CHAPTER 52
JAMESON
Jameson had grown up playing his grandfather’s games. Every Saturday morning, a challenge had been laid out in front of them. One lesson that it had taken years for him to learn was that sometimes, the best opening move was to take a step back.
To watch.
To see.
“I should have known he would send you.” Branford walked to stand next to Katharine. His tone was polite, his expression austere.
“Perhaps I’m here on my own behalf,” Katharine replied archly. “After all, Ainsley has a secret in play, and you know I’d love to see him unseated.”
“So you’re saying that you’re not here for Vantage?” Branford arched a brow. “That he has no interest in it?”
“I find it quite interesting,” Katharine said evenly, “how much you want to know the answer to that question.”
Jameson would have snuck a glance at Avery to see what she was making of all of this, but Zella chose that moment to step between them.
“Checking out the competition?” she murmured.
“Who is she?” Jameson asked, well aware that Zella was also the competition.
“Katharine Payne.” Zella had a way of pitching her voice that made him strain to hear it. “She’s been an MP longer than you’ve been alive.”
MP. Jameson’s brain came at the abbreviation like a code. The answer fell immediately into place. Member of Parliament.
“Who’s he?” Avery asked quietly.
“And is he playing for Vantage?” Jameson murmured.
“I doubt it,” Zella said. “I know who she works for, and let’s just say that Bowen Johnstone-Jameson isn’t exactly the sentimental type.”
Jameson remembered Ian claiming that the King’s Gate Terrace flat didn’t belong to Branford. I have two brothers, he’d said, days before that. Both older, both horribly irrelevant to this story. Except, apparently, they weren’t. There were five players in the Game. One was Ian’s oldest brother; another was potentially working on behalf of the second-born.
If Katharine is a powerful political figure, what does that make the man she works for?
Jameson thought about the flat, about the way the security guard had emphasized the word he in referring to the owner, the same way that Branford had just now, like Bowen Johnstone-Jameson wasn’t a name that one just spoke.
Unless, Jameson thought, you’re Zella.
“Are you?” Jameson asked the woman beside him. “Sentimental?”
Zella gave a little shrug. “In my own way.”
“You broke into the Devil’s Mercy,” Jameson commented.
“And ended up with membership,” Avery added.
A delicate, closed-lipped smile adorned Zella’s face. “I’m That Duchess. There’s nothing I won’t do.”
Or at least, that’s what people say, Jameson inferred, and then he amended that thought. Racist people. How many Black women were there, total, in Zella’s position? In the aristocracy? At the Mercy?
“What are you playing for?” Jameson asked her.
Zella tilted her head. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Her situation is more precarious than she lets on.”
Jameson looked past Zella and Avery to see Katharine walking toward them. Her stride was neither long nor quick, her posture perfectly erect.
“Your husband,” Katharine said, meeting Zella’s gaze. “The Duke. I hear he’s not well.”
As excellent as Zella’s poker face was, that got a response—just for a fraction of a second, just a slight narrowing of her eyes, but Jameson caught it. An instant later, the polished, slightly amused look was back in place. “Wherever would you hear a thing like that?”
“From my brother, I wager.” Branford didn’t come any closer to the four of them. He aimed a piercing glare at Katharine. “What does Bowen want with her?” Simon Johnstone-Jameson, Viscount Branford, did not mince words.
In response, Katharine gave an indelicate snort. Given her posture, mannerisms, and that immaculate suit, Jameson was fairly certain that, for Katharine, indelicate was a choice.
“I spanked you once when you were a child,” Katharine told Branford. “Do you remember that?”
The red-haired man responded with a snort of his own. “Really, Katharine, is that your best attempt to put me in my place?”
“You know me better than that.” Katharine’s expression seemed mild, but her eyes—they were blue green and very hard. “You know your brother better than that.”