She remained by the refreshment table even as the musicians soared into the opening strains of the next song, engaged in conversation with the ravishing brunette that Nick had admired, whom James recognized as Eleanora Chickering, Lady Ravenhurst.
Next to Lady Ravenhurst, Lady Jillian looked that much more vivid. Her skin was not the delicate pallor he had come to expect amongst the ladies of London, the kind that put him in mind of a patient in a sickbed. She looked bright and sun-kissed, and a scattering of freckles across her cheeks suggested that she spent a good deal of her time out of doors and very little time rubbing bleaching cream over her face to even out her complexion. She was snickering over something as he made his approach, a gentle little hum of satisfaction rising in her throat, dimples carved into her sweetly curved cheeks.
Neither she nor Lady Eleanora paid him any mind, although he was surely well within their realm of sight. Instead they continued to chat amiably as if the world did not exist beyond their pleasant conversation.
He sidled closer.
They continued talking.
He cleared his throat. At last a response; two sets of eyes dragged toward him, both just a bit surprised, as if they truly had forgotten that they were in a crowded ballroom. Lady Jillian’s eyes were a startling green, a peculiar shade just a touch darker than new spring grass. He had the sense that she was not looking at him so much as looking into him. Disconcerting, to say the least.
“I do beg your pardon,” she said, casting a careless smile at him. And she seized Lady Ravenhurst by the arm and shuffled the both of them out of the way.
She thought they were blocking his access to the refreshment table, he realized. He found himself almost offended—he knew without modesty that he was handsome, that ladies sighed over his golden good looks. He was young, rich, and titled; a prize which any marriage-minded lady ought to have sought out.
She ought to have been marriage-minded. She, a woman well out of her first Season, without a husband to show for her efforts. Instead she had dismissed him and disregarded him without a second glance.
“Jilly,” Lady Ravenhurst said in a tone of sly amusement, when James failed to proceed on to the refreshment table. “I do believe His Grace is angling for an introduction.”
“Hm?” Lady Jillian’s head swiveled toward him once again, bewildered. James wondered that she looked so disconcerted by his continued presence. Perhaps he could not frequently be found within the confines of a ballroom, but surely she was aware of him—any woman of marriageable age ought to have been familiar with the Season’s available bachelors. There were only two dukes to be had this year, and one of them was a gouty old gentleman of some fifty years. It seemed beyond comprehension that she would not know him on sight. Someone must have pointed him out to her.
She said nothing, however, only stared in blank consideration as if waiting for him to address her.
Lady Ravenhurst cleared her throat.