CHAPTER ONE

Nothing could compete with a day like this.

            Save, perhaps, a night with a good woman.

            Still, Colin thought as he stood to the side of the field, hands on his hips as he surveyed the men before him, the ability to be here, alive, playing the game he loved?

            Indescribable.

            “Are you going to stand there and take the air like a lady, or will you get onto the field and show us why we spent so much money bringing you here?”

            Colin started before nodding to his captain and sprinting back onto the field. Just in time, as the ball came his way, he sent it sailing over Mickey’s head to Tommy, who was sprinting toward the opposing net.

            “That’s it, Colin,” Rhys said, clapping his hands. “Your head’s in the game now.”

            An enormous cheer filled the field as Tommy found the top left corner of the net, and he pushed his hair out of his eyes as he rounded the corner of the field and lazily ran toward Colin, patting him on the back as he went.

            “Show us what you’re made of, soldier!”

            Colin bristled. He hated the reminder and did not want that part of his life invading this one. When Tommy turned around and laughed, though, Colin knew he was trying to get a rise out of him, so he rolled his eyes and continued with the scrimmage.

            “We need to be ready for Preston!” Rhys yelled out. “Our first game is coming up with a new sponsor, and we must prove our worth. Let’s go, boys.”

            Sweat broke out over Colin’s forehead, even though the September Manchester day was not particularly warm and the skies were grey. He jogged over the rough, uneven field where they practiced just beyond the smoky industrial mills. At least here, the air was fresh and open, a stark contrast to the mills, their machinery humming in the distance, or even the crowded conditions where he had spent his youth or the battlefields where he had aged decades past his twenty-six years. 

            After surviving all he had been through to be here with the chance to play the game of his heart, he would put everything he had into making sure that he would remain in this place in the sport that he loved.

            And then there was Tommy. The man hit him on the shoulder as he ran by him again, and Colin sighed as he rubbed an old wound that he couldn’t recall whether was from the war or the game. 

            There were too many to remember correctly some days.

            “Five more minutes!” Rhys yelled as they all amped up the intensity. This might be a practice match, but the competitiveness of all the men here was unmatched. 

            They were each trying to prove that they had earned a place on this team, and were worthy of starting in the first game against Preston FC.

            Colin would have spent the entire game on the field if he could, but he wasn’t certain that his body would allow it.

            Felix stole the ball off of Joey in the backfield, sending it sailing up to the middle of the field, where Tommy found it, dribbled it around poor Mickey once more, and passed it to Colin, who was streaking down the middle. He brought his foot back, connecting with the ball in that sweet spot that was just perfect, and it went sailing toward the net – only, it didn’t hit it. 

            No, it went about a foot too high, in a perfect arc over the top crossbar toward the field beyond.

            Colin watched it go, only for his eyes to drop below the ball. 

            For there, just beyond the field, were three women walking in a line. 

            They were turning around, so they didn’t properly see the ball coming. One – a more matronly figure – looked up just in time, her eyes widening momentarily in fear. 

            The girl didn’t see it coming.

            Colin caught a glimpse of her right before the ball hit, and it was enough to make him pause, only the pause was to her detriment.

            For by the time he called out a warning, it was too late. 

            The ball hit her right between the eyes, and she went backward like a bowling pin.

            Colin’s feet were moving before he even knew what he was doing.

~~~~~ 

            “I always knew I loved football, but I am falling even deeper now,” Emmaline had sighed dreamily as they had circled the makeshift football pitch. It was in actuality a rough area of grass next to the River Irwell just beyond her father’s mill. Still, she had heard him drone on that morning about why he would ever arrange for his team to practice elsewhere when he had a perfectly good stretch of land just beyond the mill. 

            Additionally, most of the players worked in her father’s mill, so nothing could be more convenient. Lily begrudgingly agreed with that sentiment, although she wondered how long the players would remain playing for the team and working or her father, based on what she knew of the mill’s working conditions.

            When Lily’s mother suggested they visit her father, who was watching his new team practice, she readily agreed, primarily for Emmaline’s sake. Her friend had been a football fan for years, always on the sidelines, calling out to the players in a very unladylike manner precisely what they should be doing with themselves. 

            The few times Lily’s mother attended a match, she was horrified, while Lily always enjoyed her friend’s enthusiasm, even if her interest in the sport was mild. She enjoyed football now and again, and watching a match was an interesting way to pass the time, but she had never understood the depths of the emotion that most people of Manchester placed in the team.

            One would have thought that they were winning or losing a war by how they reacted following a game, that each goal was a small battle in the greater war. 

            What harm losing a small game of football did, she wasn’t sure, but some of these people acted as though their very lives depended on the outcomes of these matches.

            “A football team,” her mother had been muttering for the past month, ever since Lily’s father had shared the news that he had decided to sponsor the team after spending a few years on the club’s committee, who managed the team. “What folly.”

            It had taken that entire month for her mother to express any interest in the team, but today, she finally decided that perhaps they should see what all the fuss was about.

            Lily suspected part of the reason was to come and spend some time with her father, for he had all but abandoned them to give himself to this team, despite them not actually needing his physical presence. 

            Her father had always taken a great interest Manchester Ironclads, having played a few years while at Cambridge. Still, he had never continued on the sport as he had other matters to attend to, namely, learning what would be required of him once he became the viscount.

He was so passionate about the game that half the reason Lily attended the games was the opportunity to spend time with him, for he was not a particularly warm man, nor did he ever seem particularly interested in spending a great deal of time with his daughter.

            “I always knew you were in love with football, but are you sure it is the sport itself that has so captured your attention?” Lily laughed as she followed her friend’s gaze to the field before them.

            She didn’t blame Emmaline, truly. In fact, she thought that perhaps after today, she was falling in love with football herself. 

            The pitch was covered with men as they danced around the field, pirouetting, kicking, yelling at one another in an act that was both the most graceful thing Lily had ever seen and also the most rugged. 

            Half of the men wore shirts that showed tanned forearms and hints of chest peeking through the top, the other half had stripped down to their pants alone.

            Emmaline was fanning herself, while Lily couldn’t deny feeling a bit of heat herself. 

            “This was a mistake,” Lily’s mother said, straightening, placing a hand on both girls' backs as she attempted to turn them around. “I never should have brought you here. Had I known that these men would be running around half-naked as they yelled like a bunch of children, I would have insisted that we stay far away. I will never know why your father thought this was a worthwhile investment of his time and money, but I do not think—eep!” 

            Lily had no idea why her tirade was cut short, though her mother did seem fixated on something beyond her shoulder. When her mother turned her around, Lily reluctantly lifted her gaze from the field and looked instead at where their horse and carriage awaited, along with her mother’s diatribe all the way home. 

            Which meant that her eyes were no longer on the field. 

            Nor the men playing football upon it.

            Nor, most importantly, the ball sailing across the field, high in the air – and right towards her head.