Page 16 of Love Is A Draw
He saw that?He understands me.That was more puzzling than any chess position in the books.
She couldn’t breathe. Or she could—but not normally. Not with the way he was looking at her.
Without preamble, he reached for her hand. His fingers barely grazed her glove before he raised it to his lips. The touch was light. But the warmth of it lingered.
“Good evening, Gail,” he said against the soft leather. “I hope it’s only the first of many games of yours I’ll have the honor to witness.”
And just like that, he was gone, retreating into the hush beyond the staircase like a move already played.
Gail leaned back against the wall, breathless. One hand on her chest. The other still tingling. She’d played for Maia. For the game. For something larger than herself. But now—just for a moment—she let herself wonder what it might mean to play… for him.
CHAPTER 7
When Gail came to the nursery for a friendly chess game with Maia, Rachel handed her the printed notice: the declaration and rules of the official tournament.
“It’s begun,” she’d said with quiet weight. “It’s truly happening, Gail.”
Maia clapped and gave a heart-melting smile that only childish admiration could muster. “Oh, Gail, you’re truly competing! This is so exciting.”
Gail nodded, unsure what to think. She was a competitor—no longer only Maia’s teacher, no longer hidden behind the safety of the schoolroom walls where the Pearlers’ politics had seemed far away. She’d emerged into the world as a chess player, not just a governess. Her grandfather’s student might have sat on the other side of the wall most afternoons, but Grandfather had always trained her in the evenings. Every variation, every counterattack—he’d made her calculate it for herself. Back then, the game had been hers alone. A quiet pursuit. A secret sanctuary. Now, it was public. And dangerous.
Rachel studied her with a gaze Gail couldn’t shake.
“Maia,Maidale, please take this to your father downstairs while I speak to Gail,” Rachel said.
Once Maia was out of earshot, Rachel’s voice dropped lower. “List means to use this tournament for more than reputation. He wants to make an example of us. Of you.”
Gail’s throat went dry. “Because I’m a governess?”
Rachel shook her head slowly. “Because you’re a Jewish woman who won’t keep to the side of the board where he thinks you belong.”
That chilled Gail more than the wind ever could.
Rachel’s gaze sharpened. “Years ago, in Munich, in front of his cousin, King Max, a Jewish player humiliated him. Took a title from under his nose at a state-sanctioned match.” Rachel inhaled and then sucked her cheeks in. “The player was later found dead in a pond. Drowned. I’ve met his widow and their three children. List never forgot him, though. He wrote articles afterward—coded at first, full of ‘purity of play’ and ‘national character,’ but it was all the same. Prejudice polished into strategy.”
Gail stared at the chessboard on Maia’s little nursery table, fingers clenched around the queen. The weight of it pressed cold against her palm. So this wasn’t just a vendetta. It was history repeating.
“He’s not just trying to win,” Rachel continued, her voice taut with fury barely held in check. “He’s trying to silence us. And if he gets what he wants—if he can humiliate you, shame you off the board—it won’t stop with you. This isn’t just a game of wits but of politics. If List or his wife walks away with Greg’s title, it rewrites everything. Who belongs. Who gets a seat? Who matters.”
Gail’s eyes lifted sharply.
Rachel’s gaze didn’t soften. “The Pearlers have risked everything for this idea of earning our place in society. Andyou will defend us. If List wins, it threatens our business, our reputation, our very place in the world. He wants to unravel us. Quietly. Elegantly. With a check to the king.”
A breath caught in Gail’s throat. “And if I lose?”
“Then we all lose—Victor, Greg, the Pearlers. The entire League of people who think hard work and being good earn your safety in society. Everything we’ve built could be in jeopardy.”
Her tone dropped to a near whisper. “You’re not alone in this, Gail. We stand with you. Victor stands beside you because it would be all right for either of you to win, or for Greg to keep the title. But if anyone takes Greg’s title, it should be one of us. Not him. Never him.”
The words settled like a vow. The battle on the board wasn’t just Gail’s.
“Which is why today, I’ll teach Maia. Take your rest and breathe. Because tomorrow, you go to war for us.” Rachel handed Gail a ticket to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
Rest. The word clung to her like someone else’s perfume—foreign and faintly impossible.
But Gail obeyed. She stepped out that morning with the ticket tucked into her reticule, determined to forget the weight of expectations for one golden afternoon.
Determined, but not successful.
