Page 25 of The Lady and the Footballer
Rhys sighed. “Yes, but I’m in a fortunate enough position to make up the difference. I can take it on.”
“Why won’t the club give us our due?”
It didn’t make sense. Why would Harcourt offer to pay Colin a pound a match, but the committee not provide enough for the team to travel?
“Take it up with the team’s treasurer,” Rhys said, shrugging. “I’ve tried, but the man brushes me off. Maybe he’ll be different with a player who brings so muchvalueto the team.”
He turned around again, effectively dismissing Colin, although Rhys’s parting words told Colin that he was well aware of his little deal with Harcourt and, from the sounds of it, didn’t enjoy the same benefits as Colin would have assumed.
That didn’t sit well with him, and he wondered how many on the team had a similar deal. If nothing else, it left him with a nagging feeling that he had a responsibility to this team, and to his captain.
Yes, he needed the money for his own family.
But perhaps he could help ensure that the rest of them also received their fair dues.
Lily spent the next working days trying to make sense of the ledgers, but they did not add up, no matter what she tried.
When she broached the topic with her father again, he waved her away, telling her that the bank had not errored, and he had so many pressing concerns with the mill that the minor discrepancies in the club accounts were unimportant to him. The club’s treasurer would figure it out once she submitted the ledgers to him.
“You did not think to introduce me to him yet?” she asked her father as she stood in the doorway of his study, her voice low so her mother wouldn’t overhear her. She hadn’t been especiallypleased about Lily’s interest in the club’s bookkeeping, having thought she would tire of them much quicker.
“You have no need to see him,” her father said, not even looking up at her from the ledgers in front of him. “And it would not be proper for you to do so anyway.”
“Why not?”
“He works out of the club offices.”
Lily’s mouth dropped open.
“You never told me that the club had offices.”
Her father finally looked up.
“Because you have no reason ever to be there.”
“Would you care to enlighten me as to where they are?”
“Upstairs above The King’s Head. It’s a pub not far from here. The players go there after most matches. So do the mill workers, actually,” he said, and Lily nodded, a plan already forming.
She was halfway out the door when her father called out, “Do not go there! Send a note to Pritchard at the office. He is usually there Monday to Thursday afternoons.”
Lily stopped, turning around.
“And just who is this Pritchard?”
“The treasurer,” her father said, rubbing his forehead, answering her without much attention. “Samuel Pritchard. He’s a retired banker and football fan who looks after the club’s finances now. Does a fine job.”
“I’m sure,” Lily said before returning to her writing desk in the drawing room.
A fine job, indeed. She had questions about that.
Questions she was going to get answered.
Chapter Ten
This was a bad idea.
Lily knew it the moment she stopped in front of The King’s Head, which she now realized she had passed by many times before, accepting it as part of the scenery. Usually, her view of the dark red brick building with its black timber beams was through the carriage window.
