Chapter Seven #3
“Mayhap they are, my lady,” he said. “But you have been showing me great disrespect since the moment I arrived. You let your ladies treat me with the same disrespect, yet you expect me to show you honor and obedience. How can I when you have set the precedence on how we are to treat one another?”
She turned to look at him then. “Is that what I have done?”
“It is.”
Isabel pondered that. Her mood swing, so prevalent since they entered the solar, seemed to be waning at the moment.
She was cooling. Douglas wasn’t entirely sure this was going to end pleasantly because she didn’t seem the type able or willing to surrender her pride, so he was on his guard as she began to pace again.
She seemed lost in thought more than agitation or anger.
Still, he was on his guard.
“Then we should settle this once and for all,” she said. “I feel as if my request for assistance has opened the door to an invasion of another kind. An army of men is determined to keep my castle from Tatworth, but they don’t seem to realize they have taken it over just as Tatworth intended to do.”
“I am sorry you feel that way, my lady.”
“If I were to ask you to leave now, would you?”
“The truth is that I cannot until I have clear instructions from my brother.”
“Then I am, indeed, invaded. You were simply less violent about it.”
She had a point. Sort of. Douglas lifted his big shoulders. “Then how do you propose we settle this?”
Isabel looked at him, pondering the answer to that question. She was quite calculated when she wanted to be, and she wanted these men out. She knew they were men of honor and intended to use that to her advantage.
We should settle this once and for all.
She intended to.
“I will make a bargain with you, Sir Douglas,” she said. “Are you willing to listen?”
He sighed. “My lady, I cannot—”
“If you do not bargain with me, then I will be forced to send word to the king of your unlawful occupation of my castle,” she said, interrupting him.
“I do not think he will be pleased, and even if he allows you to remain, it will cause… problems. Especially when I tell him that you have been coercing my young woman into romantic situations.”
She probably would. Douglas was beginning to curse Curtis for forcing him to remain at a post where he was so desperately unwanted.
He could feel his irritation rise again but didn’t give in to it.
He was sick of arguing with her. Perhaps if he agreed to her bargain, she would shut the hell up and accept what had been dealt.
“It would be unkind, and untrue, to do so,” he said in a low voice. “But if you wish to settle this once and for all, what is your proposal?”
Isabel’s gaze lingered on him for a moment before trailing away, across the solar, until it came to rest on a table with a game board upon it. She indicated it.
“My father was a man with a sharp mind,” she said, moving over to the table against the wall.
When she came upon it, she reached down to pick up one of the many pieces on the game board.
“He was a man of tactics, of great thought, and of victory. He taught me those aspects of shatranj, a game he enjoyed greatly. Do you know how to play?”
Douglas nodded. “It is called chess,” he said. “My father learned to play it when he was on Richard’s crusade in the Levant and has taught it to his sons. We all learned to play.”
“Do you consider yourself an expert?”
“I am passable.”
She looked at him. “Then let us play this game to settle this situation,” she said.
“If you win, I will no longer question your presence here. You can stay for as long as you wish and do whatever you deem necessary whilst you are here. But if I win, you will go. No questions, no argument. You will take your men and go.”
Douglas had a feeling that was where she was going with this. He shook his head.
“I cannot leave without my brother’s order,” he said. “I have told you that.”
“And I do not care about that,” she said. “You will leave on my order and you will tell your brother that you did. This is my castle, Sir Douglas. If I do not want you here, then you will go.”
He could hear that bristling determination in her voice again.
It was clever—she couldn’t physically make him leave and didn’t have the manpower to force him out, so she was going to rely on a battle of wits.
It was perfect, in truth, because he’d lied to her.
He wasn’t merely passable in his skill with this game.
He was an expert.
Perhaps if he agreed, she’d settle down… once and for all.
“Very well,” he said. “If you wish to take your chances with this, then I am willing.”
“Good,” she said, now happy. Or, at the very least, eager. She rushed to the solar door and yanked it open, calling for a servant, whom she sent for wine. As the servant fled, she returned her focus to Douglas. “Please sit. I am eager to commence.”
I would not be if I were you, he thought, but he dutifully took a seat at the table.
The set was quite beautiful, with an elaborate board made from opalescent stone and pieces on one side carved from the same stone.
The other side had pieces carved from darker stone. It was an elegant game, a man’s game.
But Isabel wanted to dominate it.
Douglas would have liked to have toyed with her, but he honestly didn’t have the patience.
Isabel had been difficult from the start, and if she wanted to settle this, as she said, then he was going to settle it on his terms. He’d played chess enough with his father and brothers to know that he was one of the better players in his family, and he doubted Isabel could compete.
Chess was a game of strategy—and since he was excellent with military strategy, and Isabel wasn’t, he was confident he could end this quickly.
He was going to try.
“When was the last time you played, Sir Douglas?”
Isabel was positioning her pieces to make sure they were in the correct spots.
Douglas was doing the same thing, picking them up one by one, blowing off the dust, and then setting them down again.
They were both pretending that this was a casual affair when the truth couldn’t have been more different.
The stakes were high.
“I was just trying to remember,” he said, setting his last piece down. “Probably around Epiphany. My mother has an enormous feast that lasts about three days and all we do is eat and play.”
“Sounds charming,” Isabel said, sounding like she really meant it. “I have no family any longer. I have often regretted that.”
“Did you play this game with your father?”
She nodded. “Often,” she said. “He was very good.”
“Did you win?”
She glanced at him. “As much as he would allow.”
Douglas had his eyes on the board, already planning out his strategy. “I will not allow you to win if I can help it,” he said. “I hope you are not expecting that.”
“I am not, Sir Douglas. But I will not allow you to win, either, if I can help it.”
“Then the rules are established.”
“They are.”
“Ladies may go first.”
Isabel settled down, her gaze fixed on the board. The servant came and brought drink, handing Douglas a cup and extending one to Isabel, but she brushed the man off. He set her cup down and departed the solar, shutting the door behind him, but she never gave notice. She was focused on the board.
Finally, she moved.
Her first move was unspectacular. A pawn moved one space forward. Douglas was looking for a particular move that would open up her king, because he could end the game in about two moves if she were foolish enough to do that, but the pawn she moved was at the very end.
He moved the same piece on his side.
With the next move, Isabel moved to the other side and moved the third pawn in, which was exactly what Douglas wanted her to do. She moved it out two spaces.
He moved a pawn on the opposite side out two spaces as well, making way for the queen to move on a diagonal.
But Isabel wasn’t watching that. She was moving to the front line of his pawns to clear them away so she could get to his king, but Douglas was already ahead of her.
With his move, and hers, he was able to move his queen on a diagonal so that the spaces between his queen and Isabel’s king were wide open.
When she realized this, her eyes widened because there was nowhere for her to go.
Her king was fixed and she couldn’t move any of her other pieces in to block Douglas’ assault.
Shocked, she looked up at him to see a knowing smile on his lips.
“Your king is in danger, my lady,” he said quietly. “I believe he belongs to me.”
As her mouth fell open in shock, Douglas moved his queen in to take Isabel’s king.
In less than four moves, he’d ended the game, and Isabel was nearly beside herself to see what he’d done.
She had been focused on removing obstacles to his king while he had changed his strategy with every move she made.
Now he had her.
He’d won.
“That is not possible,” she finally said, looking at the board. “Was I truly that stupid?”
Douglas let his grin break through. “Nay,” he said. “You were simply focused on my king. I was focused on you.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “And I fell like a foolish knave,” she said. “I cannot believe it.”
“I was fortunate.”
Isabel couldn’t argue with him. “You were sharp,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. “Well done, Sir Douglas. It seems that I am to keep my mouth shut and let you do as you please.”
She was folding, just like that. Somehow, that didn’t make his victory very sweet.
Had she fought him on it, Douglas would have taken the victory and gloated over it, but she wasn’t fighting him.
She was conceding, with honor. Truthfully, up until this moment, he wasn’t sure she had any, but she did. She understood.
A seed of respect sprouted.
“Since this was over so quickly, I would not be opposed to playing a few more games,” he said. “Mayhap the best out of five?”
That seemed to surprise her. “But you have already won.”
He shrugged. “Mayhap I took advantage of a momentary lapse in your strategy,” he said, holding up his queen. “As a knight of honor, I would be agreeable to a few more games to settle this once and for all.”
Isabel heard her words and a weak smile spread across her lips. “You do not have to.”
He flashed her a smile, putting his queen back down again. “I know,” he said. “But I want to be fair.”
It was the first time they’d actually had a pleasant moment between them. He was smiling and so was she. Perspectives were shifting just a bit. An understanding was starting to happen. Perhaps Douglas wasn’t as bad as Isabel had originally thought.
And perhaps Isabel wasn’t such a shrew after all.
“Very well, Douglas,” she said, addressing him informally because the situation called for it. “Let us see if I cannot do to you what you did to me. Five games, you say?”
“Whoever wins three first is the winner.”
“Then be on your guard, knight. I am coming for you.”
That made him laugh. Settling back with his wine, he actually enjoyed the rest of the games. In the end, he beat her soundly, three games to two, but the truth was that Isabel didn’t much care. She understood a little bit more about Douglas de Lohr now.
And she wasn’t upset about it in the least.