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?”
What else don’t I know?
“I lost.” Ian turned his palms toward Jameson in an insincere mea culpa. “People who lose too much get desperate. The Factotum does not trust desperate men.” Ian’s lips curled into a smile, dark and wry. “And I may have upturned a chair or two.”