The Inheritances Game (Jameson Hawthorne)

Meeting Up With Ian

Ian had some explaining to do. 

"Fancy meeting you here," Jameson greeted from the shadows as theman in question ambled into the hotel room, drunk or hungover or possiblyboth. 

Ian's head whipped up. "Where did you come from?"It was a reasonable question. After all, this room was on the fourth floorof a very nice, very secure hotel. 

Jameson glanced meaningfully at thewindow in response."I would have called on you at King's Gate Terrace, but we both knowthat flat isn't yours." It hadn't taken Jameson long to figure out that Ianwasn't in residence—or for the security guard to stiffly suggest he checkthis 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 rivalriesand history, of what it meant to grow up alongside someone, to be formedin contrast to them. "The charmer beat me at whist."Ian took that in. For someone who had obviously been drinking, he'dsobered quickly. Jameson waited for a cutting comment about his loss, adig, 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," Iancontinued flippantly. "If you recall, I have more than one brother." 

Both older, Jameson remembered Ian telling Catalina. "And a father who'san earl," Jameson added, focusing on that. 

"If it helps," Ian offered lazily, "it's one of the newer earldoms. Createdin eighteen seventy-one." 

"That doesn't help." Jameson gave Ian a look. "And neither doessending me into the Devil's Mercy unprepared for what I'd find there." Forwho he'd find there. 

"Simon is barely a member." Ian waved away the objection. "He hasn'tshown 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." Jamesondid not phrase that as a question. 

"As a general rule," Ian replied, "my brother does not try to doanything."He succeeds. 

The words went unspoken, but Jameson responded as ifthey had not. "You're saying that Simon Johnstone-Jameson, ViscountBranford, gets what he wants." 

"I'm saying," Ian replied, "that you cannot let him win Vantage." Therewas 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, hisvoice thick, "was, I'd imagine, a bit like growing up the third-borngrandson of an American billionaire." 

Ian walked over to the window andlooked down at the wall that Jameson had scaled to break in here. "Oneperfect brother," he continued, "one brilliant one—and then there was me."He wants me to feel that we're the same. Jameson recognized the movefor 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 wasplaying. "My mother saw something in me," Ian Johnstone-Jameson saidhoarsely. "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 onhim. "And it would drive Simon mad."