Page 16 of Match Made in Heaven (The Cricket Club #5)

Fuck. Sometimes, Jack forgot just how much sea life had shaped him. He’d thought wading back into his old world would be seamless. Judging by the pink creeping up Ella’s neck, he could see it was not.

“Please forgive me—”

“How do you know?” Ella asked, cutting him off. She tugged on her lower lip, and while admiring that little habit, it hit Jack—she wasn’t offended. She was curious. And embarrassed by her own curiosity.

“I noticed a while ago,” he admitted gruffly. “Once, when I was visiting, I saw him go into her room in the middle of the night. After my father died, of course.”

Ella’s eyes jumped all over his face. It wasn’t a caress, but Jack could feel her all the same as she searched him. “Do you mind their…”

“That my uncle is sleeping with his dead brother’s wife?

” Jack flexed his jaw and watched his mother.

Always aware of appearances, the duchess never slipped.

Her smiles were never too wide, her laughter never too loud.

But her eyes always made their way back to Uncle Andrew as if there were an imaginary string between them.

His uncle was a soft-spoken, unassuming man.

Weak, Jack’s father had called him, but not with malice.

He’d said it the same way a man would say it was cold outside. It was fact.

But facts could mean different things to different people. And it was obvious that the duchess didn’t share her late husband’s judgment.

“No,” Jack replied plaintively, finally answering a question he’d asked himself over the years. “He makes her happy.”

They fell into another silence. A companionable one.

Jack took another drink of wine. His mouth was parched. Everything about him felt parched. He wasn’t the one who was supposed to be divulging. But there was something about Ella, something that made him want to tell her things.

And she wasn’t done with him. Unlike Jack, she waited until the roasted chicken, sauteed carrots, and roasted potatoes were in front of them before she struck.

“I will give you that your uncles are a little… eccentric, but even that’s hardly unusual in families like ours,” Ella began diplomatically, pausing to load her fork with food.

Jack watched in rapt attention as she stacked a small piece of dark chicken, a bit of carrot, and a splash of potato before inserting it in her mouth.

She closed her eyes as she chewed. Jack fisted his hand in his lap, just waiting for her to moan.

She didn’t. It was for the best. Ella opened her eyes to find him staring at her.

Eyelashes flickering, she hurried to finish her thought. “Why do you loathe them so much?”

Jack’s throat tightened as she began to load her fork once more. She was such a tiny thing. He’d assumed she ate like a bird, but this blatant passion for food confused him. And charmed him.

His Adam’s apple bobbed over his necktie. “I, ah, hardly loathe them. To be honest, I don’t have much feeling for them either way.”

“That’s not true,” she countered. “Their presence seems to upset you. Why?”

“Because they’ve always been here,” he spat.

“Always. My father felt guilty that their father never gave them anything, so he allowed them to stay when he became duke. They never pushed themselves, never wanted more than my father’s handouts.

Living off another’s generosity and benevolence…

” He sneered down at his untouched plate.

“Hm.”

Jack glanced up to see Ella piling her fork again, this time wearing a smug, self-satisfied expression.

“ Hm? ” he asked.

She shrugged.

He wouldn’t let it go. “Why hm ?”

She chewed thoughtfully. “Just explains a lot, that’s all.”

“A lot of what?”

Pointing her fork at him, she drew a small circle in the air. “A lot of you.” She went back to cutting her meat. Jack racked his brain, and he couldn’t remember anyone putting so much thought and attention into eating before.

Ella went on. “You know, not everyone has a voracious need to conquer the world. Not everyone is like you.”

“Damn right they’re not.”

She rolled her eyes. “Most people don’t have your ambition.”

“What do you know about most people?” Jack asked, slightly taken aback by the vehemence in his tone. “You’re a viscount’s daughter. And you’re barely out of the nursery. What the hell do you know about anything?”

That comment got another eye roll—a slower one this time—as well as an icy glare. “I know things… I read.”

Jack guffawed, though he stopped when she saw the hurt flit across her face. It was there and gone, but he caught it all the same. She’d mentioned reading before. Adventure stories, wasn’t it? Tales about shipwrecks and… and cannibals.

He eyed Ella’s hands as she tried for another bite.

They were still splattered with pink splotches, but not nearly as red and swollen as before.

He hadn’t gotten around to asking her about them, if they were a constant source of pain.

He’d have to add it to his ever-growing list of what he didn’t know about this woman. For another day.

Ella’s fork trembled as she raised it to her mouth. Her chewing had lost its zeal. Because of him.

Jack sighed, forcing the irritation to drain out of him.

“Oh, I, ah, well, I thought you should know,” he started conversationally, pausing for her to look up.

She didn’t. Served him right. “If cannibals are keeping you from exploring the West Indies, you shouldn’t let them.

I’ve sailed there more times than I can count, and I’ve never come across any.

That’s not to say there aren’t cannibals but…

” He bobbed his shoulders. “I wouldn’t let it worry me if I were you. ”

Ella’s eyes remained down at her plate. “That’s good to know,” she said quietly. “I suppose you thought my worries childish.”

“Not at all. I’ve known many men with the same concerns before venturing out.” Jack admired the color that crept back into her cheeks. The shape of her lips as she released a silent, steadying breath.

Once more, he caught himself speaking after he’d told himself to quit. “I don’t know anything about nunneries, so I can’t help you on that front; however, books shouldn’t be an issue either.”

Finally, her eyes collided with his. Jack offered a shy smile.

“So, no need to worry on that account. Sailors are always leaving books and picking up new ones. I once found a copy of Dante’s Inferno when visiting the Sandwich Islands.

Stumbled upon it while I was hiking to a waterfall I’d heard about.

And there it was. On the other side of the world. ”

Ella’s lips parted into a smile that made Jack miserably warm. “Did you take it?”

“Fuck no, I hate that bloody book. I left it for the next miserable bastard.”

There it was. That giggle again.

It made the whole bloody night worth it.

It also served as a warning: rough waters ahead.

Jack’s favorite.