Page 13 of The Lady and the Footballer
He fell in line with the rest of the team behind Rhys – a banking manager, as it happened – to exchange firm handshakes with the players from the Athletics before they all stepped straight onto the rough, uneven pitch, taking a fewminutes to kick the ball around as they waited for the starting whistle.
“Well, Thornton?” Rhys said, coming up behind him and clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s see if you’re as good as everyone says you are.”
“Putting pressure on me, Captain?”
“We’ll see if you can handle it,” Rhys said, eyeing him coolly. “This is just the beginning. We have quite the season ahead.”
Colin didn’t need to be reminded as he kicked the ball back toward Tommy, who had to lift his leg to get a piece near his waist. Still too high. He cursed.
“Into formation, boys!” Rhys called out before the other ten players, including Colin, found their places, and Rhys went to the center for a coin toss. He lifted his hand in the air in victory before taking the ball to the center and kicking it forward to Tommy.
The game started quickly, with each team out to prove themselves.
Colin had always been a natural goal-scorer, and he stayed near the center, ready to make a break toward the Athletics’ goal if his team could get a handle on the ball.
He nearly slipped a few times over the mud on the field from the wet conditions the day before.
But none of that overly mattered.
What did matter was the exhilaration of being back out here, with his team, playing the sport he loved.
Even if it meant receiving a dirty shot now and again.
Tommy had the ball on the outside and passed it into the middle. Colin tried to dribble forward, with only one player between him and the goaltender, but the defender’s shoulder met with his middle, and he went sprawling backward, the cream of his jersey instantly covered in mud.
He cursed as he got to his feet and jogged after his opponent who now controlled the ball. As mad as he was, however, a smile covered his face.
For this was only the beginning.
And he was thrilled to be here.
“Is this football or a street brawl?
Lily laughed as Emmaline called out her criticism, her voice drowned out by the rest of the crowd, none of them particularly glad to see one of their players taken down.
Lily didn’t have a clear enough view to see precisely what had transpired, although she wondered by the man's build if it was the same one who had knocked her over – literally and figuratively – at that first practice.
She wished she knew his name or more about him, but it was not as though she could ask her father any particulars.
“Did you see that?” Emmaline asked Lily as she stood in the open-air carriage parked next to the field. “Dam—er, the Athletics took out one of our men.”
“I can’t see well,” Lily said, and Emmaline took on the problem as her duty to fix. She asked the driver for a box that Lily could sit on, and soon enough, Lily was watching the game with interest.
At this point, it was nearly impossible to tell which team was which, as both were covered in so much mud that the color of their jerseys was nearly indistinct, although the baby blue of the Athletics stood out through any gaps in the mud.
“Do you think we have a chance?” Lily asked Emmaline as the score remained a draw through the first half of the game.
“Of course we have a chance,” Emmaline said, crossing her arms over her chest. “We always do.”
Lily’s laugh earned her a look of reproach from her mother, who was watching in solidarity with her husband, even if she always turned up her nose at the rather raucous crowd and uncouth fans whose presence she had no choice but to bear. As she kept a respectable distance from them in her carriage at the end of the field.
“Lady Harcourt, do you not think we could have a better vantage point if we watched from the pavilion with the gentlemen?” Emmaline asked, batting her eyelashes, but Lily could have told her not to bother. It wouldn’t sway her mother. Nothing did save for the threat of social ruin or the promise of social rise.
“Miss Emmaline Whitmore, what would your mother say about such a thing?” Lily’s mother asked, though her question only made Emmaline grin wider.
“She’s too busy to pay much notice,” Emmaline said with a shrug. She had two brothers, and her mother, the daughter of a shipping magnate and, therefore, of a different class than Emmaline’s father, had brought with her an altogether different notion of parenting and a zeal for the growing feminist movement. While she kept her politics as far from her husband’s social circle as possible, there were murmurings that, fortunately, Lily’s mother had thus far ignored.
Lady Harcourt did frequently note that Emmaline had been given far too much freedom, but Lily enjoyed the days when Emmaline's mother “chaperoned” them.
