Before she could ask, he pressed on. “For every minute we were at odds. For pushing against each other instead of together.”
She inhaled, unsure how to best wipe away the debris of the past months. “I am, too. But it’s done now.” Her forehead creased. “Isn’t it? You’re not angry if I practice—”
He kissed her right where a worried line always burrowed between her eyebrows. “It is. Never again.”
He increased the pressure of his fingers against her stomach, sounding the depths for some movement. “What does it feel like?” he asked.
Nora had never noticed how bright the gold rings in his eyes could shine when he was happy.
She laid her hand over his. “A grasshopper.”
Chapter 44
Nora doubted the efficacy of closing the front door between visitors; they knocked urgently every thirty seconds, demanding entry from the wet, frozen wind. But it wasn’t the weather that made them rap so eagerly. Daniel had two new cadavers—one with a malformed heart and another withered from cholera. He’d promised to reveal their newest cholera treatment and planned to have Nora lecture on the particulars of transfusing Latta’s solution into patients’ veins. Nora had known the lecture would be popular, but not to this extent. She stood at the front door, politely greeting the old doctors who at least pretended decorum and laughing at the students who paid their entry fee by shoving wrinkled notes into her hand and raced each other through the great hall to the surgical theater.
She watched in amusement as one young man nearly slipped on the marble floor and wheeled his arms in erratic circles to stay upright while his fellows mocked him. She was about to call out in pretended sternness to slow down when a sound behind her made her turn back to the cold, open door.
Aunt stood pink-cheeked in the cold, her back stiff and erect as she tapped her cane over the threshold. Nora swore she used it only emphasis, not balance.
“Aunt!” It was too late for society calls with the sun sinkingtoward the rooftops. “What a surprise.” Her handsome carriage decorated the plain street, the driver bundled in a ridiculous amount of fur.
“I was going to check on the child,” Aunt announced, “but I saw the advertisement for the lecture in the paper this morning, and I thought I’d look into that as well. I never endorse a program until I have fully inspected it.”
Nora squinted, taking in Aunt’s silk gloves and fine dress. “I don’t think you understand. It’s a dissection,” Nora warned. “Not simply an academic discussion like at Marylebone.”
“I know,” Aunt said, stepping inside and closing her umbrella with a snap. “I’ve toured every prison in London and many more besides. I think I can manage one doctor’s lecture. The notice never said ‘doctors only.’ It said you and Daniel would both be speaking.” Aunt looked in vain for a maid or footman to take her cane and coat.
Nora quickly took her fur and hung it beside Daniel’s finest. “But I’m sure you wouldn’t enjoy this—”
“I’ve sent you money for six students, and I would like to see how you will educate them,” Aunt repeated, undeterred. “It seems those young people are looking forward to it.” The excited cries of the running students echoed against the tile floors and high ceiling.
Nora grimaced. “Daniel wouldn’t want you to—”
Aunt waved his name away. “I paid for his schooling as well. It’s time I saw what I got him into.”
“Aunt, wait.” Nora quickened her steps through the grand hall, trying to stay in front of the determined woman. “Couldn’t I arrange a different lecture for you? Please?”
“Nora, if you want my money, you must endure my presence occasionally.”
“No. It’s not that. I love your company.” They both paused. She’d gone too far. “Only, please feel free to leave if it disturbs you,” Nora ended feebly. “The students can be a raucous bunch.”
The edgy flock of medical men moaned as Nora elbowed them aside to make room for Aunt as she escorted her to the front row, where Ruth and the other midwives waited with notepads and pencils.
“We came an hour early for these places,” one student protested as Nora motioned him to move back a row, his face too young for anything but scraggly tufts of an incomplete beard.
“And I run this hospital,” Nora shot back. “If you’d like a place at all, I suggest you show some manners and move back a row.”
An older man jabbed a finger toward Aunt Wilcox. “I can’t see over the peacock tail on her head.”
Before Nora could warn the man who he’d just insulted, Aunt turned, her face a good six inches beneath his but void of any fear. She reached up and unpinned her hat. “I am happy to remove my peacock tail, sir.” The man’s expression grew sheepish and embarrassed as she continued, “Perhaps next lecture, you will cut your curly mop shorter for those behindyou.”
Several of the students laughed as the man ran a self-conscious hand through his hair.
Daniel hurried over, alarmed by the disturbance. “Aunt? This is a surprise.”
Nora caught his sleeve, turning him toward the marble-topped demonstration table so she could murmur to himwithout being overheard. “She showed up and insisted on watching the lecture since she’s paying for the new students.”
Daniel blinked twice. “I suppose there’s that. Did you—”
