Leaving Tobias, Edward, Florence, and Barnaby, she went to where Mr. Hasslebach now stood beside the table they’d play at.
“Good luck,” he said, but Liberty didn’t feel like he really meant it.
Twenty minutes later, Liberty was sure Mr. Hasslebach was trying to put her off her stride. He was humming and tapping his fingers. Liberty despised tapping as much as she despised someone crunching loudly nearby, which her brother constantly did.
It was also the height of rudeness to do what the man was doing, and he would know that. But Liberty knew his actions were because she was good at chess, and he was in danger of losing.
The match was close, and Liberty had to shut out all the noise and distraction, especially the fact that her brother stood with her enemy… perhaps enemy was harsh, but the man had crushed her.
“Go on, Love, you show him,” someone in the crowd called out.
Mr. Hasslebach glared at the woman.
“Stuffy old goat,” she muttered.
“Excuse me, but there is no need for name calling.”
Liberty tried to shut out the exchange taking place a few feet from her as voices rose.
“Exactly that, madam. He is a stuffy old goat.”
Those words had come from Edward.
“You men aren’t happy because that lady is beating one of you,” a woman said.
Concentrate, Liberty, she reminded herself as the debate raged on.
“I fear she’s right, Polebrook,” came the deep words of Tobias.
That man, Liberty thought. She wished he’d exit himself from her life once again. She hated that her heart beat a little harder when he was near.
Focus!
Recalling her favorite chess book, Liberty made a move that had Mr. Hasslebach inhaling sharply.
A loud crunch told her Edward was closer and still eating chestnuts. Liberty refused to look at him or Tobias and that sweet little girl.
“She won’t have the pluck to finish it,” a man said.
“She’s had the pluck to do so, thus far,” Tobias said.
Mr. Hasslebach countered, and she moved again. The concentration was making her head ache, which sometimes happened, and the doctors said may go on forever, or one day stop, which was frustrating, but Liberty had no time to worry about that now.
Focusing on the pieces on the checkered board before her, she worked through her next moves in her head. When Liberty saw the pathway, she made her first move. She knew Mr. Hasslebach had seen it too because he made a choking, coughing sound in his throat as if to clear it.
“Checkmate, I believe,” Liberty said quietly two moves later. Mr. Hasslebach gasped.
“She just said checkmate!” a woman’s voice cried.
“How is that possible? No one beats Mr. Hasslebach.”
“You have readThe Elements of Chess?” Mr. Hasslebach asked when he could speak. He was studying the board.
“I have, yes.”
He rose then and held out his hand. Liberty rose too and shook it. Then pandemonium broke out, but only from the women watching. They cheered and clapped, and a few even hugged each other in excitement. Many of the men in the audience looked angry.
“I never watched it before, but I’ll be sure to now if women canplay and win!”
