"Looking for more patients, Stafford? Old ones, with many ailments?"
"No." He gestured toward three mature women standing in a tight cluster. "I'm looking for dance partners for my mother and her sisters, Lady Avonleigh and Lady Balmforth."
"Dance partners?" Juliana asked, her interest piqued. "Or possible suitors?"
"My sister fancies herself a matchmaker," Griffin explained.
"I do not," she retorted. "I simply try to help people. I endeavor to make people happy."
"A noble undertaking," Lord Stafford assured her. "However, I'm not looking for husbands for my mother and aunts. Dance partners will do."
Lord Malmsey came to mind, but although he was too old for Amanda, he was too young for Lord Stafford's mother. And besides, she'd already decided he belonged with Aunt Frances.
"May I borrow your quizzing glass?" she asked.
Instead of taking it off, Lord Stafford handed it to her with the long chain still around his neck. She leaned closer to raise it to her left eye. He smelled not of costly eau de cologne but of something closer to soap.
Very male soap.
A quick scan of the room through the quizzing glass revealed a few likely dance partners for his relations, and she wasted no time corralling them and introducing them to the three women. Not five minutes later, she stood hip to hip with Lord Stafford, the two of them watching his mother and aunts perform a quadrille.
Or at least they would have been hip to hip had he not been so overly tall.
"That," Lord Stafford said, looking a little stunned, "was impressive."
Juliana shrugged, much the same as he had when she'd remarked that he'd saved Lord Neville's life. "I'm good at what I do."
"You certainly are." The musicians finished the quadrille and struck up a lilting waltz. "May I have this dance?" he suddenly asked.
Although she would rather have danced again with the duke, it wouldn't be seemly to refuse. So she said, "It would be my pleasure."
When he took her hand, a peculiar flutter erupted in her middle. That had nothing to do with him, of course. It was just because everything was going so well. She'd found the duke, and Amanda had her pick of young suitors, and Lord Malmsey was going to fall head over heels for Aunt Frances. She might even be able to match Lord Stafford's mother and aunts with eligible widowers this season, no matter that he only wanted them to dance. All of her projects were beginning to work.
No, that flutter had nothing to do with Lord Stafford. She had no interest in him whatsoever. In fact, he might well be the ideal man for Amanda. He was a doctor, after all, and Amanda wasn't sickened by blood. She would make him a good wife. And Amanda was tall, so the two of them would look excellent together.
And perhaps she, Juliana, would be a duchess! She could already picture herself walking down the aisle with the duke.
She glanced up to find Lord Stafford staring at her again, like he had last week when they'd danced. And again she found that unnerving. He seemed a very intense sort of man.
She wracked her brain for something to say that would get him talking instead of staring. "I missed you at Almack's last Wednesday."
His chocolate eyes widened. "You missed me?"
She hadn't meant it like that. "You weren't there. Do you not like Almack's?"
James abhorred the very idea of the place—it was a veritable marriage mart, the men in attendance little more than targets for young girls and their scheming mamas—but he wouldn't say that to Juliana. "My mother obtained a voucher for me," he said instead, which was nothing less than the truth, "but there was trouble at the Institute that night, so I was unable to attend."
That was nothing less than the truth as well, although another truth was that he'd have found a different excuse to back out had that one not presented itself.
"How unfortunate," she said. "I hope the trouble wasn't too dreadful."
"A shortage of staff. I had to fill in myself, as well as interview new candidates."
"What sort of staff were you looking for? Did you find anyone?"
Given her inclination toward helping people, he wouldn't be surprised should she offer to find someone for him. "I needed a young woman to act as an assistant. To keep the physicians well supplied and make sure the patients are seen as quickly and efficiently as possible. And yes, I found someone. I wouldn't be here tonight if I hadn't."
Her blue-green eyes narrowed. "You would work on a Saturday evening?"
"Smallpox doesn't know the day of the week; we must immunize as many as possible. And working people cannot visit during normal working hours. When I'm in town, New Hope is open from ten o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock at night, every day except Sunday."
Most shops kept the same hours, so he wondered why she looked so disapproving. And he wished she didn't. Because, truthfully, the more he saw of her, the more he liked her. She was so full of good intentions and the liveliness that had been missing from his life.
He realized, quite suddenly, that Anne's face wasn't shimmering before his eyes. In fact, he hadn't thought about Anne at all while dancing with Juliana. Not for the barest moment. Although Juliana couldn't be more different from Anne—his wife had been a very serious young lady—he could almost imagine marrying her.
Almost. But not quite. Because he'd want to fall in love with her first, and that wasn't going to happen.
Even should he someday feel ready to fall in love—even should he someday manage to get over the notion that it would be too much of a betrayal—love would never happen with Juliana. She wasn't right for him, no matter how appealing he found her. Although she might be "good at what she did," what she did was entirely too frivolous for a man of his demeanor.
But she felt rather good in his arms. In the light from the
