A Texan's Honour. Kate Welsh

that feeling again. It was like learning to ride the bicycle her father had brought from England when she was eighteen. Achievement. Triumph. Victory.

      Alexander fought hard, yet he didn’t seem to mind when she ultimately won. It was the first time she’d enjoyed chess in years. Against Edgar she’d had to walk a fine balance between losing and not making it obvious she had done so intentionally. The few times she’d miscalculated either way, she’d paid in bruises.

      She could admit now that somewhere inside her she’d been elated to see Edgar Gorham so humbled and furious at being bested by the wife he called a failure at every turn. Had she not been so embarrassingly bruised later, Patience might have done it more often. Fear had taken over, though, and it was she who’d been humbled.

      “Now what, I must ask myself, is that smug little smile about?” Alexander asked.

      Fear poured unchecked through her. Did she look smug? Had she annoyed him? Her heart pounded. The blood drained from her head. Time and place seemed to shift and she was back with Edgar in the mansion in Syracuse. She could no longer hold on to the present.

      “Was I smiling?” she whispered, her voice warbling around a lump in her throat the size of New York City.

      Then she looked up and her gaze met Alexander’s sparkling eyes. His teasing smile. And she was back on the train headed west. It was September the thirteenth. Relief replaced fear and she could breathe again.

      This panic that washed over her at the unexpected sound of a man’s voice was a reflex she had to learn to fight or she was sure to bring notice upon herself. She saw it now. Concern flooded his gaze as surely as the terror had flooded her senses. She could not let them do this to her any longer.

      Moving her hand forward, she lifted her remaining bishop and slid it forward till it mated his king. “Checkmate.”