Page 20 of Match Made in Heaven (The Cricket Club #5)

“W ell, ladies, my husband is giving me that look that means I’ve overstayed my welcome.

” Myfanwy gingerly lifted herself from her chair.

Ella couldn’t complain. This late in the afternoon, the tavern was filling up with men making their nightly stops before returning home for the day.

She’d stretched her time with the club as long as she could, but she had to leave if she was going to make it back to Sutton Park for dinner, as she’d promised.

Myfanwy leveled her with a hard look. “We’ll see you next week, yes?” she said, arching a sharp brow.

Ella laughed. “Absolutely. I will be at practice. I promise.”

Beatrice stood up as well, smoothing down her skirts. “And be sure to come prepared with more stories about the duke. You were much too tight-lipped today.”

Anna rolled her eyes, placing a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “What my little sister means to say is that we all want to make sure that he’s on the mend.”

“And,” Beatrice interjected, “we want to know what it is you two talk about, and what makes him laugh, and what he likes to get up to in the middle of the night when no one’s watching.”

Ella snorted. “The man can’t even get out of bed on his own steam, and you want to know his nighttime proclivities?”

Beatrice’s eyes sparked. “Yes, please.”

“All right now,” Anna said, pointing her sister toward the exit. “That’s our cue to go. It was lovely seeing you all. Ella, please forget everything Bea just asked and remember that we’re not all sinful voyeurs.”

Myfanwy scoffed. “Speak for yourself.” Ella’s shock stopped her. “What? The meeting is over. I don’t mind gossiping about rakish dukes when the cricket is out of the way.”

The rest of the ladies said their goodbyes, each giving Myfanwy commiserating pats on the arm as they filed past.

Ella swiveled her head around the tavern, her eyes watering from the pungent sting of smoke and hops. “Is Samuel there?” she asked. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“Thank you, dear, but he’s right over there,” Myfanwy said, pointing at the far side of the bar where the cricket star stood wearing a bored, dejected expression, sandwiched between two younger men who were obviously rabid fans.

In the short time Ella watched, the young men hadn’t stopped talking once, their ruddy faces bright with amazement and the effects of too much alcohol.

“The man has become my shadow. He’s never far,” Myfanwy added.

Ella noticed that Myfanwy didn’t sound remotely upset about this fact of married life.

In fact, her tone was almost shyly proud.

Ella wondered what it must feel like to have someone so attuned to her, someone who wanted to know where she was and whom she was with.

It didn’t seem at all suffocating, like the way Ella’s mother always manufactured her schedule.

Quite the opposite—it seemed sweet and beautiful.

“Well, then take care.” Ella smiled to herself, gathering her reticule. She maneuvered around the round, unfinished tables, apologizing whenever her voluminous skirts knocked against an elbow or a thigh.

She was almost in the clear when a hand lashed out, clutching her elbow in a soft, forceful manner.

“I’m sorry—” she began before her stomach leapt up into her throat.

Jack Sutton stared up at her from his seat, his expression blank. He tilted his head, his blue eyes studying her as if she were an artifact in a museum. And then his jaw clenched, and his face wasn’t so unreadable anymore.

He took a pull of his drink and slowly stood, keeping his hand on Ella so she couldn’t run away. “If you had a hankering for more sherry, Miss Ella, I’m sure you didn’t have to come all the way to London to get it.”

*

When Jack’s grip relented, Ella took her opening.

Yanking her arm free, she spun on her heels straight for the door, praying the man wouldn’t cause a scene.

He might. She didn’t know him well enough to say otherwise.

The man wore a gold earring, was roguishly good looking, and had no manners.

She didn’t care what he said—that meant pirate.

And didn’t pirates spend their afternoons drinking in taverns before demolishing them with silly brawls?

Ella hit the sticky summer air and could finally take a breath.

She inflated her lungs, her feet never stopping.

The carriage was only a few yards down the path, and she gazed upon it like it was nothing short of salvation.

If she could just get inside, she could use the next hour or so formulating a way to explain why she’d been in the Flying Batsman surrounded by day laborers and ordinary, everyday men.

A more courageous woman might have halted and just told Jack about the cricket club and Myfanwy’s condition and Samuel’s sweet deference, but that woman didn’t know him. Jack needed the hour to cool off. They both did.

However, the moment Ella heard the telltale slap of determined footsteps behind her, she knew salvation would not be hers that afternoon.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” Jack’s voice wafted over her shoulder, polite and casual. Ella shuddered.

Two could play that game. “I have to get back,” she replied, proud that her voice didn’t fall off until the very end. “I promised your mother.”

Jack was closer now. His scent captured her before his hands could.

Spicy with a tangy hint of pine. Ella was amazed at how quickly she’d become accustomed to it.

Jack always smelled like he’d just finished sanding or polishing wood.

Even with her nerves as frayed as they were, Ella could appreciate that.

“Did you also tell my mother that you were spending your afternoon in a tavern?”

Ella’s skirts flared as she twirled to face him.

For a swift second, Jack gave her pause.

He wasn’t as indifferent as he’d tried to sound.

A far cry from how he appeared inside the dark tavern, there was now an intensity to his form, a hardness to his mouth.

He reminded Ella of an animal who’d been biting his tether, with only inches remaining until freedom.

“I was not drinking. Or I was . Tea. Tea. We only drink tea,” she stammered, attempting to snatch one thought in her whirling mind and make it make sense.

Jack stretched his neck to each side, once more gently taking her arm. Four long strides were all it took to reach the carriage, and in something that was becoming a habit, he whipped open the door and dropped her inside.

Grumbling, Ella straightened her skirts and made herself presentable while she heard him holler at another carriage, instructing it to follow behind.

What was he doing in London? When she’d left this morning, she’d been under the impression that he was staying in, ignoring her from afar, as he always did.

In all the taverns in all of London, how in the world had he ended up at this one?

Unfortunately, Ella’s questions would have to wait. When Jack settled in his seat, bearing down on her with yet another disappointing glower, she understood that she would not be the one making inquiries anytime soon.

“Well?” he asked, crossing his arms.

Ella pushed her spine up against the back of her seat. As was his custom, Jack splayed his thighs wide; he took up most of the room between them, and something deep inside Ella desperately warned her not to touch him.

Nevertheless, his knee still skimmed hers, forcing Ella to jerk away. The more room she gave up, the more he decided to take.

She lifted her chin in the air. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I was at a cricket club meeting—”

Jack snorted. “I don’t know much about ladies and their little clubs, but I do know they don’t usually host them in taverns.”

Little clubs. Ella seethed.

“ Shockingly , there’s much you don’t know, my lord,” Ella said, enjoying the way her words caused his brows to slash across his forehead like knives.

“If you knew anything about me, you would know that my cricket club coach is Mr. Samuel Everett.” She tore the shade back from the window and pointed outside to the tavern fading into the distance.

“He is the owner of the Flying Batsman. Ordinarily, we meet elsewhere, but seeing as his wife is in a delicate condition, he wouldn’t allow her to go anywhere without him today.

He needed to be at the tavern, which meant that she needed to be at the tavern, which meant that we needed to be at the tavern.

I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s hardly the nefarious interlude you think it is.

I know you’re desperate to catch me out in something, but this isn’t it. ”

Daintily, and with great care, Ella stacked her prim, kid-gloved hands on her lap, batting her eyes in a demure, patronizing fashion.

“Now, if I may ask, what were you doing at the Flying Batsman? It hardly seems like the type of establishment that you would frequent. I thought with your line of work you’d only deign to drink at the taverns along the docks with the rest of your kind. ”

“My kind? Hmm.” Jack’s laugh was joyless. “You think I should be with the rest of the good-for-nothing sea dogs down by the docks?”

Ella shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. Forget I said anything—”

“No, keep going, please,” he urged, sinker farther into his seat. “Thieves and murders, men running away from things, criminals hiding from their pasts. That’s what the docks mean to you, am I right? Low-life men who don’t have two coins to rub together—”

“Actually,” Ella cut in, “I meant cricket.”

“What?”

Ella threw up her hands. “The Flying Batsman is primarily a cricket bar. Only men who want to spend their afternoons, and nights— and sometimes mornings—discussing the game in avid, minute detail go there.” She paused, peering up at the stumped man from under her lashes. “Do you… you enjoy cricket, my lord?”

“Fuck no, I don’t enjoy cricket,” he said gruffly, running a hand over his face.

“Why not?”