The night air was fragrant, redolent with the lingering scent of the flowers, and he eased her over to the bench, settling his hands on her shoulders to push her down onto it.
“Breathe,” he said, curving his gloved hands over her slender shoulders. “I doubt you’ve managed a full breath since Lord Kirkland had the poor taste to show his face.”
The mere mention of her former fiancé caused her to draw up with tension, her shoulders setting stiffly beneath the light pressure of his hands. “I suppose I must thank you,” she said awkwardly, her eyes fixed somewhere over his shoulder.
“Nonsense,” he said. “If you’ll recall, we made a bargain. Provided you intend to honor it, you owe me no thanks.”
“Not—not for that,” she said. “For...not letting him speak to me.”
“That was my pleasure,” he said, and surprised himself with honesty. Lord Kirkland had deserved that and more. He was a fool to expect that he could abandon Lady Jillian for greener pastures and then simply insinuate himself into her life once more. He was a fool to think that Jillian might have waited for him, that simply because she was yet unmarried meant anything more than that she had not yet found someone she cared enough for to risk her heart on once again. Lord Kirkland had broken it in the first place; James found it beyond comprehension that he had dared even return to London, much less to seek her out.
Jillian’s hands had fluttered to her temples, rubbing fiercely as if a headache had settled in. She looked beyond exhausted, like she carried the weight of the whole world on her shoulders. He knew she was likely dreading her eventual return to the ballroom, dreading the fact that the threat presented by Lord Kirkland would likely still be there. She had not escaped it, merely delayed it for a time.
James could not afford the sympathy that wrenched his heart—that sort of emotion would be ruinous to his plans. He steeled himself against the wretched sorrow written across her face that she attempted to hide from him within the confines of her gloved hands, reminded himself that he was ten times the villain that Lord Kirkland was. And still something in him wished only to comfort her, to erase the desolation on her face.
She had curled in on herself as if to guard her heart against a coming blow. He suspected she had no idea what she looked like, that she wouldn’t have risked exposing herself in this manner to him if she had. She counted him just as much of a danger to her, and she was right to do so.
He dropped down onto the bench next to her, stripped off his gloves and crammed them into his pocket. In the shadows her hair looked darker, the bright amber deepened to auburn. A few of those precariously-arranged ringlets had been tossed free, slipping over her shoulder in a wayward sprawl.