Page 27 of Love Is A Draw (Check Mates #2)

T he hall stirred before a single move was made.

Word had flown ahead like a spark catching dry tinder: Gail would play again.

Rachel Pearler had secured it, her voice steady with the authority of fairness itself, and there was no rule to bar Gail now.

The arbiter whom Fave Pearler had approved could only nod, papers shuffled with reluctant hands.

But what began as a murmur grew into a swell—astonishment, whispers of impropriety, wagers muttered in corners.

If Gail played, then so would the Baroness Sofia von List.

The realization rippled through the room, sharper than any opening gambit. Chairs scraped, gentlemen leaned in, ladies fanned themselves with brisk, fluttering strokes. Round Three had come, and with it, the board itself seemed to tremble under the weight of what was at stake.

Time twisted strangely. The game started within the hour, but the air dragged, thick as molasses, as though years passed in the span of minutes. Every glance, every breath stretched longer than it ought, holding the room taut with expectation.

In the early afternoon, the fire in the hearth had burned to its last glowing coals, casting a dull orange across the chessboard.

But the heat hadn’t reached Victor in hours.

He sat at the edge of his seat, the hard wood biting through the layers of his breeches, his shirt clinging to his back with cold sweat.

The room reeked of polish and overcooked tension. Every breath scraped down his throat like sand. Fave stood in the corner, arms crossed tightly, and even Greg looked pale beneath his usual composure, seemingly unconsoled by his wife, Hermy.

Victor’s eyes flicked to the side—just enough to catch the back of Gail’s head. She was playing with Sofia. He couldn’t see her face, couldn’t read the state of her board, but her hand trembled as she touched a piece. He knew the feeling. Pressure. He was drowning in it now.

Baron von List lounged across from him, legs sprawled, chin tipped arrogantly as if the match had already ended. A piece of his blond hair had fallen into his eyes, but he didn’t push it back. His long purplish fingers tapped a slow rhythm against the table, each beat a deliberate mockery.

Victor’s queen was at stake. He hadn’t seen the trap until it was too late. And now the board—his battlefield—held a wreckage of pinned rooks and scattered pawns. He’d been dismantled.

Across from him, List gave a soft chuckle, the kind that curdled in the gut. “Your move. Unless you’d like to concede?”

Victor didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His mouth was dry. His lungs barely worked. The pieces stared back at him, hollow and cruel. He had written the moves that brought him here. He had penned the variations in those ledgers.

List had stolen them. Read them. Learned from him. Every thought Victor had committed to paper was now being turned against him—tactics weaponized, creativity bastardized. His years of work, laid bare and bled dry.

He reached for his knight, then paused.

List’s smile widened. “Ah. The Black Knight. How poetic.”

Victor’s fingers brushed the carved horse’s head. He moved it slowly into place. Not to counter or to attack. Just to survive.

List arched a brow. “That’s your response?”

Victor stared down at the board. No. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even from his notebooks.

And that was the point.

If List knew everything he’d ever written, then he’d stop playing what he’d written. He could no longer use his regular tactics. Survival required something more.

“Take your time,” List murmured, a man savoring victory. “Unless you’ve lost your nerve, Jew.”

Victor didn’t flinch. But inside, something buckled. He thought of Gail and the way she’d looked at him after the match with Sofia, her eyes raw with the weight of betrayal and brilliance.

He heard Dmitry in his head: “It’s not creativity but courage that’s rewarded in chess.”

So, Victor hung his queen for List to take. A foolish move. A reckless one. But it cracked the symmetry of the board—something not even List’s stolen knowledge could predict.

List took the bait.

The queen fell. Victor had lost the most powerful piece on the board.

The spectators froze, and the heat in the room thickened with the scent of impending defeat. Hopefully, not mine.

Victor’s pulse thundered in his ears.

List sat back, languid, self-satisfied. “We’ll adjourn here,” he said with a smirk. “Enough drama for one day.”

Victor blinked. “What?”

“You’re tired.” List stood. “I’ll give you the night to find a miracle.”

The room stirred. Spectators rose. Footsteps shuffled. But Victor remained seated, staring at the pieces. He had played his most dangerous move, and it hadn’t been enough.

Across the room, Gail didn’t look back.

Victor lowered his hand from the table and wondered if she still would have loved him… had he won.

Gail barely believed it as she stood in the darkened corridor, hand pressed flat against the table that Victor had almost lost.

This wasn’t over. Victor had given up the most powerful piece on the board, but he hadn’t surrendered. He was playing for something more than a title. He was playing for her. She could feel it in her bones.

She hadn’t seen the end of the match—List had insisted on adjourning. But she’d seen enough. Victor’s queen sacrificed. His breathless stillness. The way he left the room without looking back at her.

It wasn’t just the match. It was him.

After the spectators had left behind List, his baroness, and the officers, Gail joined the sitting room where the Pearlers had gathered, murmuring over brandy and teacups.

Fave glanced at her but didn’t speak. Rachel offered a faint, strained smile.

Victor sat in the farthest corner by the window, silhouetted in the silver wash of moonlight, as still as stone.

Gail crossed the room slowly. “Victor,” she said softly.

He turned. Not all the way, but enough that the light caught the exhaustion in his eyes.

She sat across from him. “You played well without the ledgers, see?”

“No, I played predictably. He knew every move I might make.”

Her throat tightened. “He read your ledgers.”

“He memorized them.”

“His wife did, too. She’s from Moscow, so she can likely read the Russian chess notation for him.”

Silence settled between them. She didn’t reach for his hand. Not yet.

Victor leaned back, head tilting toward the glass. “I’ve given him the chance to make it to the third ? round. This means, you’d surpassed me with yet another draw, but can you move into the final without a win in three rounds, only draws?”

“It maintains peace.”

“No, the status quo isn’t peace, Gail. We need a victory.” Victor raked both hands through his golden brown hair, adorably disheveled after a long and hard game.

“They won’t allow?—”

“You have to win whether it’s allowed or not.” His tone was hollow, not bitter. Just. “And it’s right. You should win the tournament. You should take the title. It was always meant for the best player. Man or woman, Jew or Gentile, the best player should win.”

“I haven’t lost the title yet.” Greg kept his eyes glued to the brandy he twirled in his crystal glass.

She stared at him, then Victor. “What are you saying?”

“I’m leaving.” Victor didn’t look at her. “Tomorrow. If I lose the last match, I have to go. If I stay, List will use me as leverage. Against you. Against Dmitry.”

Her breath caught. “No.”

“He’s right,” Fave said. “List will only be satisfied if he faces Greg. None of the Jews, none of us, deserve a chance to play for the title in his world.”

“But this is our world too. We exist, we have a right to be here,” Gail said.

“I agree. Many do.” Greg gave her a somber look. “But I’ve fought List long enough to know he’ll unleash everything in his power to show the world—even just this narrow piece of it here in London—that equality and meritocracy have no place here.”

Victor finally turned, his eyes finding hers. “They’ll try to frame me. They’ve already accused me of being an enemy of the Crown. The ledgers?—”

“I’ll testify. I’ll prove they’re not codes. I can read them. I can show them—” Gail lost her breath when she saw Lady Hermy’s gaze glued to her hands, picking at the hem of her laced sleeves.

Victor seemed to notice it, too.

Lady Hermy swallowed visibly. “I don’t even have a voice, dear, and I’m a Countess.”

“They won’t believe you.” Victor’s calmness cracked on the last word. “You’re a woman. A Jew. And List doesn’t care that you’re brilliant—he won’t make that matter.”

“So what?” Her voice rose. “We fight?”

But he only shook his head. “You have something to win. I don’t. Not anymore.”

She stood abruptly, the scrape of her chair too loud. “You said you came here for legacy.”

“I did.” He stood too. “And I found it.”

“What about my grandfather?”

Gail was aware that Fave, Greg, and Lady Hermy were watching them.

“No, I found it in you. You’re Dmitry’s legacy.

And I love you. So I need to protect you, Gail.

” Victor’s eyes shone in the low light. “If I stay, I become the reason you lose. And I can’t be that.

I won’t stand in the way of the honor I sought for Dmitry, not even if I can’t be the one to stand for him against List.”

Her breath caught. “You are not?—”

But he was already retreating.

“I love you,” he said, quietly. “That’s why I have to go. You can’t shine if I cast a shadow on you, Gail.”

Tears burned hot in her eyes. “You’re not at liberty to decide that for me.”

He gave a faint smile. “I’m not deciding for you. I’m giving you the board.”

And then he was gone.

Gail stood in the empty room, her hands clenched at her sides. He loved her. And he’d left anyway. Not for glory. But for her. And that, somehow, hurt worse.