Chapter 20
The discussion unfolded like a chess game, each sentence a move, each reply a counter. Sofia baited Greg and all but laid out the trousseau that Hermy had ordered from Madame Giselle. She played on Greg’s weak spot, his heart. Or perhaps she’d be his weak spot, a distraction from achieving his goal of mating an opponent? Was she standing in the way of Greg’s victory?
Greg played queen on c5.
Oh no. His queen was protected by both knights but if he sacrificed his knights for the queen, Hermy saw no way to a quick mate.
List capitalized on Greg’s weakness and captured one of the black knights. The only strong moves Greg could make were with his black knight and black queen.
Sofia walked to a cabinet and turned the key in the oak door. It screeched.
“Schatz, what are you doing?” List asked without turning away from the chessboard. He called her his treasure. Hermy shuddered.
Sofia filled the room much like the sight of a lone, proud foxglove dominating a field, its striking blooms demanding admiration even from a cautious distance. Yet, for all its beauty, her home, like the poisonous but pretty foxglove, offered no true comfort or sanctuary.
“Here it is.” Sofia stood on her toes, nimble despite her pregnancy, and pulled down another chessboard. “I found it.” She took the chess set and a wooden box to the side table. “I will teach you,” she told Hermy. “I want to have fun this evening, too. Shall we make it interesting?”
Hermy didn’t return Greg’s gaze and moved to the settee with Sofia. She sat primly as her role demanded, among her Jewish friends’ lethal enemy, chaperoned by a pregnant Russian spy who wanted to teach her chess. If the stakes were not so high, Hermy would have laughed.
“If you win, I will pay for the trousseau,” Sofia offered, setting up the pieces. She took black, leaving Hermy with white.
“But I don’t know what you want me to do,” Hermy said.
They were no longer mere pawns in society’s games but players in their own right, challenging the status quo with every word.
“Have some fun while the gentlemen are concentrating on their game, shall we?” Sofia spoke with the toxic sweetness.
“Alright.” Hermy was itching to mate Sofia anyway.
“This is how you start.” Sofia moved a white pawn for Hermy, the f-pawn, the worst one to move before castling. Hermy guessed her hostess wasn’t testing whether she knew how to play chess, but she assumed Hermy had no idea and was easy prey. “Then you move the bishops only in the diagonals. This bishop can only move on the white squares, this only on the black.”
Hermy nodded, as if Sofia’s lesson were new information to her.
“The knights jump in L-shape, like so. And the queen can move in straight lines or diagonals until she reaches a square that’s occupied.”
“So she captures the piece on it,” Hermy said.
“Exactly.” Sofia looked pleased. “Now, let’s play.” She put the white pieces back where they belonged. At least she set the white queen on the right square. Amateurs often confused the correct positions.
Time flew by and Hermy heard the faint clink every time Greg and List made their moves. Ever so often, she cast a look at their board, but it was mostly blocked by Greg’s wide shoulders.
Before her, Sofia had developed her major pieces and taken the center, thus commanding the highest-traffic area of the chessboard. She looked rather smug every time Hermy hung a pawn, not recognizing Hermy was baiting her into the exact positions she wanted.
“Lady von List, I must say I rather enjoy chess.” Hermy wasn’t lying.
“You’ll understand soon enough.”
“What do you get if you win?” Hermy asked. “You said, I’d get the trousseau.”
Sofia folded her fingers over her belly. “I get the wedding.”
Hermy tried to suppress the urge to throttle her. “In which way?”
“Your guest list. I will dictate who’s invited.”
Greg turned and gave Hermy a warning look.
She didn’t need reminding that she was in a battle. After five years of being locked away, she’d come to London and finally had a chance to marry Greg to which a Russian-spy-turned-Prussian-baroness wanted to invite the entire Ton.
Greg inhaled and made another move. Hermy saw he’d captured one of List’s bishops, costing List the two-bishop advantage. Well done!
“What did you have in mind?” Hermy asked as she hung another pawn, leading Sofia to double her pawns twice to form three pawn islands. She had made it too easy, leaving her queen unguarded.
Before Hermy took the piece, she recalled that Sofia had explained how the queen captures, not how the queen is captured.
She hung her queen.
“I’m afraid we have not discussed the venue for the wedding yet,” Hermy admitted. Again, the truth.
“It does not matter. If you lose, I shall take care of the guest list.” Sophia’s intentions, veiled beneath layers of generous hospitality, were as potent and unpredictable as the foxglove”s lethal nectar. To those ensnared by her allure, she offered the promise of ecstasy, only to lead them, unwittingly, to their demise.
“I appreciate your kind support,” Hermy said.
Take my queen, go on!
Sofia did, pursing her lips to suppress her glee. “Nine points, I’m afraid.”
“The queen is worth that much?” Hermy asked.
“Yes.”
“And how many points is the king worth?” Hermy asked as she exchanged her bishop in a sham move, luring Sofia away from the rooks, which were worth more than the bishop.
Double attack on the defenses.
Sofia narrowed her eyes.
One more move and Hermy would incapacitate all the pieces defending the squares around the king and cut off the escape squares. Mate in two was inevitable.
“Check!” List said from his position behind Sofia.
“Did you win?” She rose and walked to her husband’s side, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Mate.” Greg put his black knight before the king, blocking every square around the white king.
List turned as pale as his pieces and seethed. “Well played, Stone.”
“Thank you.” Greg reached out to shake his hand, but List didn’t lift his.
When Greg withdrew his hand, he looked at Hermy and said, “Let’s go. Now.”
“Well, Lady von List. Thank you for the chess lesson,” Hermy brushed imaginary wrinkles off her dress. “It is getting rather late.”
“Wait!” Sofia walked back to the board and eyed it from Hermy’s perspective. “You are eleven points behind, yet not all is lost for you.”
“I beg your pardon?” Hermy turned to Greg, hoping he would prevent them from finishing the game. Hermy could have mated Sophia on move four, seven, twelve, nineteen, and on the past three.
“Stone, you won this round. I’m a man of my word, so I will not interfere with your presentation of the bill on Monday morning.”
“Thank you,” Greg said. “And what have you wagered, darling?” The corners of his mouth turned down, lips pressed into a thin line as his eyebrows knitted together, masking his mischief and calculating wit with the tone of a besotted fiancé. His eyes found Hermy’s pieces.
“The wedding guest list,” Hermy said.
The charged air in the study reached a crescendo as it became clear that Greg and Hermy had not just held their ground—they had advanced it. Now the question was whether they should take the stab or forfeit the round.
“One more turn.” Sophia sat with little grace as if her belly was in her way.
She hung her bishop, but Hermy was one move away from a mate. The next would be a check.
“So if you lose, d-a-r-l-i-n-g, we don’t need to send invitations?” Greg asked.
“Ahem, I said I’d make the list.” Sofia looked up from her spot on the low soft armchair. It enveloped her like pudding as if unwilling to spit her back out.
“It is rather kind of you, Lady von List, because it would be difficult to ensure all the people we ought to include can be notified in time,” Hermy avoided Greg’s stare lest she burst out in laughter.
Hermy hung her knight.
Sofia took it.
One move to check mate.
Sofia hung her rook.
If Hermy mated Sofia, she’d blow her cover as the naive aristocrat, but if she didn’t, Sofia would most likely invite all the Ton and everyone who shunned Hermy would be at her wedding to see the fallen girl marry the outlier in parliament.
In the end, it was not a physical checkmate that declared their victory but the undeniable shift in the atmosphere, a subtle acknowledgment of their resilience and courage. Hermy’s line of attack was on the chess board, but London’s aristocracy as a whole.
“Check mate!” Sofia rose and then bowed as if she’d executed a flawless pirouette.