“Where does that leave us?” Jameson couldn’t help the question as the adrenaline drained out of him all at once, leaving him feeling like a rag doll or a book that had been hollowed out.
“It leaves us with family lines.”
Jameson turned to see Toby back once more, his knuckles bloodied from who knows what.
“It leaves us,” Toby continued, “with the fact that Helena Thorp waited generations for a girl. It leaves us with the fact that membership in the web is passed down the female line, and Alice Hawthorne was a member of the Gilded Blade long before she ascended.” Toby turned—toward Zara. “Tell me you don’t know anything about this.”
Jameson’s aunt—the firstborn child of Alice and Tobias Hawthorne, their firstborndaughter—raised her chin. “I know nothing,” Zara said crisply. “But then, I was neither our mother’s only daughter, nor her favorite.”
Chapter 64
JAMESON
It had been two years since Jameson and his brothers had seen their mother, but desperate times called for desperate measures. All four of them went. Toby, too. Zara had refused. Grayson wasn’t happy to be leaving Lyra, but he’d promised he would, and Grayson was nothing if not a man of his word.
And Skye, for her part, took one look at her sons and brother on her doorstep, smiled, and led them into her lawyer husband’s sprawling home without a word.
She always had loved holding court.
“To what do I owe the pleasure,” Skye said, taking a seat and gesturing for all of them to do the same, “of any of my sons remembering that they have a mother, let alone all four?” Skye loved little more than playing the victim. She was clad in a free-flowing caftan—and diamonds. A copious amount of diamonds.
But that wasn’t what drew Jameson’s attention—or his brothers’.
“You’re pregnant.” Nash’s drawl did nothing to soften those words.
Skye put a hand protectively over her round belly. “It’s a girl this time,” Skye announced. “I always did want a daughter to name aftermyself. Men do it all the time.” Skye nodded toward Toby. “Case in point,” she said, “and speak of the devil.”
“Hello, Skye.” Toby seemed to be rationing his words. Jameson followed his uncle’s example and resisted the urge to ask:Is wanting to name a child after yourself the only reason you’ve always wanted a daughter?
“I mourned you, Toby,” Skye said dramatically. “My darling little brother, who never even bothered coming to see me after his miraculous resurrection.”
First she’d mentioned wanting a daughter and now—resurrection. Was she baiting them? It would have been so easy to push those topics, to take the bait, if that’s what it was, but Jameson, his brothers, and Toby had game-planned on the ride over, and they’d all been in agreement: They could not let on that Alice was alive if Skye didn’t already know, and they couldn’t let Skye glean that Avery was missing, either.
“We all knowhowyou mourned Toby.” Grayson purposefully drew Skye’s attention, and Jameson recognized the maneuver for what it was. Skye was a storyteller at heart. The more they could get her to talk, spinning stories—she loved the ones with villains best—the easier it would be to steer her toward what they really wanted to know.
“If you want someone to blame for your existence, Gray, darling, blame your father.” Skye had “mourned” Toby’s presumed death, more than two decades earlier, by sleeping with a married man, and Grayson had been the result. “But then, you can’t do that, can you, darling? I understand Sheffield Grayson is still in the Maldives somewhere, evading taxes, federal investigations, and anything else that can be evaded. Your poor half sisters—and Sheff’s poor wife.” Skye shook her head. “Poor, poor Acacia Grayson.”
Sheffield Grayson wasn’t in the Maldives. The man was dead, but Skye clearly didn’t know that.
“Acacia is more of a mother to me than you ever were,” Grayson said calmly, setting Skye up for another round.
“You see what I put up with?” she asked Toby. “But better Acacia playing mommy than Zara, I suppose. Our sister always did want what I have.”
What do you have, Skye? Just us? Just children? Or…
“That, or you always had to have what Zara wanted,” Nash offered. “Could go either way, I reckon.”
Skye twirled her diamond necklace around one of her fingers but seemed to decide against engaging Nash. “You’re being awfully quiet, Jamie. And, Xander—look at you, so very handsome these days, very much your father’s son. HowisIsaiah?”
Isaiah was Xander’s father, the one Skye and the old man had kept from him for years.
“Isaiah’s great,” Xander replied cheerfully. “I introduced him to Acacia, and they really hit it off.”
Thatseemed to take Skye off kilter.Well played, Xan.
“Still so quiet, Jameson.” Skye’s finger twirled through the diamonds. “And so very alone. Whereisour little heiress?”
Missing—but you don’t know that, do you?Jameson pretended as though Skye’s question had hit its target, allowing the muscles in his shoulders and neck to tense just a bit as he shuttered his eyes.