The Courtesan. Julia Justiss

      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.