Page 4 of Love Is A Draw
Maia shifted in her seat, clearly mulling this over in her head. “But if I do your gambit thing, the other pawn takes mine, right?” She twisted around before Gail gently tapped her on the shoulder to remind her to sit straight.
“Ah, well, that depends. If you accept the gambit and take their pawn in return, then yes,” Gail explained, threading her fingers through Maia’s braid to smooth the strands. “But if you decline, you’d overlook their gambit and move somewhere else. Strategy, Miss Maia. It’s all in the strategy as you calculate the next two or three moves.”
You didn’t teach a six-year-old to see eight moves ahead. That came later—when her legs reached the floor and her heart learned patience.
Maia hummed thoughtfully, her legs swinging under the stool. “I want to attack your pieces, so I’ll say yes then. What do I do next?”
A slow smile tugged at Gail’s lips. This—this simple moment of guiding and shaping a young mind—felt like its own kind of victory. “Then your bishop moves out early, light squares, three spaces forward. It’s your first big piece—you’ll see why soon.” Her fingers flew to tie the silk ribbon into a firm bow at the end of Maia’s completed braid.
“You’re so good at this game.” Maia turned her round face up toward Gail, her brown eyes shining with admiration. “Wereyou always this good, or did you have to practice, like me? Mama says everything takes practice.”
Gail laughed softly, patting Maia gently on her shoulder and brushing a stray wisp of hair back into place. “A lifetime of practice, Miss Maia. That’s all there is to it.” And she was still practicing every day. “Now, all finished.” Gail tied the last ribbon in Maia’s lovely, long braid. “Shall we play a proper game downstairs once your mother’s ready?”
Maia craned her neck, her eyes wide. “Did you use to wear ribbons when you were little?”
Gail’s hands stilled. “No. My mother passed away when I was young. My father not long after. I was raised by my grandfather. He didn’t care much for ribbons.”
“What did he care about?”
Gail smiled faintly. “Chess.”
Maia nodded with the solemnity only a child could summon. “Then one day, someone will love you for chess. Not for your beauty.”
Gail blinked. The ribbon trembled slightly in her hand. “Why would you say that?”
Maia turned, her expression bright with the certainty of someone who still believed the world could be fair. “Because Mama says I must learn chess and languages, because beauty alone doesn’t impress good men. The worthy ones. So I think… it should be true for you, too.”
Gail gave a half-laugh, half-breath. “Have you been reading poetry behind my back?”
“No.” Maia wrinkled her nose at the thought. “Poetry is all about ballads and kissing.” She shivered as if disgusted. “Have you ever been in love?”
Gail tilted her head. “No. Not properly.”
But she had been in love, once. Not with a face, but with a voice. With a presence. With the boy who came to their smallparlor at night and stayed for hours as her grandfather tested him again and again. Gail was never allowed near—not then. Her grandfather had kept her behind the door, hidden in a house too strict for mingling with boys. But the sound of their games carried through the walls and up the stairs. She heard the boy’s breath when he hesitated, the scrape of wood on board when he dared something bold. She had admired how he never quit, how he turned impossible positions into something beautiful. That boy—his tenacity, his mind—was her first love. She never even met him.
And somehow, it never mattered.
Maia hopped off the stool with surprising agility, her little legs moving so quickly they seemed to skip over the stairs as she rushed to the door. “Wait till Greg sees me do the Queen’s Magic!”
“Gambit, Miss Maia,” Gail called after her, smiling despite herself. The girl’s enthusiasm echoed through the hall, and in her absence, the room settled back into its subdued, sunlit atmosphere.
Slow. Here, the silence felt heavier than it had a moment earlier.
Gail lingered, hands resting against the edge of the vanity before moving with a controlled grace she’d perfected through years of care and service. Though her fingers busied themselves with pins and ribbons, Gail’s thoughts had already moved to the chessboard waiting downstairs.
She could almost feel the pieces’ polished edges beneath her fingertips, remembered so vividly from her childhood afternoons spent with Grandfather. His deep, steady tone echoed faintly in her mind, a constant reassurance as he showed her the Queen’s Gambit—accepted on one board, declined on the other.
“That’s the lesson.” He’d gesture to both boards with a glimmer of pride in his eye. “True mastery isn’t just how you play your move, Avigail. It’s knowing how to respond when others make theirs. Consider the position closely, see how each path shifts the game,Maidale.”
Maidale.Sweet girl. His word for her in Yiddish.
Every time someone at the Pearlers used that endearment for Maia, something inside Gail’s chest cut her breathing short. She was just the servant here. NoMaidale.No, nothing—because she chose to keep her head low. Mrs. Rachel Pearler’s parents had graciously arranged for Gail to come to London for safety.
She was free, legally, but not where it counted. Not in the parlor. Not at the table. Not beside the men who won chess matches in silence.
Even now, the memory of her grandfather shaped her sharp focus. She could see the soft scuffs on his beloved chess set, hear the clink of pawns hitting the table as he guided her from one scenario to the next. Those lessons had steeled her gaze and sharpened her mind, teaching her to spot the slightest shift in strategy. She knew how an opening would unfold the way a seasoned fisherman knew where the ripples would spread if he tossed a stone into still water.
And as she thought of Maia at the chessboard, she knew precisely why she guided the girl’s hand if Maia asked—just as her grandfather once guided hers. It wasn’t idle curiosity or the passing whim of a servant surprising herself with cleverness. Each move, each adjustment Maia made, mattered to Gail in a way few would understand. Because if a girl could learn the game, she might understand the world. And Gail had accomplished both in silence.
