CHAPTER ONE

Nothing could compete with a day like this.

Save, perhaps, a night with a good woman.

Colin stood to the side of the field, hands on his hips as he surveyed the men before him. He couldn’t believe he was back here, playing the game he loved once more. 

His joy was nearly indescribable.

“Are you going to stand there and take the air like a lady, or will you get onto the field and show us your worth?”

Colin nodded to his captain and sprinted back onto the field. Just in time, the ball met his feet and he connected, sending it sailing over Mickey’s head to Tommy, who was sprinting toward the opposing goal.

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

A cheer filled the field as Tommy found the top left corner of the goal, 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, solicitor!” 

Colin bristled. He hated the reminder of what he had failed to accomplish. When Tommy turned around and laughed, though, Colin knew he was trying to get a rise out of him. Refusing to give in, he rolled his eyes and continued with the scrimmage.

“We need to be ready for the Athletics!” Rhys yelled out. “Our first game with a new sponsor, and we must prove ourselves. 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, a sound he had hoped never to have to hear by the time he reached his twenty-six years, but here he was.

He now had the chance to play the game of his heart, and he would put everything he had into staying in this place in the sport he loved.

And then there was Tommy. His friend hit him on the shoulder as he ran by him again, and Colin sighed as he rubbed an old wound whose origin he couldn’t recall.

There were too many to remember correctly some days.

“Five more minutes!” Rhys called out as they all increased their intensity. Even in practice, 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 their main rivals, the Manchester Athletics Football Club.

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

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

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

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

They were turning around, so they couldn’t properly see the football field . 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 down backward like a felled sapling.

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

* * *

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

Additionally, most of the players worked nearby or in her father’s mill, so nothing could be more convenient. 

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. She would have played if she could have, and still did on the privacy of her father’s grounds. But when it came to organized football, her only choice had been to become a fan and she was 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 by Emmaline’s behaviour, while Lily always enjoyed her friend’s enthusiasm, even if her own 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 one of their teams.

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. 

She wasn't sure what harm losing a game of football did, but some of these people acted as though their very lives depended on the outcomes of the matches.

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

It had taken her mother that entire month to express any interest in Manchester City, 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 it not needing his physical presence. 

Her father had always been very interested in the Manchester Central Football Club, having played for a few years himself while at Cambridge. Still, he had never continued in 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 have something to speak with him about.

“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 their sleeves rolled up and a red sash across their chests.

Emmaline was fanning her face, 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 to 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, on the ball sailing across the field, high in the air – and right towards her head.