Chapter 8 Conservatory Chess
Conservatory Chess
By morning, the fire is gone and the Blue Room is a tomb. I wake to thoughts of Lane. The way he kissed me, filled with longing, fire, power. But a safety I’d never known.
My mind flashes to Larkin’s kiss. Entirely different. I don’t know why I’ve kissed two men in the past two days. I haven’t kissed anyone in over a year. And here I was kissing every man in the vicinity.
What is wrong with me? I question if it’s the house. Could it be taking over my mind like I was beginning to suspect? Or are these men somehow impossible to resist?
I don’t think it matters what the reason is. Something tells me I’m just a pawn here, and it’s the men playing chess. Or the house itself.
I’m still wearing yesterday’s sweater, and it is stiffer than when I slept, sweat and smoke and the ghosts of long-dead trees cling to every fiber.
My hands ache from the cold, and I flex them open and closed until feeling returns in a flash of pins and needles.
When I stand, I see someone has slipped a note under my door. I find it, folded and damp from the draft, just inside where my boots are lined up like soldiers on parade.
Miss Vale,
Chess at eleven in the conservatory. Dress accordingly. —LH
I rub my thumb across the paper, smearing the letters with a faint bloom of ink. Below the message is a perfect hand-drawn diagram of a chess opening. Ruy Lopez, Morphy Defense. White to move.
I told him I didn’t play, which was a lie. But he didn’t seem to believe it or didn’t seem to care. I stare at the note longer than necessary, wondering if Larkin ever played fair in anything.
The halls are empty when I descend to the main floor, each step echoing in the hush that always follows a storm.
Outside, the world is encased in a living sarcophagus of ice.
The snow has stopped, but the wind is working in new ways, flaying the trees to their bones and rattling the gutters until they scream.
I’m hungry, but the thought of food makes my stomach contract.
Instead, I follow the path to the conservatory, through a series of rooms that are colder and emptier than I remember.
The only sign of habitation is a line of footprints, perfectly preserved in the velvet carpet, each one crisp and solitary, leading the way forward.
The door to the conservatory is a set of double glass panels, clouded with condensation and rimed at the edges with white. I push them open and step inside.
It is another world.
The room is vast, a rectangle of flagstone and glass, roofed entirely in panes now caked with sleet. Every surface is cold to the touch, but the hearth at the far end—twice the size of the Blue Room’s—is alive, a single basket of coals radiating a fierce, localized heat.
The air smells of green things, even in this season. Someone has clustered dormant roses and violets around the perimeter, their leaves gray and dusted with hoarfrost. Lane, I assume. My heart does a little flip at the thought of him.
Larkin sits at a round table near the fire, hands folded, back lit in silhouette by the orange flame.
He is dressed not for the weather, but for performance: crisp shirt, black vest, no tie.
The only concession to the cold is the woolen scarf draped over his shoulder, the same improbable green as his eyes.
He does not look up until I am two steps away from the table. Then he rises—not as a greeting, but as a signal that the game is already in progress.
“Miss Vale,” he says, with a slight bow.
“Mr. Hughes,” I reply, and immediately regret the attempt at mockery.
He gestures at the seat opposite. “You’re early,” he says, “but so am I.”
The table is set for two. Between us is the chessboard, inlaid with alternating squares of pale bone and blackened wood, the pieces carved in some antique, almost baroque style.
Each pawn wears a different crown; the bishops wield tiny, bejeweled croziers.
The set is beautiful, and I cannot help but admire the detail, the polish, the way the firelight licks the edges of every curve.
Larkin sits. His posture is textbook. Spine straight, elbows close, hands resting lightly at either side of the board. I take my seat, pulling my sleeves over my wrists for warmth, and study the opening. He has set it up exactly as in the diagram, White to move, my queen’s pawn already advanced.
I glance up at him. His eyes are fixed on the board, but I sense he is tracking every move, every twitch of my hand, every inhalation. We sit in silence, the world outside reduced to a muffled riot of sleet and wind.
I reach for my bishop, move it out to c4, and let my hand linger on the polished bone. The surface is so smooth it almost slips from my grip.
Larkin responds instantly, knight to f6. He doesn’t touch the board with both hands at once. Every move is one-handed, elegant, a flick of the wrist or a subtle twist. There is a choreography to it, as if he is dancing with the pieces, or perhaps with me.
“So,” he says, still watching the board. “How did you sleep?”
I slide my bishop back, then advance a pawn, hedging. “Like a rock,” I say. “Or a fossil.”
He smiles. “That’s the right attitude.”
We play in near silence for a dozen moves. The storm outside intensifies, the sound of sleet against glass mounting in waves, then fading, then surging again. The fire pops once, sending a single ember spiraling up the flue.
I notice, after a few rounds, that Larkin never looks at me directly. He watches my hands, my reflection in the glass, but not my face. I wonder if he’s afraid of what he’ll see there.
The room grows warmer, or maybe I have simply adjusted.
The plants along the wall sweat into the air, filling the conservatory with a ghostly memory of spring.
The chessboard glows in the firelight, the white pieces blaze with an inner life, while the black absorb all color, drinking it down to nothing.
I realize I am losing.
Larkin has boxed in my queen, forcing her to skirt the edge of the board while his rooks marshal the center. He sacrifices a knight—deliberately, with an almost sexual flourish—and captures two pawns in the process. He takes the piece and rolls it between his fingers, as if testing its weight.
“Did you ever play against my aunt?” I ask, trying to break his concentration.
He places the knight at the edge, away from the rest, and says, “Once or twice. She preferred other games.”
“What kind?”
He shrugs, almost bashful. “The kind you can’t win. Or lose.”
I watch his hands, the pale scar on his ring finger, the thumbnail bitten too short. He advances a rook and checks my king.
I move my own rook to block. “You always play the same opening?”
He shakes his head, just once. “Only when I want to see if the other player knows how to finish.”
“You think I don’t?”
He finally meets my eyes, and for a moment the mask slips: I see weariness, and something older, more brittle, underneath.
“I think you might surprise me,” he says, and his voice is softer now, almost kind.
The next few moves are desperate. I play for time, sacrificing what I must, trading off every non-essential piece just to keep the king alive. Larkin is merciless, but never cruel. He picks off my pawns with surgical precision, each capture a clean, decisive snap.
The fire burns lower, the coals now the color of dying stars. The temperature in the room drops a few degrees, and my breath starts to fog at the edges. I do not ask for a blanket.
Larkin leans in, elbows on the table, hands framing the board. His body language is relaxed now, loose, but his eyes are electric, alive with some private joke.
“You’re better than I expected,” he says.
“Because I’m a girl?” I ask, amused.
“Because you’re a Vale,” he replies. “They never taught you to lose.”
I smile, show my teeth. “There’s a first time for everything.”
He laughs, and the sound is genuine. “You could still turn it around,” he says, but I can tell he doesn’t believe it.
The game ends in a flurry of moves. I see the trap too late—a rook and bishop pincer, forcing my king into a corridor of death. Larkin waits for me to realize, then finishes it with a gentle flourish: checkmate.
He sits back, hands on his thighs, and looks at me with something like respect.
“Well played, Miss Vale.”
I study the board, the way the black and white pieces are arrayed, the symmetry of defeat. I’ve never liked losing, but this one feels different, earned.
“Rematch?” I say.
He nods. “Always.”
We reset the board in silence, the fire dwindling to embers, the sleet relentless on the glass. Outside, the world is locked in ice. Inside, every move is a negotiation, a test, a confession.
“The roads are gone,” he says. “We’re snowed in. Whitby sent for help, but it’ll be days.”
“I didn’t plan on leaving.”
He gestures at the board. The pieces are reset, White on my side, Black on his.
I fidget in my seat, fingers still tingling from the cold. I advance a pawn, c4, then settle back, letting the move hang in the air.
Larkin matches, symmetrical, knight to f6. “What did you dream of?” he asks, as if it’s a normal question.
I consider lying, then decide there’s no point. “Glass,” I say, recalling my most vivid dream from the night before. “The ceiling was gone. Just the sky, and me, underneath.”
He studies the board, then me. “And did you like it?”
I furrow my brow. “I couldn’t tell whether the glass was keeping me in or out.”
He laughs, genuine this time. “I could see that. The house likes to blur the distinction. You dream more since your arrival, don’t you?”
“Yes.” No point in denying it. It’s probably more haunted house magic fucking with my brain.
We play three more moves in silence, the rhythm familiar, almost soothing. But when he captures my bishop, he holds the piece instead of setting it aside, rolling it between thumb and forefinger, feeling the weight.