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Chapter Twenty-Four

“ L ily!”

Lily cringed. This could not be anything good.

Her father hadn’t allowed her to watch the match today, and she had sat in her room, desperate to find a way to get there.

But he would have known. Her mother was home, likely enjoying the respite from watching a football match, and Lily didn’t see any way of sneaking out and avoiding notice by someone tied to the football team.

If only her father hadn’t had such an interest in the club.

But then she would never have met Colin.

Lord Harcourt hovered in the drawing room doorway, where Lily sat with a book in her lap, although she wasn’t really reading it, for she was waiting to hear what had happened in the game.

“Did we win?” she asked, interrupting her father before he could even begin.

“We did,” he practically growled and she breathed a sigh of relief. “But barely. Something is off.”

He stalked into the room, sitting in the chair across from her. He sat with his fingers interlaced, leaning toward her. “I need to talk to you about this.”

“Very well,” she said, sitting up straight herself, for it seemed that, for once, her father just might be addressing her as an intelligent adult.

“You believe someone is sabotaging the team,” he stated.

“I do,” she said. “I more than believe it. I saw proof.”

“What?” he said, startled. She had wanted to tell him, but with all that had transpired with his threats to marry her off and to remove Colin from the team and his position in the mill, she had nearly forgotten about it. “Who? How?” he demanded.

“Lord Montgomery is after the mill and the club. I’m not entirely sure how he is doing it, but he is trying to bring down the club by using the players.

I saw a ledger in his mill. I went there with Colin, which is when we were found together.

I was trying to figure out who was after the club, and he agreed to help me. ”

Her father blinked.

“I’m not sure where to start,” he finally said, his mustache twitching. “On the one hand, I should be angry that you would put yourself in such jeopardy, but at the same time, I appreciate the lengths you would go to see justice done for something that means so much to me.”

“I’m glad you understand that part of it,” she said softly.

“The team was off today,” he said. “They should have won much more easily. Yes, the Estonians made some exemplary saves, but our club wasn’t moving as the unit that they usually do.”

“You think someone was bribed?”

“I am suspicious,” he said. “Who on the team needs money?”

She chuckled wryly. “I would suspect most of them,” she said. “It is not as though any of them are titled gentlemen.”

Although more than one of them was a gentleman in the sense that meant the most.

“I know it is not Colin,” she said confidently, even as her father eyed her with suspicion.

“How can you say that?”

“I know him,” she said simply. “I have spent enough time with him to know that he is a good man, a loyal one, who would never allow his club or his teammates to come to any harm. I also doubt it is Rhys Lockwood. He was making up shortfalls in what the team was being paid out of his own pocket.”

“Shortfalls?”

“Yes, apparently the players weren’t receiving the full amounts for what they submitted,” she said. “He was making up for it himself. I can hardly see a man take money when he would have to pay the difference anyway.”

“And Lockwood is a bank manager,” her father murmured, sitting back. “He does well enough for himself.”

“What will you do now?” Lily asked.

“I will have to investigate, I suppose,” he said. “Or hire someone to do so.”

“Colin has been looking into it already,” she suggested. “Perhaps he could help you.”

Her father’s face darkened. “Are you sure I can trust him?”

“I am certain of it,” she said, and he paused, shocking Lily that her opinion might actually mean something to him.

“I’ll think on it,” he finally settled on.

“In the meantime, continue to be careful, Lily. I don’t like the thought of you getting involved.

If someone is willing to take a bribe and work for a rival club, then you could be put at risk as well.

Stay away from the mill and the club for now. For your own safety.”

“Just my safety?” she asked, raising a brow.

Before he could respond, her mother sailed into the room, and Lily sighed. Her mother had been preoccupied with one topic of conversation and one only.

Lily’s upcoming marriage, although the groom was yet to be selected.

“John, what are you doing in here?”

“The match finished, and I needed to speak with Lily.”

“Oh, have you found a suitor?”

Her father sighed and ran a hand over his face.

“Not yet.”

“I was thinking of Lord Anderson’s son.”

“He’s practically married already!” Lily protested, thinking of her friend Ada, who had been in love with him since they were children.

“He’s not married yet,” her mother said with a shrug, as she took a seat next to her husband on the sofa.

“No,” Lily said, although the truth was, she would say no to everyone. Everyone who wasn’t Colin.

“There is still Lord Nathaniel?—”

“Absolutely not,” Lily and her father said together, and, as angry as she was with him, she sent a small smile his way to tell him that she appreciated his defense.

Her parents finally left to prepare for dinner, and Lily knew for certain that she had to see Colin – one way or another.

Colin knew this was folly.

But he had been in agony all day since the match.

Yes, part of it was because muscles in his body he hadn’t even known existed were sore from his exertions, but the other part was his uncertainty over where Lily had been. She wasn’t in the stands, and he hadn’t seen her in the carriages either.

When he had seen her friend Miss Whitmore watching with a man he assumed was her brother, he had sought her out before entering the bathing room, but she had been as perplexed as he was, telling him that she didn’t know where Lily was, that she only knew that she hadn’t received word that Lily was coming to the match and so she had to find her own way to the game.

“You played well, Mr. Thornton!” she called out as he walked away, and the little wink she gave him told him that she likely knew far more about what he had been up to lately in addition to football.

But he had a feeling that his secret was safe with her.

Now, here he was, prowling around Harcourt’s mansion in Ellesmere Park, wondering which of the lit windows might hold Lily’s bedroom.

He was saved by having to guess when he saw the woman in question lowering herself from a first-story window.

Her dress was modest, the skirt in clean lines, but he still couldn’t imagine climbing with so much material.

Muttering under his breath, he took off through the manicured gardens toward her, cursing at the hedgerows and vines that stood between them, not saying anything until he was beneath her.

“Lily, what are you doing?” he said, and she gasped in surprise, losing her hold on the vine she was dangling from when she did.

For a few heart-stopping moments, she was suspended in the air, falling to the ground, but Colin managed to reach her just in time and she landed in his arms with an “oof” from each of them.

Soon, she was looking up at him, confusion on her face as though she wasn’t sure whether to whack him or kiss him.

“Colin!” she finally exclaimed. “What are you doing here and why did you startle me like that?”

“Startle you?” he said, lifting a brow. “You scared me half to death, hanging so high in the air.”

“I was escaping to come to you.”

“To me?”

“Yes!” she said. “I…” She bit her lip as she wrapped her arms tighter around his neck. “I missed you.”

“Well, I am glad to hear that,” he said. “I was concerned about you.”

He finally set her on her feet, as much as he wanted to keep holding her close.

“My father wouldn’t allow me to come to the game,” she said, splaying her hands across his chest. “He said I must stay away for my own safety, but I think it has more to do with keeping me away from you. He says he believes we are not involved, but I think he is still concerned.”

“He has every reason to be,” Colin said, his eyes wandering up and down her body, trying to see beyond all those layers of fabric to what he knew was underneath.

“Well, here you are,” she said, her quick breath telling him she was just as affected as he was.

“Here I am,” he agreed, uncertain of what else to say.

“Come with me,” she said, her eyes taking on an impish glow.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked, even as he followed her. The truth was, he would follow her wherever she led.

“I know of a place on the outskirts of my family’s grounds. It’s not much – a small gazebo – but it’s sheltered from the elements and there is even a padded bench where we can… sit.”

“Sit,” he said, his lips spreading into a smile.

“Sit… talk… or whatever we are interested in doing with one another.”

“It will be difficult to think of something,” he said, but then quickly sobered, reaching out to stop her. “Lily, before we go any further, I must apologize.”

“For what?” she asked, her eyes so clear and trusting that he felt even worse than he had before.

“When we came together, I was being selfish. I was thinking only of how we would be together, what we could do together, of how much I wanted you, even if it was only to spend time with you. But I wasn’t thinking clearly about what the consequences could be for you.

I have ruined you, with no idea of how we could ever find a way forward together. ”

“Colin.”

She stopped him, placing her hands on his arms, holding him close. “I have chosen this as much as you have. Please don’t apologize, because then it takes away my ability to think for myself.”

He managed a small smile, appreciating what she was saying to him but still feeling guilty. “Understood.”

“Now, would you still come with me? Please?”

“How could I ever say no?”