“Pyramus and Thisbe, Orpheus and Eurydice, Helen of Troy.” Jameson’s mind was racing now. “Love letters may take many forms. And I would bet my life there isn’t wine in this bottle.”
Xander dug into one of his pockets and held an object out to Jameson. “Armadillo?”
Thearmadilloin question was a one-of-a-kind pocketknife Xander had made himself when he was seven, fashioned to look like his favorite animal at the time.
“You and your armadillos,” Jameson said, but what he was thinkingwasmy love, my love, my one and only love. Those words, the old man’s words—they resonated with Jameson in ways he couldn’t even describe.
He took the pocketknife from Xander and popped out a corkscrew. In short order, the bottle was open—and, based on the smell, itdefinitelywasn’t wine. Jameson poured the liquid into the offering plate.
What next?It took him twelve and a half seconds to zero back in on the Grecian sculpture. “The pearls.” Jameson grabbed them and dropped them into the offering plate. The liquid bubbled, and the beads on the necklace began to dissolve. When the process had finished, where a pearl necklace had once been, there was now a silver one. Retrieving it, Jameson saw letters engraved on the silver beads.
He read them aloud: “A,C,Y,S,U,T,N.”
Do you see it?Avery asked in Jameson’s mind, her voice as clear as day.
I see it, Heiress,Jameson thought. The old man might have left this game for Alice, but it was theirs now.
“Scrambling those letters, I can make the words…any cuts?” Xander spit-balled.
“No,” Jameson said, memories coming to him, rapid-fire.A Hawthorne villa. A vineyard. A triangular mirror.“Tuscany.”
Chapter 13
ROHAN
There were moments in life when one was forced to choose: The guaranteed payoff or the risk? The long game or the short one? To protect what was yours or let it all ride?
Personally, Rohan had always had a taste for bigger fish, so when Brady had taken off into the wilderness like a warrior possessed after seeing Gigi holding that calla lily, Rohan hadn’t even hesitated. He’d torn off after the scholar before Knox Landry could even think of doing the same.
Calla Thorp, the so-called Watcher, was a sizable fish indeed. The woman was a player of games, clearly. A person of interest—and then some. Thus, for the past two hours, Rohan hadchosento allow Brady a significant tether, trailing him through the night, sticking to him like a living shadow as Brady had scoured the bayou in search of Calla. It was only when the scholar began doubling back to the same locations that Rohan reached the limit of his patience.
He swept Brady’s feet out from beneath him. “That’s enough,” Rohan said in an almost bored tone.
“Get out of my way.Now.” Brady climbed to his feet.
“As much as I would love to retread what I can only assume are all of your old childhood haunts,” Rohan said, “we both know that doing so would be futile.”
“I don’t care.”
“Come now, Mr. Daniels, you’re the sort of gentleman who cares far too much.”
“Leave. Me. Alone.”Brady’s tone promised violence, but Rohan and the scholar had been down that road before, and Rohan was the one who’d come out on top.
“I would, but I don’t want to.” Rohan stepped into Brady’s personal space and lightly tapped the man’s forearm. “Unless you’d care to part with that.”
“My arm?” Brady’s jaw tightened. “My tattoo. That’s what this is about?”
Dancing over Brady’s skin was a sequence of spiraling letters that Rohan couldn’t make out in the moonlight. Regardless, the tattoo was proof enough, for Rohan’s purposes, that the duchess had interfered with the Grandest Game. That made the scholar a means to an end for Rohan, useful as both leverage and bait, but now it was starting to seem like there might be a more direct path to victory.
Whatever Zella knew about the disappearance of Avery Grambs, the mysteriousWatcherlikely knew a great deal more. If Rohan could capture Calla Thorp, that in and of itself might be enough to earn him the promised payday from Jameson Hawthorne, at which point, Rohan wouldn’tneedBrady or Zella or anyone or anything else at all. Once the money was in hand, the Mercy would be his.
“Tell me, Mr. Daniels,” Rohan prodded, “what would you have done if you’d found your Calla out here?”
“I don’t know.” Brady’s voice was thick.
Young love did not always scar, but when it did, it scarred deeply. Rohan could use that. In games of highest stakes, one could never have too many paths to victory. “You don’t know what you would do if you came face-to-face with her. You only know that the last time you spoke to Calla Thorp cannotbethe last time.”
Motivation. Weakness. One and the same.