The word compete had Jameson’s pulse quickening. This was it.
Branford, however, latched on to a different word. “If,” he repeated.
“Your places in the Game, I’m afraid, are not assured,” the Proprietor said. “Simon, you’re well aware of the cost to join the Mercy.” The use of Branford’s given name seemed deliberate, a reminder that here, his title did not matter. Here, he wasn’t the one with power. “What more might you be willing to pay in exchange for an invitation to the Game?”
Branford’s jaw tightened—slightly, but it was there. “Another levy.” That wasn’t a question or an offer. That was the Viscount Branford cutting to the chase.
The Proprietor’s smile didn’t look like any that Jameson had ever seen. “It need not concern yourself this time,” he said. “But you must, as I’m sure you realize, make it worth my while.” The Proprietor drummed his fingers lightly over the top of the desk, a sign, Jameson thought, that he was enjoying this. “And it must be something you would rather not come out. After all, these things are always more interesting when at least a few players have ‘skin in the game,’ as the Americans like to say.”
The Proprietor turned his head toward Jameson. “And that, my boy, leads us to you. There’s a bit of a resemblance to your brother, don’t you think, Simon?”
Branford didn’t so much as flick his eyes toward Jameson. “In rashness, if nothing else.”
Jameson chose not to take that personally. All his focus remained on the Proprietor.
“You’re bold, young man.” The Proprietor stood and caught his cane between his thumb and forefinger and swung it lightly back and forth, like a metronome or a needle on a scale. “If I’d encountered you when you were younger, if your last name wasn’t Hawthorne…，” the Proprietor told Jameson, “you could have had an interesting future at the Mercy indeed.”
Jameson thought about the young boy who tended the boats, about the bartender, the house fighters, the dealers. About Rohan.
“But here you are,” the Proprietor mused. “Not a member of the Mercy and not in my employ.” He nodded toward the desk. “Do you know what this book is?”
“Am I supposed to?” Jameson replied, the barest hint of challenge in his tone.
“Oh, most assuredly not.” There was something dark and serpentine buried in the Proprietor’s tone as he studied Jameson’s face. And then he smiled. “Your grandfather trained you well, Mr. Hawthorne. Your face gives away very little.”
Jameson shrugged. “I’m also fairly skilled at motocross.”
“And fighting,” the Proprietor added. He went silent for a moment longer than was comfortable for anyone in the room. “I respect a fighter. Tell me…” The cane was still going back and forth in his hands, though the older man gave no sign of moving it at all. “What makes you think that I am dying?”
So that was the move—or one of them, anyway—that had paid off.
The Proprietor’s fingers tightened suddenly around the cane. “This?” he said, nodding toward it.
“No,” Jameson replied. He debated withholding an explanation but decided that might register as one insult too many. “You remind me of my grandfather.” The words came out quieter than he meant them to. “Before.”
There had been weeks when the old man was ill, when he’d been planning his final hurrah, and none of them but Xander had known.
“The way you tested Rohan,” Jameson continued. “In the ring.”
“I was testing you,” the Proprietor countered.
Jameson shrugged. “Three birds with one stone.”
“And the third would be…？”
“I don’t know,” Jameson replied honestly. “I just know that there is one, just like I know that you have a presumptive heir.” He paused. “Just like my brothers and I now know to never presume.” Jameson met the Proprietor’s gaze. “And there was a tremor—a very slight one—when Avery took your arm last night.”
“She told you that?” the Proprietor demanded.
“She didn’t have to,” Jameson said. At the time, he hadn’t even noticed, but he’d long ago trained himself to be able to play a scene over and over again in his mind.
“Why,” the Proprietor said, after a long and pointed silence, “did you place a bet on the price of wheat?”