The Mannox side was eventually dismissed at one hundred and one runs. There was a short interlude, with fresh mugs of ale and buns from a cricket-enthusiast peddler, during which Tom Mannox sidled up to Bianca. Max, fetching ale, watched intently. He was a thick-set fellow, shorter than Max, with fair hair and a ruddy face. Bianca gave him a withering look and said something that made him turn red and stalk back to his side.
Max crossed the grass and handed her a mug. “Is Mannox unhappy about something?”
Bianca made a face and took a drink. “Every year he used to propose I marry him, because with my bowling and his batting we’d be sure to have a son who would be legendary on the pitch. All Tom cares about is cricket.” She took another sip. “As if Papa would have even let him in the door! Mannox steals our workers and then tries to claim his wares are better than Perusia. I’d lock myself in a convent before wedding Tom Mannox.”
“Ah.” Max savored his own ale, watching the Mannox side. A few big fellows, and one tall, rawboned chap whom Max felt was the real threat. “Is Mannox a strong bowler?”
Bianca set aside her mug. “No. He throws hard, but if you outlast him he throws wild. Tire him out, and he’ll melt like butter.”
The Perusia innings did not begin well. Mick, who had bowled so well, hooked one ball around his leg and scored a single, while the other players suffered from extreme bad luck in hitting the ball directly at men in the field. They had made a paltry forty-nine when Bianca took up her bat and went to the crease.
The bowler was a short, pugnacious fellow, though he did doff his cap when Bianca raised her bat. Then he charged forward and threw the ball at her feet. She tried to block it, but it ran up the edge of her bat and over her hands. The ball arced into the field, where it was very fortunately fumbled, but Bianca was clutching one hand in the other. Max stepped forward in concern, but the look on her face stopped him. Shaking and flexing her hand, she retrieved her fallen bat and faced up to the short fellow with fire in her eyes.
Never had Max found a cricket match so thrilling, not when he was a boy playing on the packed-dirt Marylebone fields, nor on the viciously competitive Oxford pitch. The fellow taking wagers circulated through the crowd, and Max—eyes fixed on his wife at the crease—laid fifty pounds on the Perusia side. Down by fifty-two with only three batters left, the odds were long.
The next ball Bianca sent to the boundary for four. She added a single a few balls later, only to see Amelia, who had preceded her at the crease, called out by the butcher for stumbling into her wicket. She staggered off the field, head in her hands, as the Mannox side cheered and the Perusia side heaped imprecations on the butcher’s head.
That brought Max to the wicket. He selected his bat carefully and took a few test swings. Bianca waited at the opposite wicket, poised to run. It sent a charge up his spine to see her so nakedly hungry to win, her eyes darting around the oval before fixing on him. He gave her a slow smile. She nodded once.
By God, I love that woman, he thought fiercely.
Then he settled in to win the game—for her.
Bianca had told him what he needed to know. Tom Mannox threw hard, but like most hard throwers, his aim degenerated over time. By now, Max expected him to throw wide, and he did. With almost brutal ease, he blocked the first few balls before Mannox buckled down and threw hard and straight. Max dug in and stroked it well over the boundary for six. The next ball he hit for four, and then another six to finish the over.
Mannox retired, glowering. The tall lanky fellow came in. Max blocked his first three balls, waiting for the one he could loft. Unfortunately his eye caught on Bianca, hovering at the opposite wicket, and so he just missed the ball, lobbing it weakly over the wicket-keeper’s head. After his last few swings, the fieldsmen had moved back to the boundary, and the ball hit the ground harmlessly in front of them.
“Run,” Max roared, taking off for the other wicket, and Bianca sprinted past him. They barely made it, and now Bianca lifted her bat. She blocked several balls before ending with a three.
He jogged forward to meet her on the pitch as they traded places for the next over. “Splendid work, darling,” he said in passing.
“Notch some runs!” she returned.
Max laughed and stepped to the crease. Mannox had the ball again, to Max’s satisfaction. He bided his time, blocking the first few balls. Mannox, frustrated, threw directly at his feet. Max squared his shoulders and stepped into his swing, sending the ball hurtling over the boundary. The Perusia side erupted in screams.
Mannox tried again, throwing high this time, but Max wasn’t about to have that. He twisted his bat and clubbed the ball deep and far, sending the fieldsman almost into the woods to retrieve it.
The bat was beginning to feel right in his hands. He could swing for hours like this.
Had Mannox not been the captain of the team, he would have been taken off, but he kept the ball, and this time he hurtled toward the wicket as if he meant to fling the ball into Max’s face.
Max sent this one to the boundary as well, for four. The deficit had shrunk to eleven. “Why did you put him ninth?” Amelia was shrieking at George Tucker. “We’ve never had such a cricketer!”
Max passed Bianca again on the pitch. “Tolerable?” she said, brows raised.
He winked. “Not done yet, love.”
After a hurried conference, Mannox sent a new fellow to bowl. Tall Bob the bargeman, Bianca had called him. His wrists stuck out of his sleeves, and he moved with a rolling stride that seemed aimless and slow.
The sight of those wrists, though, put Max in mind of Wimbourne. The duke had bowled enthusiastically at Oxford, and his long, loose limbs enabled him to put a twisting spin on the ball. Wimbourne’s balls were liable to sink and hit the dirt, or sneak under the bat and take the wicket. Max had only figured out how to hit Wimbourne by watching the man’s thumb.
And thanks be to God, Tall Bob bowled the same way. His thumb rolled over the top of the ball, sending it spinning down toward the ground—and the wicket. Max blocked two, watching carefully to learn the man’s movement.
The next ball he lifted as one might launch a tennis ball, up, up, into the setting sun and over the boundary for another six. The Perusia side was making so much noise he could hardly hear Mannox screaming at his players in the field.
Tall Bob’s next ball was thrown even harder. Max gripped the bat, and stepped into his swing with all his strength. He’d never hit a ball that hard in his life, but he’d got under it, sending it more up than out. Up it went, and out—Tom Mannox was racing backward, toward the boundary—Max held his breath and unconsciously waved one arm, urging the ball to fly a little farther—and the ball bounced off Mannox’s outstretched hands to land on the grass outside the rope as Mannox himself sprawled face first into the grass.
The game was won.
