Page 28 of Love Is A Draw (Check Mates #2)

T he morning before the second half of Round Three dawned pale and unsettled, as though London itself had risen anxious for the games yet to come.

At the Pearlers’ townhouse, the quiet of the breakfast table broke under Maia’s questions, her bright little voice darting between plates of porridge and the comb she refused to let Gail fix in her hair.

“But what happens if you win today?” Maia demanded, wide-eyed. “If you beat the Baroness, then you could play against Greg, couldn’t you? The winner of the women's tournament, wouldn’t that be grand?”

“The women’s section only consisted of Gail and the baroness to appease List that either he or his wife would play against Greg for his title,” Rachel explained as she patted Maiai’s hand.

“Nobody expected Gail to stand strong against the baroness.” There was a glint in Rachel’s eye that was both flattering for Gail and also unsettling. Had she put her hopes on her?

“It was just a few rounds to appease the Baroness, that’s all,” Gail’s hand stilled on the ribbon she was tying.

Her throat closed. But truly, wouldn’t it be grand? The thought carried such sweetness—and such peril—that she couldn’t bear to answer at once.

Maia tilted her head, impatience bubbling over. “Why didn’t you win before? I saw you. You made it a draw. Why?”

Rachel Pearler looked up from the teapot, eyes sharp with warning. But Gail lifted a hand, quieting her. If Maia was bold enough to ask, she deserved something in return.

Gail crouched so her gaze met the girl’s. “Sometimes winning is dangerous, Maia.”

“Dangerous?”

“Not everyone forgives a loss. Not men like List. I once read about a man who beat him. A Jew. He vanished the next day. That is why… sometimes… a draw is safer.”

Maia frowned, small hands knotting her ribbon. “But you love chess. Why play if you can’t win?”

Gail’s chest tightened. She smoothed Maia’s hair back from her brow. “Because we live for chess, Maia. But we don’t die for it.”

Silence wrapped the table. Even the clock seemed to tick more softly.

At last, Rachel rose briskly. “Maia, you’ll stay here today. A special guest is expected later. Fave and I must meet him at the port, and we’ll bring you along when it is time. You can ask Gail about the match then.”

Maia’s mouth dropped in protest, but Fave’s calm nod ended the matter. “Later, my darling,” he said.

Gail fastened her gloves with trembling fingers.

The weight of Maia’s questions clung to her shoulders as heavily as the gray London sky, but they had to go.

A footman had already opened the front door for them.

She reached for her bonnet when the knock came—a firm, deliberate sound against the Pearlers’ front door.

The footman answered, and there he stood.

Victor.

Gail froze. The room narrowed until there was nothing but the man in the doorway, shadows etched beneath his eyes, his shoulders squared as if he carried the whole of yesterday still upon them.

“I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye,” he said quietly.

The words pierced her like an arrow. Goodbye.

They found a corner of the drawing room, away from Maia’s curious stare. Victor’s face was pale with exhaustion, but his eyes burned with something fiercer.

“You’re not leaving,” Gail said, before he could speak again. “I won’t let you.”

“Gail—”

“No.” She cut him off, voice trembling but firm. “You’ve given too much. I’ve seen it. Your notebooks, the hours, your very name on the line. You cannot walk away now.”

He exhaled, long and heavy. “I won’t drag you down with me if I lose against List. If I lose, I have to leave England. But you’re better than me, Gail. You hold the game in your mind—every line, every possibility. I need the ledgers to see what you carry easily.”

“That’s nonsense,” she whispered fiercely. “You think I don’t need you? You think knowledge alone wins a game?”

“I wanted to make Dmitry proud,” Victor said, the words raw, scraped from somewhere deep, and he briefly glanced toward Fave and Rachel Pearler, who were busying themselves with pulling on gloves and smoothing them over their fingers.

Maia made no such pretense and stood so close to hear that she nearly stood on Victor’s feet.

And he continued nonetheless as if the courage to speak would leave before the words could be said.

“But maybe my chance is not here. Not now. If I cannot win the title of the Black Knight, then I do not deserve you.”

Her heart jolted painfully. “Not deserve?—”

He lifted a hand, silencing her. “Listen to me. If I lose, List will see to it that I’m gone. He has sway in Parliament now. Don’t deny you know it. I’ll be gone from England before I ever have the chance to play again. If that happens, I must find another venue, another chance.”

“And if you win?” she demanded.

“Then perhaps I live. But even then, Gail—what if I fail today? What if my presence only casts a shadow over your light?”

“I don’t want List. I want love and family.

It’s you, I’ve always wanted.” Her throat closed, her hands balling at her sides.

She wanted to seize him, shake him, shout that he was wrong.

But instead she reached out—just barely—and her fingertips brushed his sleeve.

“You don’t run,” she whispered. “Not from me. Not from this round. Not from yourself.”

His eyes closed. For a long moment, he stood utterly still, as though her touch had rooted him in place.

“Gail…” His voice cracked. He opened his eyes, and the fire there nearly broke her.

“I dreamed last night that I kissed you. That I held you and cherished you as I’ve wanted to since the day you first stood across the board from me.

But if I cannot win this match, then I have no right to dream of you at all. ”

Maia squealed somewhere in the background, and Gail heard Rachel mutter something. But all that mattered now was Victor here and now.

Her breath shuddered. “You don’t get to decide that. Not alone. Chess is my life, yes. But I will not let it dictate whether I live or die—or who I love.”

Silence fell, thick with everything neither dared say. He reached as if to take her hand, stopped, then let it fall.

The creak of a boot broke the spell. Fave Pearler stood in the doorway, polite but implacable. “If you two are finished proving who is more stubborn, the carriage is waiting. Greg expects us. Round Three continues in half an hour.”

Gail stepped back, her pulse still racing. Victor inclined his head, mask of composure returning, though his eyes betrayed him.

As they walked out together, Gail’s thoughts tumbled. Victory or ruin—she could not yet see which awaited. But one thing she knew, sharp and unshakable: whatever came next, she would not walk it alone.

The chamber had been pared to essentials—two tables set like altars under the chandeliers, score ledgers waiting, clocks wound, men already pretending this would be ordinary.

It wasn’t. The table cards named what was left of the tournament in Round Three: Victor Romanov versus Baron von List on the right under the lights; Gail Tarkov versus the Baronesse Sofia von List on the left table.

The arbiter rapped once and declared, in the careful way of men who misnamed caution for fairness, that the gentlemen’s game would conclude first; only in the case of a draw or stalemate would the ladies’ result determine who faced the Black Knight.

In his house.

Order, Victor thought, filing the word away like a piece he might need later.

Justice, he knew, was a utopia.

He took his seat without flourish. Collar snug. Cuffs straight. Board first. Man second. Crowd never. Across from him, List arranged his coat with the serenity of a man for whom rooms had always behaved.

They continued where the previous day had left them, specifically Victor, without the queen and already at an enormous disadvantage.

But the next few exchanges in the middle game moved without friction, a clean route from one of his ledgers, a line he’d memorized when he was sixteen.

List may know the moves, but he didn’t understand Dmitry’s ideas hidden inside the quiet moves.

Eventually, pawns slid forward to claim light and space, and Victor was close to making a new queen.

Bishops breathed along their lines and withdrew.

Knights tasted central squares, left their imprint, then vanished.

Victor flattened the noise around him until even the cough of the onlookers became a mark on distant paper.

Gail played only about five feet away from him.

He knew where she was; he did not need to steal another look.

The position thinned into the endgame with only a few pieces left.

He guided the trades he wanted, never before the moment ripened.

Rooks left the board. The kings edged inward like generals who understood what their soldiers could not do for them.

Dark squares anchored. Opposite-colored bishops came to stay.

One outside passer waited like a coin at the bottom of clear water.

List played well—exactly as a man would who had memorized the right pages and believed the pages were the world.

Yet when List’s last rook vanished, Victor felt the map align under his hands.

A king move here to deny checks later. A bishop there to freeze two pawns by attending to neither.

Then the small act that changed everything: List chose the safer of two good routes and, in safety, conceded precision.

He set his king on the square that mattered three moves ahead and watched the air change.

The outside pawn gleamed. The bishop’s diagonal bit.

The corridor to victory opened—narrow, bright, inevitable.

But Victor knew that List was at the end of his wits.

He could not hold both fronts as they stood on the board.

If he resisted perfectly, stalemate traps could help him, but it was unlikely.

He set a fingertip to the bishop.