Page 23 of The Lady and the Footballer
He wondered if she would forgive him for allowing her to be injured on the factory floor.
When he looked up, he didn’t see the carriage or any women in fine clothing. However, he saw his mother and sisters cheering and waving as loudly as the rest of the crowd.
He kissed his fingers and raised them toward the three of them, their presence a reminder of why he was doing what he was doing and what this meant to him and to them. For his family, this was so much more than a game, and he couldn’t let a pretty face interfere with his ability to play football.
Especially when that pretty face was proving to be more of a distraction from the game and his job than anything else.
He still couldn’t fall asleep without the horror of the moment when she had been trapped by the machine crossing his mind. She had been so close to losing her life. Colin knew that he should be most concerned that it would have destroyed his own life as well, but the world losing her would have been even worse.
He would have to put that aside and not consider the implications until after the match because, right now, he needed to focus.
This game might not mean anything, but he still needed to prove his worth.
They lined up around the field as Rhys went to take the coin toss, and the game was soon underway.
As Colin had guessed, the Ironworkers were as formidable a team as they would be playing against in the Cup, even if they wouldn’t have the same opportunity to vie for it as their Manchester team would.
They were only about ten minutes into the game, his team up by a goal, when there was a cry from across the pitch. He looked over to see Joey on the ground, folded over with his left leg stretched awkwardly in front of him.
One of the umpires called a stop to the game, and they all ran over to see what the matter was. The moment Colin saw the pain on Joey’s face, he knew it would be a bad injury.
“What is it?”
“My knee,” Joey said, gasping for air. “My foot got caught in a hole, and my entire leg twisted.”
A man ran out from the crowd, telling them he was a surgeon before he crouched and began looking at Joey’s leg. As Colin backed away, giving him space, he nearly fell over himself as his heel dipped downward.
He looked down to see the hole that Joey must have stepped in.
It wasn’t uncommon for these fields to have the odd divot. But they were back at Pomona Gardens, so it should be better cared for than the practice field they were used to.
This hole, however, looked almost like it had been deliberately dug. The sides of it were even and clean, as though they had been made by a trowel and not by an animal.
“Tommy,” he called out, pulling his friend over to his side and pointing to the ground. “Look at this. What do you make of it?”
“Looks like it could cause a nasty injury. As it did,” Tommy said.
“Yes, but do you think it was made accidentally or intentionally?”
“You think someone deliberately sabotaged us?”
“I don’t know,” Colin said, lifting his cap and pushing back his hair before reaffixing it to his head. The idea sounded crazy as Tommy repeated it, but was it? It seemed like one accident after another was befalling the Harcourt Mill and team. Was it all just a coincidence or was someone out to get them?
He only hoped they could discover what was happening before it was too late.
Lily’s mother kept heaving grand sighs from across the carriage.
She was the reason they were late. Lily felt that if it were up to her mother, they would not be here at all, but someone had to chaperone Lily and Emmaline, and Lily’s mother didn’t trust Emmaline’s family to do so – not here.
Between the cheering crowd and the two young women sitting on the opposite side of the carriage, they could converse in low voices without Lily’s mother hearing them.
They had been distracted when a player was hurt, and Lily didn’t like how his knee looked. Not only did they now have to play the rest of the game short a player, but she wondered how long it would be until the man returned to the team after such an injury.
Of course, her eyes were on Mr. Thornton as he looked around the field after the man was carried off, and she wished she knew what had captured his attention.
“Just think,” Lily’s mother said from across the carriage. “We could be playing Kent right now, but you had to go and deny Lord Nathaniel again.”
“A marriage between us is not an option, Mother,” Lily said between gritted teeth. “Father agreed that a marriage to the man would be catastrophic.”
