SWNOVELS The Brothers Hawthorne: Chapter 43
The food smelled delicious—or so Jameson was informed, since he couldn’t smell anything at the moment. Eating was also out the question.
“Could I get you some soup, sir?” The bartender looked more like a bouncer. Like the dealers in the gaming room, he wore clothes lifted straight out of another era. No jewels around his neck, but Jameson caught a thick ring on his middle finger.
A triangle embedded inside a circle inside a square.
“Or something a little stronger?” The bartender lifted a crystal goblet onto the bar. The liquid inside was a dark shade of amber, almost gold.
“Soup and spirits,” Avery murmured into the back of Jameson’s head. “Think they offer that to everyone who survives the ring?”
Jameson’s body drank in the closeness of hers, allowing it to fuel his resolve, and then he cut to the chase with the bartender. “I’m after the book.”
The bartender looked Jameson up and down. The man appeared to be in his forties, but Jameson thought suddenly of the boy in the boat that first night and wondered exactly how long this gentleman had worked at the Devil’s Mercy.
Exactly how loyal to the Proprietor he was.
“Ah.” The bartender reached below again, and this time, he withdrew a leather-bound tome that looked like it weighed too much to be so easily maneuvered with one hand. One very large hand, Jameson noted.
“Are the two of you looking to place any bet in particular?” the bartender asked.
Avery stepped back. “Not me,” she said. “Just him.”
Jameson knew how hard it was for her to sit this one out, just like she knew that he was the one who needed to impress. Ignoring the pang of the distance Avery had just put between them, Jameson flipped open the book. “May I?”
The bartender laid his massive hands flat on the bar, just behind the book, but said nothing as Jameson began to flip through it. The pages were yellowed with age, the dates beside the earliest bets written in script so formal it was difficult to read.
December 2. Jameson finally made out one date on the first page. 1823.
Beneath each date was a single sentence. Each sentence contained two names.
Mr. Edward Sully bets Sir Harold Letts one hundred fifty that the eldest daughter of the Baron Asherton will not be wed before the younger two.
Lord Renner bets Mr. Downey, four hundred to two hundred, that Old Mitch will die in the spring (spring defined as the latter half of March, the whole of April, the whole of May, and the first week of June).
Mr. Fausset bets Lord Harding fifty-five that a man, agreed upon in confidence between the two, will take on a third mistress before his wife begets their second child.
No wonder the book was so large. It contained every random wager ever placed at the Devil’s Mercy—or at least in this room. Political outcomes, social scandals, births and deaths, who would wed who and when and in what weather and with what guests in attendance.
Jameson flipped to more recent bets. “Are there any rules,” he asked the bartender, “on what one may or may not wager?”
“This room is dedicated to longer-term outcomes, three months or more. If you’re looking to place a bet on the shorter term, you’ll require the book next door. Beyond that, you may wager on anything for which you have a taker, with the understanding that all wagers will be enforced.”
Jameson looked up. Compared to the ring, attendance in this room was sparse, but every man—and the one woman—present was paying attention to his exchange with the bartender, some doing less to hide their interest than others.
One man, who looked to be in his thirties, stood and crossed the room. “I’d wager ten thousand that this lad gets himself killed before he’s thirty. Any takers?”
“If you exclude illness and require the death be the result of his own actions?” Another man stood. “I’m in.”
Jameson ignored them. He caught Avery’s eyes, a silent warning for her to do the same. As the bet was written into the book and signed, Jameson let his gaze come to rest on the bartender’s ring. That and a mirror behind the shelves of liquor were the most likely points from which the Proprietor could observe.
What kind of bet will get me an invite to the Game? Jameson thought back to Zella’s advice. He needed to be surprising, tempting, threatening—or a combination of the three.
At that exact moment, Rohan stepped through the black curtains. His face wasn’t quite as battered as Jameson’s, and he wore it better. He walked like his ribs weren’t smarting at all.
It killed you, Jameson thought, with a slight twist of his lips, to stay down.
“Were I a member,” Rohan said, his words carrying, though his voice wasn’t loud, “I’d be wagering on the likelihood that Ms. Grambs breaks up with him within the year.” He met Jameson’s gaze. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Jameson replied.
“Lots taken,” Avery told Rohan, her eyes narrowing.
Jameson smiled like his bruised jaw had never felt better. “I’ll wager fifty thousand pounds that the Proprietor chooses someone other than his Factotum as his heir.”
Sometimes, Jameson felt like he knew things without knowing how. The glint in Rohan’s eyes told him he’d guessed correctly: Rohan hadn’t yet been named heir.
He was still being tested.
“I’ll take that bet,” the man who’d wagered that Jameson was going to get himself killed said. “Assuming you’re good for it.”
“I am,” Jameson replied, and then he looked back at the bartender’s ring, back at the mirror. Surprising. Tempting. Threatening. “And I’ll offer up another fifty thousand pounds that says the Proprietor is already dying. I’d give him… let’s say… two years?”
The look in Rohan’s eyes now made Jameson feel like the two of them were back in the ring, like Rohan was standing over him, saying, Stay down. A threat and a warning—and something more.
“No one is going to take that bet,” the bartender told Jameson. “Are you done here?”
Jameson could feel the clock ticking onward, feel the night slipping away from him. I’m not done. I can’t be done.
He had to do something. He swallowed. “Short-term bets are kept next door?”