Page 4 of Love Is A Draw (Check Mates #2)

O n her way downstairs once Maia’s hair was properly fixed to entertain guests, Gail thought the Pearlers’ house on St. James felt like a perfectly composed chess game—every piece in its place, every line elegant, yet purposeful.

The grand staircase twisted upward like a silent promise, its polished banisters gleaming beneath the morning light.

Sage-green damask with ivory stripes gave the walls a softness, while gilded trim and matching sage velvet curtains lent the space a regal sheen.

The drawing room doors stood open, revealing upholstered chairs in delicate arrangements, ready to welcome anyone who might visit.

Yet for all its grandeur, the house always felt warm.

It was a home—open and alive with the energy of those who lived there, the bustling, content hum of its staff, where all were treated with respect.

The little girl’s footsteps thundered down the staircase like an unbridled pony, her dark hair bouncing with the force of her excitement. Gail descended quickly behind her but with the grace expected of a servant.

Maia’s high-pitched squeal pierced the quiet. “It’s Greg!” she shouted, pausing only briefly at the foot of the stairs before gleefully throwing herself into the hallway. “Greg’s here!”

Gail followed Maia’s exuberant trail, composed but alert. She didn’t allow herself excitement—not for guests like Greg Stone. Certainly not for what followed.

Greg Stone. The Black Knight. The name she’d read about in the Chessman’s Chronicles but also come to know in person—the player whose daring endgames left opponents gutted before they even saw the trap.

She’d studied his moves, imagined what her grandfather would have said of him.

Wondered, quietly, if she might one day play him—not because she sought fame, but because she longed to test her mind against his—the best player.

Rachel Pearler came from the other side of the hallway, elegant as always, though her unhurried pace carried a hint of indulgence at her daughter’s antics.

When Gail reached the entryway, Greg Stone stood tall near the open door, his black riding coat stark against the honeyed light spilling in from the street.

His broad frame was imposing, but his dark eyes softened when Maia launched forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. He steadied her instinctively, hugging her like an uncle with a beloved niece.

“Hello to you, too, Maia.” A faint smile tugged at his lips. He ruffled the girl’s hair lightly—so carefully it seemed almost deliberate not to ruin anything more than a stray strand.

Rachel glided forward gracefully, greeting Greg with a small nod as he kissed her outstretched hand, but her gaze flickered toward Gail, a silent nudge. Gail cut across the room in three quick strides, her fingers already moving to tighten the slightly undone ribbon in Maia’s hair.

“Stand still for a moment, Miss Maia,” Gail murmured as she smoothed the silk over the little girl’s braid.

Maia shifted from one leg to the other impatiently but didn’t resist.

Greg’s dark gaze lifted to meet hers. “Good morning, Gail. How do you do?”

Gail acknowledged that he’d greeted her but didn’t dare respond so as not to overstep her station. She tied the final bow, her touch precise but guarded, but didn’t let her thoughts drift—not with him watching.

“May I bring a guest inside?” Greg asked Rachel as he crossed the threshold of the Pearler household, his presence quiet but assured. His eyes briefly flicked to the doorway where someone waited.

Through the cold white light, Gail only made out the silhouette of a tall man, his figure framed by the rain beyond the doorframe, where the sun had just dipped out of sight.

The warmth of the Pearler’s hallway wrapped around her, golden and alive with light, in stark defiance against the cool evening air from the street beyond.

The butler reached to take Greg’s coat, muttering about how the heat was rushing out the open door, as though the winter itself dared to intrude on such a sanctuary at this time of the year.

Gail suppressed a chuckle for the kind old butler, James, could never imagine how cold winters were in Bassarabia, where she grew up.

Rachel met Greg’s gaze, and something unspoken passed between them. Greg inclined his head, and Rachel moved elegantly aside with a nod.

Gail caught the exchange—she always did—and marveled at its simplicity, the understanding that came without words, the unspoken welcome in their gaze. The trust they shared reminded her of how she had come to London. Trust had saved her once. It still governed every quiet move she made.

A young man emerged from the shadows, and Gail forgot to breathe.

Everything in her paused. He stood just inside the threshold, tall and soaked in cold, his presence sending a shiver through the warm air of the hall.

His gaze swept the space, missing nothing, and then—so unexpectedly—a quiet grimace as he glanced down at his shoes.

Raindrops and mud puddles from the waxed leather, a few droplets pooling in silent defeat against the polished floor.

He wore no cloak, no fur, just a wool overcoat, rich but wrong for London’s rain, its collar darkened by damp.

He looked cold but didn’t seem it, as if it took more than frost to reach him, or if it had, it hadn’t stayed.

His fingers raked through damp hair with an unthinking grace, revealing blond streaks where the snow had melted into the gold-brown waves.

And then— oh, foolish heart —he looked up.

The chandelier light caught him in full, gilding the sharp line of his cheekbone, the square set of his jaw.

His eyes… Gail couldn’t have said their color, only that they unsettled her.

They held too much quiet calculation, like someone who had learned to think through silence, not speak through it.

He didn’t pose or hesitate. He simply stood as if the world might bend toward him eventually, and he needn’t hurry to meet it. And that—that unthinking stillness, that comfort in his own skin—made something twist low in her stomach.

When he addressed Rachel, his soft, “ Dobryi den, ” Good afternoon, spilled from him like music, his voice colored by the faintest Russian lilt. “I hear you speak many languages, Mrs. Pearler.”

“I’m afraid Russian isn’t one of them.” Rachel turned to Gail, who was in charge of teaching Maia Russian.

“The pleasure is mine to make your acquaintance, and I thank you for not leaving me in the rain today.” The lingering roll of his r’s and the low, growling timbre of his chest gave his English a faint accent. The sound of it, deep and warm, tightened something in Gail’s chest.

And then his gaze found hers. He inclined his head, his expression polite, his courtesy no different to her than it had been to Rachel, yet somehow, it seemed genuine—like an acknowledgment of her presence, not just her station.

“ Dobryi den, ” Gail croaked, her voice too soft, too thin.

She couldn’t hold his gaze—for he bestowed upon her a sort of half-smile, not practiced or polite, but distracted and warm in a way that made heat rise in her throat.

A smile like that didn’t belong in this world of precise manners and controlled speech.

It felt— earnest. And entirely disarming.

Gail liked to think the Pearler household was magical, not because Maia would push her queen into places queens should not go, but because kindness reigned.

Even steps away from St. James’s Palace, where lords and ladies clung to their riches, in this home, deeds carved your shape in the world.

Just this morning, Mrs. Pearler had given her best wool gloves to a scullery maid with chapped hands—no announcement, no fuss.

Rachel led the guests down the hallway, but Gail stayed quietly behind, hands busy straightening cushions and picking up stray things Maia had cast aside—ribbons, a bonnet, small boots made for darting everywhere.

However, her eyes betrayed her, following the newcomer as Greg led him to the green drawing room.

She waited before entering, her pulse too loud in her ears. It wasn’t just an attraction—like memory. Or maybe something more dangerous.

And the worst part? She didn’t yet know whether this was familiarity or forewarning.

Victor couldn’t help thinking this home seemed magical, like the beginning of a fairy tale when a family’s life is perfect—until the plot twists, of course.

For now, the children left after dessert, and soon thereafter, the women retreated upstairs to tend to them.

Unlike at other grand homes, at the Pearlers, mothers—and even the grandmother, Eve—looked after their own children when possible.

The servants seemed to support but not replace the family’s care. Unusual.

The lingering warmth of dinner hung over Victor like a comforting quilt.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten so well—roasted meats cooked to perfection, rich gravies spilling over tender vegetables, and bread still warm enough to steam when torn open.

The laughter and hum of conversation, the soft glow of candles—everything about the Pearler family’s dining room was far removed from anything Victor had known. Too generous. And too easy to long for.

The welcome left a quiet ache in his chest, a reminder of how foreign it all was to him. And there was the matter of the night ahead. No amount of good food or warm light could erase the thoughts unfolding at the edge of his every breath—the Boardman’s Tournament.

He shifted, leaning against the mantel as Greg and Fave exchanged a few words about a story they had shared at the table.

Victor straightened. “Where’s my bag?” His flat voice cut through the bubble of their conversation.

Greg turned, brows lifted. “Bag?”

“My leather bag.” Victor kept his voice even, resting his hands lightly at his sides, but his gaze fastened on Greg, sharper than intended. “My notebooks. My chess notation. My everything. ”

A flicker passed over Greg’s features—too quick to be named, but telling. Not fear. Not yet. But the strain of calculation. “The butler brought it in during dinner,” he said after a beat. “Told him to leave it by the stairs.”

Victor strode toward the open doorway. His eyes scanned the dim corridor—then caught the familiar worn leather shape, slumped beside the balusters like a fallen soldier.

He exhaled, slow and quiet, tipping his chin in acknowledgment.

Phew! He didn’t move to retrieve it. Instead, he looked past Greg to the high windows, his jaw slackening almost imperceptibly.

Outwardly, he seemed calm, but an astute observer might notice a quick flick of his fingers against his side before going still again.

Then he saw her again.

She moved quietly, smoothing a chair cushion, lifting a ribbon from the floor—nothing extraordinary.

Perhaps eavesdropping, judging from the blush when she saw that he’d seen her.

Something about her movements stopped him—oddly composed and still, like a master player in check.

She carried herself like someone who didn’t need to be seen to know her worth.

Too graceful to be a maid. Too poised to be invisible. He didn’t look away fast enough.

“So, Victor,” Fave spoke with the ease of someone used to being liked—“Greg tells me we were at Oxford together. What was it, mathematics? I don’t remember seeing you there.”

Victor offered the barest of smiles. “Yes. Mathematics. I hid well. Better than you most of the time.”

Fave and Greg shared a look.

“I know what you’re thinking. I wasn’t so stupid as to sit in the lectures when students were there. I copied what was on the boards before I had to clean them off. That was enough most of the time.”

“You understood the higher-level mathematics lectures and taught yourself based on what was written on the blackboards after classes?” Greg’s eyebrows lifted sharply. “I’m impressed.”

Victor shrugged. “And I was impressed when your best moves were carved into the Clarendon Building. I memorized them.”

“Why?” Greg asked, as if this hadn’t been the first question that came to his mind but the only one he’d uttered.

“Analysis. Compute alternatives.”

Fave tilted his head, intrigued. “So, what were your lodgings if not student quarters?”

Victor hesitated, then lowered his voice a notch. “For a time, St?Edmund Hall. But it wasn’t official. It couldn’t be.”

Greg leaned in. “Because…?”

Victor straightened, his expression unreadable. “Jews weren’t allowed to attend Oxford. Not officially. Not then. So I worked as a janitor. Memorized the lectures I cleaned up after. Slept wherever I wouldn’t be noticed.”

A beat of silence followed.

“You weren’t enrolled?”

Victor gave a short laugh, bitter and dry. “I wasn’t allowed to be. Not with my name. Not with my blood.”

The words settled into the space between them like iron weights.

Fave stared at him, the earlier lightness gone. “You studied mathematics at Oxford—unregistered, undocumented, alone?”

Victor nodded once. “I had no choice. I wanted to learn. So I made myself invisible.”

A quiet beat passed. Then he added, almost absently, “There was a chalkboard in the back of the lecture halls. I’d wait until the students were gone. Then I’d step out of the shadows and start learning.”

Fave sat back, stunned. “That’s…”

“Illegal? Yes.” Victor gave a tight smile. “But if I’d waited for permission, I’d still be waiting.”

The silence that followed clung heavier to him than mud on his boots.

Greg folded his arms. “Victor, why do you want it? My title?”

Victor didn’t need clarification. Greg was blunt enough not to veil his questions under layers of ambiguity.

He leaned against the mantel again, jaw tight. “Because it’s the only thing I can earn. No birthright. No crest. But this title,”—he gestured to Greg—“if I win it, it’s mine. No one can say I didn’t deserve it.”

Greg nodded slowly, understanding now. Even Fave’s earlier polish had dulled under the weight of Victor’s admission.

“You think that’s enough? A title?” Fave asked.

Victor turned to him. “It has to be.”

Fave chuckled softly, but it lacked humor. “There’s more. Life. Love. Friendship. A purpose outside of… well, chess.”

Victor held firm. “Chess is life. It’s rules and patterns and fairness—things the world doesn’t offer unless you take them for yourself.”

Even Fave paused at the conviction in his tone.

Greg tilted his head. “Then you shall play me.”