Chapter 4
B ut we didn’t play chess—not at first. Instead, he insisted we take a short trip around the block to walk off our meal.
“I enjoy walking in all seasons, but this time of year is probably my favorite.”
I thought of early fall—before it got too cool out but when you could smell smoke from chimneys and you could hear the crunch of leaves under your feet…
when the moon would sometimes look as if it had doubled in size.
Although I didn’t take many walks, if I’d had to choose a time, that would have been it.
“Why is that?”
“So many reasons.” He stopped walking and I followed suit.
“Do you hear that?”
The noise of the city, yes, the incessant hum and drone of machinery and people and vehicles—but I was certain he wasn’t talking about that.
“What?”
“Over there,” he said, pointing north.
“You can just make out the sound of children playing—laughing and shouting.” I had heard that—but sometimes hearing children laugh reminded me of children picking on me when I was younger.
But as I tuned in, almost listening through his ears, I could hear unfettered joy and abandon.
Those children didn’t sound like they were being mean or bullying anyone.
They were having fun.
And I smiled at him.
“I hear it.”
“And can you smell that?”
Smell what ?
But, closing my eyes, I took a deep breath—and I did.
It was a sweet floral fragrance, one I knew but couldn’t quite place.
“Yes.” When I opened my eyes, he pointed to the yard we stood next to.
Not three feet away grew a lilac bush that I hadn’t been paying attention to as we’d been walking.
Had a person asked me a month ago what type of person Sinclair Whittier was, I never would have said he was a closeted romantic—and yet that was what I was observing now.
“What else?” I asked, thrilled to be drawn into his world as we began walking again.
“The light. Come late October, it will already be dark—but right now we still have plenty of daylight.”
“Without the heat of midday.”
“Ah…you’re getting it. Exactly. It’s still plenty warm but not oppressively hot. And then underfoot. You don’t have to contend with ice or snow. Everything’s easy.”
I never would have expected this man to give me a new appreciation for life—and yet here he was.
When he asked my favorite time to walk, I thought long and hard about it, because I’d initially thought autumn—but now I wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t know. I think I’m beginning to appreciate summer walks.”
“Well,” he said, looking over at me, his eyes seeming to bore into my soul, “we’ll make sure to walk during every season—and you can tell me if you change your mind.”
It wasn’t long before we were back at the mansion, walking through the perfectly kept yard toward the stately front doors.
Once inside, he lingered, pausing halfway through the antechamber to admire a huge red vase with gold accents.
“I’ve been told this belonged to my mother…that she bought it on her honeymoon. But I don’t know if that’s true.”
“It’s lovely.”
“It makes me think of her, and that’s why it’s here.”
As I took a couple of steps as if in a museum, not wanting to miss taking in anything, my eyes lit upon a large painting of what looked like Greek gods convening on Mount Olympus.
And I decided maybe it would be okay to admit something.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that I considered your home stuffy and untouchable when I first arrived. I’m…used to living in smaller quarters.”
“Yes.” He’d been there so he, of course, had known that.
He might not have seen my actual bedroom, but based on the size of the living room, he probably could have extrapolated that the room I slept in now was easily three times larger.
“But everywhere I turn in this place there is something of beauty. There’s artwork everywhere—not just in the gallery—and it’s carefully chosen somehow to work together so that nothing feels out of place.”
“I have a good interior designer.”
Was that what they did?
But I continued as if he hadn’t said a word.
“From the chandelier way up there to the marble floor, the staircases, the windows, and every piece of art…it feels perfect.”
The only sound he made was hmm .
“And I’ve grown to love it.”
When I turned around, I couldn’t read him—not at all.
He asked, “Really?”
“I do.”
“I’ll admit I’m not fond of it. It’s in constant disrepair.”
We began walking deeper into the interior of the house.
“It is?”
“Yes. You saw the steps going downstairs.”
But I had a feeling those had been neglected for a long time.
“Yes, but—”
“There’s always something around here that needs fixing.”
“Do you think it’s because it’s…such a large place?”
“No doubt,” he said, pausing at the west stairs.
“To the game room?”
“Oh, yes.” As we began walking from the first floor to the second, I said, “That’s really no different from my dad’s house. One year we had to get a new roof and then the next we had to get a new water heater. And there were so many little things that constantly needed fixing.” After taking two more steps, I said, “I love how the view of the antechamber changes as you move up the stairs. Everything looks different from this angle.”
He made that sound again—and I couldn’t tell if it was dismissal or if he was actually absorbing my words.
So I decided not to say anything else, instead allowing myself to silently admire what I saw.
I didn’t go to the third floor very often, so being here felt almost like a treat.
When we got to the game room, he pulled a chess game out of the closet and unfolded the board at one of the tables.
Although the sun still hadn’t set, I flipped on the light switch, knowing we would need it soon.
He asked, “Do you remember how to set up the board?”
“I think so.”
“Then you take the white and I’ll set up the black.”
“It’s been a really long time.”
He smiled.
“I’ll help.” As I began copying how he set up his side, one piece at a time, I remembered playing all those hours with my dad.
It wasn’t until now that it dawned on me that my mother must not have liked playing chess, or she would have played with us.
Sinclair’s voice brought me quickly to the present.
“I suppose I should thank you.”
“I wouldn’t. I’m not a good chess player.”
He chuckled, his rich voice warming every fiber of my body.
“Not about that. For…helping me see this place with new eyes.”
“What—your home?”
“Yes. But I’ve never really thought of it that way—as a home. This mansion has felt more like a ball and chain.”
Although I doubted he’d say another word, curiosity got the best of me.
“Why?”
As he paused, placing one pawn after another on his side of the board, his line of defense in the game, I could see his personal defenses on his face dropping.
“When my older brother graduated from college, he immediately went to work for the company—but he never lived here again. Instead, the company bought him a home in Greenwood Village.”
I didn’t know where that was exactly, and I wasn’t going to ask.
“It wasn’t long after that the same thing happened when my middle brother came home from school and got a place in Highlands Ranch. And when I was in college,” he said, and I focused on setting up my pawns so that my face wouldn’t give away what I already knew because Edna had told me, “my father remarried and moved to Cherry Hills. And I got stuck with this old place.”
Did I dare say anything?
“It may be an old place…but it has history.”
“Exactly.” He pointed to the chair behind me.
“Shall we?” He didn’t sit down until I did.
“Do you remember the moves the pieces can make?”
I started by describing how pawns could move, probably more complicated than some of the stronger pieces.
“And then the rook—”
“Wait. Do you remember what happens if your pawn makes it all the way to my side—to here?” he asked, pointing at the edge of the board where the stronger pieces stood ready for battle.
His question tickled my memory.
“Oh, yeah. It becomes a queen.”
“Well…it doesn’t have to be a queen, but that’s usually what players turn it into.”
As I explained how each piece moved, working my way from rook to queen, I remembered loving this game and enjoying playing it with my father.
Why had we stopped? And then it all came back to me…
my mother had been jealous.
She’d envied the easy, fun relationship my father and I had and she’d never wanted to learn chess.
I remembered a time, probably just a few weeks before she’d left, when she’d thrown the whole board off the table in a fit of rage.
We hadn’t played again after that.
And now I wondered if it was because she’d left or because of her tantrum that we’d stopped.
Maybe later my father had thought about it again, but his hands had grown weaker over the years.
On occasion, he’d had difficulty even feeding himself.
“Are you all right?” Sinclair asked.
Although we had moved into a truce, I didn’t know that I wanted to remind him how much my father meant to me.
Blinking, I hoped the tears welling in my eyes weren’t obvious, and I kept my focus on the board.
“Yes. Is there anything I’ve forgotten?”
He gave me a quick reminder of the castling maneuver and then he said, “Are you ready?” I simply nodded.
“You’re white, so you go first.”
That was something I hadn’t remembered either.
But I did recall the common first move I usually made: taking a pawn in front of one of my bishops up two spaces, recalling that this was the only time it could move more than one space.
I did that because then it gave that bishop freedom, and I thought I remembered those being fairly good pieces to have in play.
Slowly, we moved many of our pieces toward the center of the board but, thus far, neither of us had captured another’s piece.
Until Sinclair took one of my pawns with a knight.
Again, I remembered that a pawn was considered an insignificant piece, one that could be sacrificed without much harm to the overall game.
And that made me think of myself to some degree.
But it wasn’t long after that when Sinclair captured two more pawns, followed by one of my knights with a bishop—and he said, “You’re not putting up much of a fight, Lise.” Just the sound of my name on his lips made all my nerves stand on end.
“Oh, I will.” But I didn’t know if I actually remembered any tactics that could save me.
He was obviously a practiced player.
I spotted an easy capture, moving my knight to take a pawn, remembering to make sure that wouldn’t put that knight in jeopardy.
It didn’t—but I’d left my king vulnerable.
Still on his side of the board, he moved his other bishop.
“Check.”
I let out a breath of air because I’d completely missed my king’s vulnerability.
And now I was having to react and defend rather than attack.
So I moved my king one space to the left where Sinclair’s bishop couldn’t touch it.
I tried to study his moves as he made them—but I couldn’t recall enough about game play to know what his strategy might be.
I was able to capture one of his knights with a pawn—but I wasn’t sure he hadn’t sacrificed it intentionally.
He said, “You did well in battle, soldier,” as I placed it on the side of the board.
Three of his pieces were out of play compared to more than double that of mine.
“Do you think you’ll be able to capture any others?”
I took that as a challenge—but, piece by piece, he wore down my defenses.
A pawn, another pawn, a knight, a rook, a bishop, and there was little I could do about it.
But it didn’t feel like chess—it felt like he was playing with me .
And then he took my queen.
“Ah, the lovely queen, taken for ransom.” After placing the piece on the side of the board, he looked me squarely in the eyes.
“If you have a pawn who’s brave enough, strong enough…he could sacrifice himself to bring her back.” His finger tapped his side of the board as if daring me to move one of my last two pawns across that expanse.
I knew better.
Then he said, “Or the queen can stay with me as my prisoner…where her mind and body will become mine.” For a brief moment, I imagined myself in the garb of Guinevere, filmy scarves and a gold and diamond tiara, what I imagined her and other medieval princesses wearing when I’d get lost in fairy tales and stories as a young girl.
Now, though, my adult mind pictured Sinclair as a knight in literal shining silver armor, stealing me away from the castle and taking me to his own—where he would demand of me whatever he wanted…
including carnal pleasure.
I hoped Sinclair couldn’t see how my face had flushed.
And I lost that game…
just as I knew I was going to lose the real one we were playing every single day.
But by now I was a willing victim.