festive wishes,

  Sophie x

  Snowbound with the Heir

  Sophie Pembroke

  Sophie Pembroke has been dreaming, reading and writing romance ever since she read her first Harlequin as part of her English literature degree at Lancaster University, so getting to write romantic fiction for a living really is a dream come true! Born in Abu Dhabi, Sophie grew up in Wales and now lives in a little Hertfordshire market town with her scientist husband, her incredibly imaginative and creative daughter, and her adventurous, adorable little boy. In Sophie’s world, happy is forever after, everything stops for tea and there’s always time for one more page...

  Books by Sophie Pembroke

  Harlequin Romance

  The Cattaneos’ Christmas Miracles

  CEO’s Marriage Miracle

  Wedding Island

  Island Fling to Forever

  Wedding of the Year

  Slow Dance with the Best Man

  Proposal for the Wedding Planner

  The Unexpected Holiday Gift

  Newborn Under the Christmas Tree

  Road Trip with the Best Man

  Carrying Her Millionaire’s Baby

  Pregnant on the Earl’s Doorstep

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  For Laurie, with every possible best wish for your adventures ahead!

  Hope this Christmas is your most magical one yet.

  Praise for

  Sophie Pembroke

  “A poignant, feel-good and irresistible romantic treat that I struggled to put down, Slow Dance with the Best Man is a fantastic tale about second chances, healing from old wounds and finding the courage to fall in love that will touch the hearts of romance readers everywhere.”

  —Goodreads

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM THEIR CHRISTMAS ROYAL WEDDING BY NINA MILNE

  CHAPTER ONE

  TORI EDWARDS STARED up at the crenellations and chimneys of Stonebury Hall and wondered which eighteenth-century aristocrat had decided to build a house with battlements in the middle of nowhere, on the north-westerly edge of the North York Moors National Park. Who did they think they were defending themselves from out there anyway?

  She supposed the answer was probably in the plastic information file she’d been given on arrival, but her fingers were too frozen to open it and check. The agent who’d welcomed them could probably have told her too, but Tori wasn’t here for the guided tour. She was here to judge exactly how Stonebury Hall could be the next link in the Earl of Flaxstone’s chain of profitable estates, since apparently he’d bought it without consulting her, his deputy, anyway. The agent could only tell her what the property had been. She needed to explore it alone to get a feel for what it could be.

  That said, maybe she could explore inside for a while, on the off chance it was ever so slightly warmer away from the biting wind. She looked up at the crenellations again. The stonework matched the heavy grey of the sky, and the whole building gave off a ‘go away’ vibe. She had a suspicion that inside would be just as chilly.

  Still, she needed to see the rooms too. Get a feel for if this building was itching to be a hotel, or a business centre, or a restaurant and tea room with craft and independent shops around it. Maybe a place for team-building retreats. Or a farm shop and café, if the land around it proved profitable. So many options...and, for once, Tori might actually get to decide what happened to the space next. Her own project, her chance to show the earl how far she’d come in his employ, that she was ready for more—more responsibility, more challenges, more independence. More life.

  ‘This place is smaller than it looked on the agent’s website.’ A clipped, plummy voice swept in on the cold draught through the windows, before its owner even appeared in the room. Wasn’t it just like Jasper, Viscount Darlton, the earl’s only son, to assume she’d be there waiting breathlessly to hear him talk? ‘Come have a look at the kitchens.’

  He disappeared back through the doorway, not even waiting to see if she followed. Typical. Jasper always expected women to be at his beck and call—there when he wanted them, and then gone when he didn’t. Just like everything else in his privileged life, she assumed.

  She did follow him, though. Not because of his aristocratic manner, or his dark, handsome looks, or even his air of expectation and confidence. Because it was her job.

  And because she wanted to see the kitchens. She was definitely leaning towards some sort of culinary enterprise for this place...

  ‘Huh.’ She looked around what, in a building without battlements, would have been a nice, average, farmhouse kitchen, with space for a dining table.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Jasper ran his hand over the battered wooden table in situ. ‘This is more like an oversized home than a comm
ercial property.’

  A place can be both, Tori thought, but didn’t say. Just those simple words would give away more of her past than she’d be comfortable with Jasper—or anyone in her new life—knowing. It was the sort of comment that would raise questions. Ones she was far happier not answering.

  She’d let Jasper get too close precisely once in her life. It wasn’t a mistake she intended to repeat.

  ‘It’s cosy,’ she admitted instead. ‘But I can still see a lot of potential here. I’m going to go check out the other rooms.’

  She’d meant alone, but Jasper followed her all the same, adding his own observations about the property. To Tori’s irritation, she found they often matched her own—which meant she then went out of her way to find evidence to the contrary. Apparently, five years away from Flaxstone hadn’t made the earl’s heir any less irritating or persistent. Or maybe she was just oversensitive to it, given the last time they’d seen each other.

  Strange to think that for one night she’d honestly thought there might be more to him than the spoilt playboy he portrayed to everyone else. Stupid of her, really.

  ‘This would be a fantastic master bedroom,’ Jasper said, once they’d reached the upstairs. He crossed the room to the window—rising from Jasper’s waist level almost to the high ceiling, and wide enough to fit a cosy loveseat beneath. ‘Look at those views over the moors.’

  Tori didn’t want to look. Out of that window was just another memory she was working on forgetting. She knew what those moors looked like. She’d grown up there. And she was far happier now she was away from them, she reminded herself, in case nostalgia slipped in again just at the sight of the landscape. Living in the tiny cottage on the earl’s estate, just south of York, was far more pleasant. And more than that, a sign of how far she’d come. How right she’d been to leave.

  Whatever the consequences had been.

  It was important to always remember that. Especially at this time of year, when the temptation to go back was so strong.

  ‘Those clouds look heavy,’ Jasper added, squinting up at the grey skies. ‘Did they forecast more snow? I know they’re even talking about a white Christmas.’

  ‘That’ll be good for the Christmas fair at the estate,’ Tori replied. That was what this season meant to her now. Revenue and marketing potential. It was better that way.

  ‘I was rather thinking it would be good for snowball fights.’ Jasper turned away from the window with a wicked grin.

  Tori rolled her eyes. ‘Your father is hoping for a spectacular event this year.’

  Jasper’s grin fell away at her mention of the earl. Interesting.

  What had brought the errant Viscount Darlton home to Flaxstone, after five long years away? Tori found herself wondering—not for the first time—as they toured the rest of the upstairs of the house, then made their way back to the wide entrance hall. Before he’d left, Jasper had been the quintessential aristocratic playboy. Laid-back, permanently amused by life, and confidently parading a selection of beautiful women through Flaxstone Hall—and never the same one twice.

  He’d also been an incurable flirt, and seen Tori as a challenge, she figured, since she couldn’t imagine why he’d waste time flirting with her otherwise. Not when he had all those moneyed honeys to seduce.

  Since he’d returned to Flaxstone, Jasper was still all those things, but with a darker edge to them somehow, one she didn’t quite understand. And it niggled at her, not knowing what had changed.

  Not knowing why he’d left in the first place.

  If she had more of an ego she’d think he’d left and then returned purely to make her life hell, except she was certain she didn’t rank that high in his thinking or priorities. Except for that one night, just before he’d left. He’d been thinking about her then, as he’d kissed his way across her naked body, whispering her name against her skin in the darkness.

  But that night was something she definitely wasn’t thinking about. Ever again. It was another thing that was better left in the past. She’d known better then, and she absolutely knew better now.

  ‘I think we’ve seen all we need to see,’ Jasper told the agent, who was loitering in the chilly hallway waiting for them, his hands jammed into his armpits to try and keep warm. ‘Right, Tori?’

  She tried to think of a reason to disagree, just on principle, but nothing sprang to mind, and it was cold, so she gave a short nod of agreement.

  ‘We’ll be back in touch to organise our next moves once we’ve shared our findings and ideas with the earl,’ she said, shaking hands with the agent before they left. With the sale in the bag already, he didn’t seem particularly bothered by how long that might take, or what they had planned for the place.

  ‘My turn to drive.’ Jasper held out his hand for the keys to the four-by-four as they strode across the gravel driveway to where she’d parked, an hour or more earlier.

  Tori’s fingers flexed around the keys in her pocket, reluctant to give them up. ‘I can drive back.’

  ‘I know you can. You drove here, after all. Which is why it’s my turn,’ Jasper said, with exaggerated patience.

  Tori hesitated, and he sighed.

  ‘What? Are you afraid I’ll crash? Or steal you away to some secluded inn in some village and treat you to dinner—I am actually starving, though, so that one might happen.’

  Depends on the inn.

  But she couldn’t tell him that either, so, reluctantly, she handed over the keys.

  ‘Thank you.’ Jasper’s smile was wide, bright and genuine—the sort of smile only someone raised with advantages rather than disasters could smile.

  It just made her resent him more.

  ‘Come on,’ she said as she opened the passenger-side door and climbed in. ‘I want to get home.’

  Home to Flaxstone, that was, where she could put the past firmly behind her again. Not anywhere along the way that might have once held the title of ‘home’.

  Because maybe once she was safely back in her bright, light and solitary cottage, she’d be able to stop thinking about the one night she’d spent with Jasper, and forget all about a dark, cosy inn out on the moors that she used to call home.

  * * *

  Jasper eased himself into the driver’s seat and immediately turned up the car’s heating. It was colder than ever out there—chillier even than his father’s reception when he’d returned home to Flaxstone a week or so earlier. And Jasper hadn’t honestly thought that was possible.

  The earl, in all his aristocratic glory, had obviously decided that the rift in the family had to be Jasper’s fault, rather than a result of his own behaviour. Jasper had had plenty of time to think about it over the past five years, and the only conclusion he’d been able to reach was that his father’s life hadn’t ever allowed for the possibility of not getting everything he wanted—so he just took it, and to hell with the consequences for everybody else.

  Well. One thing he couldn’t just take was his son’s respect. That had been lost five years ago when he’d discovered the truth about his father—and nothing that had happened since showed any signs of the earl winning it back.

  But he was done thinking about his father for the day. He’d done what he came here to do.

  Coming back to the UK at all hadn’t been his first choice; he was happy with the life he’d forged over in America, with the reputation he’d built up and the portfolio of work he’d created. But then his father had emailed and told him that, given Jasper’s absence, he intended to legitimise his other son as his heir, too. The title was Jasper’s by law, and Flaxstone went with the title, but everything else—the business, the money, the properties—that was the earl’s to distribute as he pleased.

  And apparently his illegitimate son by the housekeeper was what pleased him most. The son Jasper had only discovered existed by accident, five years ago, and the reason he’d left
home in the first place.

  His best friend, Felix.

  Jasper hadn’t come back for the money, or the property, or the business. He’d come back for his reputation and, most of all, for his mother.

  And it was his mother that had brought him to Stonebury Hall with Tori.

  Stonebury Hall would be the perfect home for his mother, if Jasper couldn’t dissuade his father from making a big, public announcement, and the earl went through with his latest, ruinous plan. Jasper wasn’t even sure his mother knew about Felix, or if his father had any intention of telling her before the rest of the country. His mother, lovely and loving as she was, had never really seemed to inhabit the same world as the rest of them, as far as Jasper could tell. She was perfect for opening church fetes, throwing Christmas parties and keeping their little corner of England the way things had been fifty years ago, when she’d watched her mother run her own home in a fashion that was out of date even then, but she’d never really caught up with the changing times—or shown any desire to.

  But the changing times had caught up with them.

  Right now, the earl was still sticking his fingers in his ears and humming, metaphorically at least, telling himself that an illegitimate son, brought up in the household, with his mother still working at the house, was nothing in this day and age. That no one would care that the boy Jasper had grown up with, whose birthday was just weeks before his own, was actually his half-brother.

  That Jasper’s father had been lying to him, and everyone else, his whole life.

  People would care, that Jasper was sure of.

  Jasper had cared, mightily, the day he’d found out—an accidental glimpse of some paperwork in his father’s office that had turned out to be his updated last will and testament, detailing what he left to each of his sons.

  That plural had nearly destroyed him on its own. Hearing the details from his own father, and realising that Felix already knew exactly who his father was—that was what had driven him away completely.