Page 24 of Glorious Rivals

“I would ask,” the Hawthorne he knew best said, “but you’d probably lie.”

“I probably would,” Rohan agreed.Once he’d made it ten feet up, he let go of the shelf with one hand and used that hand to lean an entire row of books forward in one motion.Reaching past those books, Rohan locked his fingers around the hilt of the sword.

“If I told you that someone in this game is a threat…” Jameson didn’t bother to mask the sound of his footsteps as he closed in on Rohan.“What would you say?”

Rohan dropped to the floor, longsword in hand, then straightened to meet Jameson’s gaze head-on.“Honestly?I’d say that the odds are fairly good it’s me.”

“You’re playing for the Mercy.”Jameson did not phrase that as a question.

“You seem confident about that,” Rohan replied.

“I’m confident to a fault—and better at math than I look.Two possible heirs.One dying old man.Howisthe duchess?”

Jameson Hawthorne and Avery Grambs had been allowed into the hallowed halls of the Devil’s Mercy not as members but as guests.But that had been enough for them to acquaint themselves with Rohan’s rival for the throne.

The duchess was rather memorable.

At the moment, however, that was neither here nor there.“You need something, Mr.Hawthorne, and I have somewhere to be.”There were few things that Rohan recognized as immediately and innately as the kind of opportunity provided by another person’sneed.“What exactly is it that you would like to know?”

Information was currency, and Jameson clearly hadn’t come here in the middle of the game to talk to Rohan about the succession of the Devil’s Mercy.

“Lyra Kane.”That was all Jameson said.

Rohan had to admit: He had not seen this coming.“The plot thickens.”

“Get me something I can use to disqualify her and send her home.”Jameson’s voice was low in a way that made Rohan think the words cost him.

Your brother won’t thank you for that.In the labyrinth that was his mind, Rohan could feel the corridors rearranging themselves.There was a particular room—more a vault, really—where Rohan kept bits and pieces of information that he knewwouldmatter a great deal, even if he did not yet know why.

This request—and that tone in Jameson’s voice—certainly qualified.

“And what if Ms.Kane has done nothing wrong?”Rohan queried, testing his opponent.“What if she is not the threat?”Rohan’smind went to Savannah, but he could not afford for Jameson’s to do the same, so he provided another outlet for Jameson Hawthorne’s suspicions.“Brady Daniels.”

“Is he working with a sponsor?”Jameson said immediately.

“Would you like for me to find out?”Rohan replied.“Assuming, of course, that it would be to my benefit to do so.”

“Any player disqualified from the game is one fewer player for you to worry about,” Jameson pointed out, and then he smirked at Rohan.“I assume this is the part where you tell me that you are not the kind of person whoworries.”

“This is the part,” Rohan said, “where I tell you that specificity is your friend.If you’re worried about aparticularsponsor…” Rohan leaned very slightly toward Jameson.“Do share the particulars.”

“Cue the part where I tell you thatIdon’t worry.”

Not feeling forthcoming, Hawthorne?Rohan lackadaisically swung the longsword in his hand up to hold it vertically, directly between them.“If you have nothing else to tell me, then I’m afraidthisis the part where I ask you to get out of my way—politely, of course.”

“Of course,” Jameson replied, stepping to the side.

Rohan strode past him toward the spiral staircase.

“If you lose,” Jameson called, “does Zella automatically win the Mercy?”

Zella.The duchess.Jameson probably thought he was pressing on a sore spot, but Rohan refused to think about the aristocratic, high-society insider who would have no trouble coming up with the Proprietor’s ten-million-pound buy-in should Rohan fail to win the Grandest Game.

“Irrelevant,” Rohan called back, projecting his voice to surround them both.“You should know by now, Jameson Hawthorne: I don’t lose.”

Chapter 21

ROHAN