The Courtesan. Julia Justiss

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СКАЧАТЬ me in Curzon Street and I’ll check him again this afternoon.”

      Belle opened her mouth to deny the relationship, then closed it. There seemed no reason to correct the doctor’s misapprehension and make this incident more embarrassing for the captain than it was already bound to be.

      “Thank you very much, Doctor,” she said instead.

      Hauling himself to his feet, Thompson laughed and shook his head. “Pricked in a fencing match! You’d think he would have gotten his fill of that in Belgium. Doubtless he’ll soon recover and go haring off on some other fool stunt, causing you to doubt your joy at his deliverance. I shall see you this afternoon, ma’am.”

      With Ludlowe and Darnley echoing Belle’s thanks, the doctor departed. “Signore Armaldi, have you anything that can be fashioned into a litter?” Belle asked.

      “Sì, mia Bella, I go prepare it,” the fencing master said. Gathering his assistant, he walked out, leaving Belle alone with the injured captain and his friends.

      “Where should he be conveyed?” she asked them.

      Darnley and Ludlowe exchanged glances. “I’m afraid that’s a bit of a problem, ma’am,” Darnley replied. “Jack just arrived back in England and is staying in borrowed rooms. His family is still at their country home, and at present, he hasn’t even a valet to attend him.”

      “I suppose my valet could undertake Jack’s care,” Ludlowe said, “though he has no experience in a sickroom.”

      “I’ve nothing better to offer,” Darnley said with a frown. “My mother would gladly take up the task, but she, too, is not yet in London. I suppose we could ask the physician to recommend a competent nurse, but…”

      Both men stared at her. A panicky foreboding added to the mix of fear, regret and worry churning in her gut.

      Though she would be more than willing to pay for the services of a competent nurse, it would be unconscionable to send the captain back with only a hired stranger to watch over him. ’Twould be best for his own family to supervise his care. But in the absence of his relations, his friends clearly expected her to volunteer for the task.

      “I…I have some sickroom experience,” she admitted. “However, I am sure that his family, who will be most distressed to learn of his injuries, would be even more upset to find he was being tended by one of my…reputation.”

      “They’d be more upset to find he’d died from lack of care,” Darnley said bluntly.

      It isn’t fair, she thought despairingly, torn by guilt and anxiety. Not now, when she could at last begin searching for something that might lay to rest the torments of the past and offer her peace—or absolution. She’d rather introduce a viper into her house than invite the disturbing captain to reside within her walls.

      At present, though, his ability to disturb her would be limited. Besides, she could not escape the fact that, having been the cause of his injury, she must do whatever she could to assist in his recovery. Though she dreaded what she must say next, she knew there was no alternative.

      “Transport him to my house. I shall manage the captain’s care until the doctor declares him well enough to be moved to a more…suitable location.”

      “Thank you, ma’am,” Darnley said quietly. “I know how great an imposition this will be, and if there were any other practical alternative, I should embrace it. You will be doing Captain Carrington a very great kindness.”

      “I sincerely doubt, when they hear of it, that the ladies of his family will agree,” Belle replied grimly.

      To her surprise, Darnley smiled. “His mother, Lady Anne, is a fair and reasonable lady who will feel only appreciation for the kind woman who assisted her son.”

      Even the infamous Lady Belle? Belle shook her head. “Let us hope the captain’s sojourn in my care will be brief enough to escape general notice.”

      Darnley made no reply, but Belle knew, as his friends must also, that such a hope was vain. The titillating news that Lady Belle had wounded a soldier in a fencing match would by midday have become the ton’s latest on-dit. The information concerning that soldier’s current location probably wouldn’t remain secret much longer.

      Captain Carrington would just have to deal with the problem later, Belle thought with a sigh. One could only hope that his mother had the strength of mind Lord Darnley claimed—and that he didn’t have a fiancée waiting somewhere with a tendency to be missish.

      Grimacing at the sticky residue of blood on her hands, Belle wiped them on her ruined trousers. “Gentlemen, with your leave, I will go make myself presentable. Ask Armaldi’s staff to have my coach made ready. I’ll return shortly to help you transport Captain Carrington. Thank you again for your prompt assistance.”

      Darnley and Ludlowe bowed. “Jack is one of my oldest friends. I would do anything for him,” Darnley affirmed.

      Including never forgiving someone who’d done him an injury, Belle thought as she walked out.

      Pensively Belle paced back to the small room Armaldi allotted her as a dressing chamber, thankful that an errand had prevented Mae from accompanying her this morning. As she rang for a maid to assist her, another sigh escaped as she considered what her excitable companion would have to say once she learned of this morning’s work.

      A few moments later, suitably dressed and outwardly composed, Belle returned to help Armaldi and the captain’s friends carefully convey his still-unconscious body into Belle’s waiting carriage. Settling herself beside him, she ordered the coachman to drive them slowly home.

      Though she tried to close her mind to the possible consequences of having the captain under her roof, as she gazed at Carrington’s pale expressionless face, Belle knew the queasiness in her gut was only partly due to the shock of the morning’s events and the stench of blood lingering in her nostrils.

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