Page 57 of Love Is A Draw
He straightened before the threat could stain the air where those uniforms might pretend to hear.
A gloved hand found his sleeve. Bracelets chimed once, then stilled. Sofia’s chin was lifted just enough to catch the light. “That’s enough,” she said, tone bright as cut glass. “Allow me, darling. You’ve done your part. This—I’ll finish.”
She turned toward the arbiters with a modest incline that somehow suggested command. “I will finish my match now,” she said. “And I will ensure that no Jew lays claim to the Black Knight.”
The sentence fell like a handkerchief—soft, and suffocating. The officers didn’t blink. A few gentlemen discovered their boots; a few did not. Above, a little hush traveled along the rail like a chill.
Greg and Fave were mumbling in the hall out of Victor’s earshot.
Victor kept his hands flat on the table. One move ago he had held a road to mate as clean as morning; now the position sat trapped in amber by cowardice perfumed as civility.
Greg’s black coat cut the aisle between the officers. The earl’s attention moved to the clock, the frozen pieces, the faces that had decided to look away. “On what ground have you interrupted the game?” he asked, voice low, the kind of low that carried.
“Order,” the arbiter tried.
“Order without fairness or rules is not order.” Greg’s glance slid over the board, and Victor watched him see—really see—the net that had been about to close. “Resume play.”
Victor remained seated, looking at the pieces. Two moves to check mate.
But List remained standing.
The officer with the river-dark boots stepped from the rear. “Mr. Romanov, we require your presence at the port offices—questions concerning foreign notation and ledgers potentially containing?—”
“Chess,” Greg said. “We discussed that yesterday.”
The officer swallowed; politeness rearranged his jaw. “You’ll have the opportunity to state as much, sir. We require Mr. Romanov’s presence now.”
Victor rose. He did not wait to be asked. He gave no man the theater they craved.
To his right, a ribbon of green shifted—a single, small change that moved through him like air after a too-long dive. He didn’t search for her face; he didn’t need to. He knew Gail would watch without blinking. And she’d have Rachel, Fave, Lady Hermy and even Greg. She wasn’t alone among the few good people there. They knew the difference between loss and theft.
The tournament was being stolen from him.
He let his gaze fall once more to the board: king composed on the right square, bishop posted like a sentinel, the outside pawn ready to run. Dmitry’s teaching braided through it—patience without passivity, pressure without cruelty, clarity without apology.
List’s mouth tightened by a hair’s breadth, disappointed not to be offered chains. Good. Let him be deprived of something.
As the officers arranged themselves—not touching, not daring—Sofia swept past with her husband in tow, already measuring the path to the gallery. “Go on, my dear,” she said, as if inviting him to music. “I’ll take it from here.”
A scrape of fabric drew Victor’s eyes left—Gail sitting across from the baroness. She was pale, her hands braced against the edge of the board exactly as her grandfather once had, fingers splayed as though to anchor herself against panic. The sight pierced him. Her pupils widened when he gave the smallest nod, and in that instant he saw the shift—fear giving way to steadiness, the courage of a master. Dmitry’s granddaughter. Aforce in her own right. He was proud of her, more than words would ever reach.
He shook his head once, a silent vow:You are not the best.Relief flickered across her face, brief but blazing, enough to make him hold on to the thought as tightly as if it were a lifeline.
He turned from the table. The corridor beyond the doors breathed colder air, clean of perfume, sharp against lungs still thick with the press of smoke and judgment.
Greg matched his stride for three steps, his voice pitched for no one else. “They will not keep you.”
Victor inclined his head. “See that she plays.”
“Nothing will stop her.”
They reached the threshold. He could have looked up then, taken that last slice of her face and carried it like contraband in his heart. He didn’t.
The officers eased ahead to open the doors. Outside, the city moved—carts, hooves, a bell that might have been church or simply a clock that believed in the hour. Life refused to adjourn.
He walked to the edge of the room with the same measure he used for endgames: even, exact.
At the threshold of the chamber, one officer gestured toward the front door with two fingers—a courtesy in shape only. Victor paused long enough to set his breath where it belonged and said, for the room he had just left and the woman who still stood within it, “Then let the record show—the game ended by interruption, not defeat.”
