Page 10 of Match Made in Heaven (The Cricket Club #5)

Where his dark green eyes were now open and fastened on hers.

Staring. And very much alive.

Ella couldn’t move. She dared not to even flex a muscle.

Until he blinked.

And then she gasped.

Lord Oliver clapped his eyes shut, and his hand swept to his face. Lurching to his side, he let out a gut-wrenching roar and began to tremble spasmodically.

“Help! Please, help us!” Ella screamed, turning toward the door, but no one came. Where could they be?

She faced Oliver once more, alarmed by his jerking movements.

Hunched over him, Ella held his shoulder as he continued to heave back and forth.

The anguished sounds coming from the base of his throat tore at her center, bringing more tears forth.

They launched from her eyes while she issued all the inane words that came to her.

“Shh,” she murmured. “It will be all right. I promise.”

Lord Oliver slammed his back onto the bed, still covering his face with his hand. “The light! The light!” he growled.

Instantly, Ella turned down the light on the oil lamp next to the bed. It had barely thrown off enough light to illuminate the room; how could it cause him any pain?

She was about to ask him if she could do anything else when the door finally banged open, and Lord John and the duchess flew inside.

Pure, unmitigated relief covered Lady Evelyn’s face. She fell to her knees at her son’s bedside, taking his hand in hers, holding it to her lips. “Thank you, Lord,” she whispered in between kisses. “I knew you would answer my prayers. Thank you.”

One by one, the doctors and other men that Ella hadn’t been introduced to crept into the room, quiet and almost timid. To her, they appeared awestruck, beyond surprised at the duke’s recovery, as if not a single one had been expecting it.

Ella refocused on the bed. She couldn’t be sure if Lord Oliver’s groans were weakening or if the duchess’s cries were strengthening.

“Can you talk, my son?” she asked, standing to place her palm on Lord Oliver’s forehead. “Can you tell us how you feel?”

The duke could only utter muffled words behind his hand, shaking his head back and forth. Every few seconds another shudder would run through his entire body.

But his mother was not to be deterred. The duchess reached back and found Ella, grabbing her arm.

“Don’t worry about anything, my love,” she said, dragging Ella forward until she stood right next to her.

“We’re going to do everything to help you recover as quickly as possible.

We’re all here. Everyone that loves you. ”

The duchess’s grasp intensified on her fragile fingers, and Ella had to bite her lip from squeaking from the pain.

Sensing what the older woman was asking her, she leaned over the bed, patting the duke’s arm once more.

“We’re here for you,” she repeated weakly, her voice losing its steam now that others were in the room.

Her startled gaze found its way to Lord John, who stood on the other side of the bed, his hands locked in fists at his sides as if he were holding himself back.

He was like a wild animal to her, all instinct and emotion, barely keeping himself in check.

Ella wanted to tell him to touch his brother, to hold him, because it was obvious to her that that was what he wanted to do.

Lord John lifted his shiny eyes to her, and Ella quickly averted her own. This entire moment was too overwhelming, too intimate. She didn’t belong here, but even when she tried to back away the tiniest distance, the duchess was there to stop her.

“Please, Olly,” Lady Evelyn cried as she attempted to pull his hand away from his face, “talk to us. Say anything! I need to hear your voice.”

Lord Oliver groaned in answer, the sound reminding Ella of a creature in the kind of wretched pain that would make one wish to be put out of one’s misery.

But a mother’s dictate was difficult to ignore, even in agony such as the duke’s.

Reluctantly, he lowered his hand, then blinked rapidly, adjusting to the added light in the room filtering in from the corridor.

Shadows flitted along his high cheekbones, highlighting tiny, thin tears.

The muscles around his eyes tightened as he attempted to fix on his mother and then his brother.

When his eyes eventually narrowed on Ella, she felt her stomach knot.

Once more, she tried to fade into the background, and once more the duchess thwarted her efforts.

Lord Oliver opened his mouth and closed it. His eyelids drooped. Even the few minutes he’d been awake had drained him.

“We should leave,” Lord John announced.

“No!” his mother replied. “He wants to say something. I know it. Let him speak, and then we will let him rest.”

The duke opened his mouth again. It stayed that way for so long that Ella thought he’d fallen asleep that way. Her stomach eased, the viselike grip relaxing enough that she could finally take a shaky breath.

And then the duke’s eyes snapped back to her.

He frowned, from pain or her presence, Ella could only guess.

And then he spoke. “Who are you?”