Page 11 of Match Made in Heaven (The Cricket Club #5)

“M other, stop it! If you toss another item out of my bag, I’ll toss you out the window!”

Lady Evelyn’s eyes twinkled at Jack, her ebullient smile splitting her face from ear to ear.

It had only been one day since Oliver miraculously awoke from his coma, and Jack didn’t think his mother had stopped grinning once.

The doctors—all five of them—had cautioned against the duchess’s optimism, warning her that Oliver had a long way to go before he’d be fully recovered, but that hadn’t stopped the woman from flitting around the house like she was twenty years younger, completely devoid of worry.

A mother knows , was all she’d told them. A mother knows.

Her confidence was good enough for Jack, which was why he’d started packing.

Unfortunately, his mother had had different plans.

Lady Evelyn giggled in his stern face and continued to rifle through the leather valise on top of his bed.

“Oh, I would love to see you try it, Jackie. You think just because you’ve grown so tall and so big that you can lord over your own mother?

You are sadly mistaken.” With an impish smile, she seized a linen shirt from the bag and chucked it over her shoulder.

Jack’s valet stood in the corner, the tortured man’s shoulders slumping in defeat as the once-crisp garment drifted to the floor.

Glaring at the half-crazed woman, Jack snatched up the shirt and shoved it back in the bag. “Goddammit, Mother!”

The duchess stopped twirling around the room like a devilish sprite to shoot him a withering look.

“Don’t you use that voice with me! And stop thinking you’re going to desert your brother in his time of need.

Just because he’s awake, doesn’t mean you can just hop back on one of your little boats. You will stay here. End of story.”

Jack lowered his head, his jaw clenched so tight he thought it might break. Little boats.

Over the years he’d attempted to explain his shipping business to his mother, and had left a few times thinking she’d actually heard and understood the words that had come from his mouth.

Apparently not. Because the Sutton Shipping Company was anything but little.

With fifteen clippers under his command—and plans to add steamers to the mix—Jack had created a viable business from nothing more than his unflappable will.

Less than nothing, actually. Even when his father had offered to purchase the first ship for him, Jack had different ideas.

He’d never wanted to hear anyone say that someone had given him a leg up, that he was only successful because of his lofty background.

So, in the beginning, his blood, sweat, and tears had been the only capital at his disposal. And he’d made good.

And if he played his cards right, his growth would continue.

With the Navigation Acts repealed, competition was at an all-time high, but so were lucrative contracts.

Jack wouldn’t land them if he whiled away the hours in his brother’s comfy home, shuffling his feet.

He’d been stuck under this roof for one week and already his palms itched, his clothes too tight and scratchy.

London always stifled him. It threatened to put him in a box and make him sing for his supper like all the other second sons.

Lord John might have had to do that.

But Jack Sutton would never.

“Mother,” he sighed, already exhausted by the argument he was sure was coming, “I can’t stay. I have to get back. I know you hate hearing this, but I have to work. I have a job, a company—”

“You have a duty first,” Lady Evelyn snapped, her expression leaving no room for argument.

In her haste, her tenacious mask slipped, and Jack saw the fragile cracks in his mother’s morale.

He clapped his mouth shut. He was a man.

A grown man. He was certainly not afraid of his genteel mother.

But he wasn’t not not afraid of her either, especially when her nerves were as pulled as tight as they were.

There was a reason the ton kowtowed to the duchess, turning to her for guidance and navigation in the choppy, turbulent waters of Society.

The woman’s spine was made of steel; her aptitude for recognizing which way the wind was blowing (usually the direction serving her best) was uncanny.

Jack had always assumed that he’d received his adeptness for leadership from his father. He might have been mistaken.

But everyone had their limits, and Jack surmised that his mother was reaching hers.

Lady Evelyn patted the sides of her head, as if checking to see that her outburst hadn’t upset her demure hairstyle.

She’d had her maid do it differently today, Jack noticed.

Her black hair was pulled back softly, allowing for a couple of hanging curls at each ear.

“It’s not just you, Jackie,” she explained patiently.

“We all have a duty to your brother, to the dukedom. And we will see it through.”

“Oh, yes, the dukedom,” Jack drawled like he’d heard this story before. The delicate dukedom and its constant need to squeeze blood from stone. “It’s a well-oiled ship. It hardly needs both of us. You are perfectly capable of handling everything while Ollie mends.”

His insufferable mother was already shaking her head before he’d finished his sentence.

“No. I have too many responsibilities, on top of helping your brother.” Lady Evelyn raised her hands, ticking items off on her fingers.

“This will be a three-pronged approach. I will see that his house is settled; you will keep his affairs in order; and the girl will see to his heart. Nothing will be left behind. Now, the only way I will leave this room and allow you to pack is if you tell me that you are packing for Sutton Park. Because that is the only place you are going. Surely you can operate your little business from there.”

Little business. Jack growled, shoving his hands in his pockets.

They could go at it all day long, and it would amount to nothing.

There was simply no getting through to his mother when she put on her grande dame voice.

Jack was no better than the simpering debutantes that trembled in his mother’s wake.

Which reminded him …

“Is the girl really coming with us? Certainly, you don’t mean to drag her from her home to play nursemaid in the country for God knows how long.”

Lady Evelyn flashed another winning smile. Clearly, she approved of the “we” in his pathetically defeatist sentence. She spun back to his valise and took out the linen shirt once more, folding it as well as any valet Jack had ever seen. All these years, and the woman still surprised him.

“Of course she will come. I’ve already spoken to her mother.

Lady Weston is a very smart woman—she called my idea genius,” the duchess declared, albeit a tad defensively.

“Ella can use the time to become acquainted with the house…” She shoved the shirt back inside a little too harshly.

“And why wouldn’t she want to play nursemaid to your brother?

He will be her husband, her life now… It is the way it should be. ”

Jack raked a hand through his hair, apprehensive at how to form his next argument. His mother thought she had everything figured out, and she couldn’t be more wrong. “Don’t you think there’s something a little odd about the girl? You haven’t even said anything about what happened in the room.”

“Miss Ella. Address your future sister-in-law with respect, please.”

Jack came up to her side. She avoided his gaze, continuing to rifle through the bag. “He remembered everyone but her.”

The duchess’s voice grew higher, her hands working faster. “That’s not true. He couldn’t remember all of the doctors’ names either. They didn’t think much of it, and neither should you.”

Jack’s exasperation could not be contained any longer. “But at least Ollie knew they were doctors! He had no clue who that girl was.”

Lady Evelyn huffed and turned to face her son, her head tilted in irritation. “What is your point?”

“My point is that…” Jack’s mind went blank. Fuck. “My point is that I don’t trust Miss Ella as far as I can throw her.”

“Why on earth would you want to throw her?”

“You know what I mean,” he growled. “Don’t you think there’s something off about her? Be honest, she’s not the woman you’d expect Olly to settle on.”

The tension around Lady Evelyn’s eyes eased. She looked at her son as if someone had just turned on the lights. “Oh, I see what this is about. You don’t like her,” she accused. “You don’t think she’s good enough for your brother. Do all your fellow sailors know you’re such a snob?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like her! I just…

” Jack trailed off. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to say, nor could he put words to the uncertainty that nagged at him regarding Ella.

But something wasn’t right; he was sure of that.

Jack had been trained to read the stars and track the weather.

He could hear, see, and even feel a storm in the air from the slightest change of wind.

And the second Miss Ella stepped inside the same room as him, everything had shifted.

The earth had tilted. Nothing had felt right.

And he was damned if he wasn’t going to find out why.

Lady Evelyn placed her hand on Jack’s cheek, dragging him from his thoughts.

“Jackie, I understand your concern,” she said softly.

“I know Miss Ella is different than”—her expression clouded—“before. But we have to trust Oliver. He loves her; I am sure of it. And now I’m asking you to love her too. Can you do that?”

*

Jack absolutely hated when Jeremiah Sinclair looked at him like that. His ridiculous spectacles made his disapproving eyes appear two times their normal size. It made a simple frown more like a glare. And Jack had disappointed enough people for one day—namely, himself.