On some level, Jameson had known it the moment he’d seen the Proprietor standing next to her at the top of the stairs. “Tell me you accepted,” he said, his voice low. “Tell me you didn’t ask him to extend the offer to me, too.”
Avery looked down, shadows rippling across her features. “Why wouldn’t you want me to—”
“Damn it, Heiress!” Jameson bit out. Muscles tensing, he pulled the pole from the river. Water dripped onto the boards, onto him, but he barely noticed. He set the pole down then straightened and stepped toward her, the slight vessel rocking beneath his feet. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes,” Avery said, her chin coming up and her hair falling away from her face. “You did. And my asking the Proprietor to include you didn’t work, so clearly, it was the wrong call.”
Jameson hated that he’d snapped at her, hated feeling like her win was his loss. Refusing to continue feeling that way, he brought his hands to the nape of her neck, his fingers curling gently into her hair.
“You don’t have to be so gentle.” Avery’s voice was low, but it echoed through the canal, the two of them illuminated only by the lantern on the front of the boat and the slight glow from the stone all around them.
Jameson angled her head back. Her neck was bare, her face still cast in shadow. “Yes. I do.”
The next instant, Avery’s fingers were buried in his hair—and she wasn’t gentle. There were times when the anticipation of their lips touching was as powerful as any kiss, but neither one of them was in the mood for anticipation right now.
He needed this. He needed her. Kissing Avery always felt right. It felt like everything, like more, like there was a purpose to his hunger, and this was it.
This was it.
This was it.
And still, he couldn’t turn off the part of his brain that said he’d failed. That yet again, he wasn’t enough. Ordinary.
Avery was the one who pulled back—but only slightly. Her lips grazed his as she spoke. “There’s something else I need to tell you. It’s about the man you were playing whist with.”
Jameson’s body pounded with the ghost of her touch, every one of his senses heightened. “Playing whist against,” he corrected, recalling the tone with which Branford had called him boy.
“Did he tell you his name?” Avery asked.
“Zella called him Branford.” Jameson knew Avery’s tells, all of them. “You know something.”
“I was informed that Branford is a title, not a name.” Avery picked up his hand, turning it palm up “A courtesy title, which I guess means he hasn’t inherited the big one yet.”
Jameson looked down at his hand, held in hers. “And what exactly is the big one?”
Avery sketched a W on the palm of his hand, and Jameson felt her touch in every square inch of his body.
“According to the Proprietor,” Avery murmured, “Branford is the eldest son and heir of the Earl of Wycliffe.” Another pause, another moment when Jameson’s body registered just how close to hers it was. “And that makes him Simon Johnstone-Jameson,” Avery finished, “Viscount Branford.”
CHAPTER 35
JAMESON
Ian had some explaining to do.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Jameson greeted from the shadows as the man in question ambled into the hotel room, drunk or hungover or possibly both.
Ian’s head whipped up. “Where did you come from?”
It was a reasonable question. After all, this room was on the fourth floor of a very nice, very secure hotel. Jameson glanced meaningfully at the window in response.
“I would have called on you at King’s Gate Terrace, but we both know that flat isn’t yours.” It hadn’t taken Jameson long to figure out that Ian wasn’t in residence—or for the security guard to stiffly suggest he check this hotel. “King’s Gate Terrace belongs to Branford,” Jameson continued. “Or should I say Simon? The viscount?”
“So you’ve met my brother.” Ian took a perch on the edge of the desk. “A real charmer, isn’t he?”
Jameson thought briefly of his own brothers—of traditions and rivalries and history, of what it meant to grow up alongside someone, to be formed in contrast to them. “The charmer beat me at whist.”
Ian took that in. For someone who had obviously been drinking, he’d sobered quickly. Jameson waited for a cutting comment about his loss, a dig, a lecture, judgment.
“I’ve never cared much for whist,” Ian said with a shrug.
The oddest feeling seized Jameson’s chest.
“And the King’s Gate Terrace flat isn’t Simon’s, by the way,” Ian continued flippantly. “If you recall, I have more than one brother.”
Both older, Jameson remembered Ian telling Avery. “And a father who’s an earl,” Jameson added, focusing on that.
“If it helps,” Ian offered lazily, “it’s one of the newer earldoms. Created in eighteen seventy-one.”
“That doesn’t help.” Jameson gave Ian a look. “And neither does sending me into the Devil’s Mercy unprepared for what I’d find there.” For who he’d find there.
“Simon is barely a member.” Ian waved away the objection. “He hasn’t shown his face at the Mercy in years.”
“Until now.”
“Someone must have informed my brother of my loss,” Ian admitted.
“You think he’s trying to procure an invitation to the Game.” Jameson did not phrase that as a question.
“As a general rule,” Ian replied, “my brother does not try to do anything.”
He succeeds. The words went unspoken, but Jameson responded as if they had not. “You’re saying that Simon Johnstone-Jameson, Viscount Branford, gets what he wants.”
“I’m saying,” Ian replied, “that you cannot let him win Vantage.” There was something raw and brutal in that cannot. Jameson didn’t want to hear it—or understand it or recognize it—but he did.
“Growing up the third-born son of an earl,” Ian said after a moment, his voice thick, “was, I’d imagine, a bit like growing up the third-born grandson of an American billionaire.” Ian walked over to the window and looked down at the wall that Jameson had scaled to break in here. “One perfect brother,” he continued, “one brilliant one—and then there was me.”
He wants me to feel that we’re the same. Jameson recognized the move for what it was. He played me before. He doesn’t get to play me again.
But when Ian turned back from the window, he didn’t look like he was playing. “My mother saw something in me,” Ian Johnstone-Jameson said hoarsely. “She left Vantage to me.” He took a step forward. “Win it back,” he told Jameson, “and someday, I’ll leave it to you.”
That promise hit with the force of a punch. Jameson’s ears roared. Nothing matters unless you let it. “Why would you do that?” he shot back.
“Why not?” Ian replied impulsively. “I’m not the settling down type. It’ll have to go to someone, won’t it?” The idea seemed to be growing on him. “And it would drive Simon mad.”
That last sentence, more than anything else, convinced Jameson that Ian’s offer was genuine. If I win him Vantage, he’ll leave it to me. The Hawthorne side of Jameson recognized the obvious: He could win it for himself, cut Ian out.
But then it wouldn’t be a gift from his father.
Jameson didn’t linger on that thought for long. “Tonight, Avery received an invitation to the Game,” he told Ian. “I haven’t. Not yet.”
Ian’s bloodshot eyes focused on Jameson—and only on Jameson. “Did the Proprietor appear at the top of the grand staircase and descend?”
Jameson gave a sharp nod. “With Avery on his arm.”
“Then we must act quickly.” Ian began pacing, and Jameson knew the man’s mind was racing, knew exactly how it was racing. “The rest of the players will be chosen tomorrow evening. Tell me what you’ve done so far to win entrance to the Game.”
Not enough, Jameson thought. “Tell me what you did to get banned first,” he countered. “The Factotum knows that I’m your son.”
Ian ran a hand roughly through his hair. “Little bastard knows everything.”
Jameson shrugged. “That seems to be his job—that and keeping the membership in order.” He thought back to the way Rohan had dealt with those men. “What did you do, Ian?”