He gave her a fleeting smile. “I came to see if you needed help so you can freshen up before dinner. Where’s Horace?”
Nora huffed. “Lord knows. I thought he’d be back with you. I’m changing Mrs. Hooper’s bandages and then I need to give her a dose of laudanum. I think we can safely decrease the concentration. I probably won’t have time to come to dinner. You can tell Mrs. Phipps to leave me a tray.” She stepped into the dispensary and opened the closet where they stored all their sheets and bandages.
“Don’t forget to write those down for Mrs. Hooper’s bill.” Daniel nodded toward the open book that she’d pushed to one side of the nearby work table. He was constantly urging Nora and Horace to use it more faithfully.
She displayed her heavily laden arms. “I can hardly writewith my hands full,” she pointed out.
“I’ll put it on the ledger for you,” he offered.
“Or—” Nora tamped down on her words, certain it was the heat melting her tolerance into a thin puddle, not her husband. “You could help me change the bandage and I’ll record it when we’re done.”
Daniel lifted an eyebrow in acknowledgment of her tone but said nothing. Nora thought longingly of the cadaver’s ice room. She’d happily eat her dinner with him instead.
“How was the lecture?” Daniel asked, his voice maddeningly calm as he recorded the supplies in his precise handwriting.
She’d been trying to forget. “Hardly my best,” she admitted.
“I heard.” He put his hands into his pockets and looked at her expectantly—too much like a schoolmaster who’d asked for an explanation.
You’re just prickly today, she told herself.He’s not criticizing.“What do you mean, you heard?”
“Adams and Howe came to Bart’s afterward. They were discussing it. Energetically.”
Her chest seared as she held her breath—the same paralyzing heat that gripped her whenever she’d failed.
Had they discussed it privately with Daniel, or broadcast their complaints to a room full of doctors?
It wouldn’t be the first time this had happened. “And?” she asked stiffly.
Daniel’s brow creased. “They claim you turned the lecture over to a midwife.”
The heat reached her face, a torrent of words coming with the rush of blood. “I did notturn it over. I asked a question, andshe answered.”
In her mind’s eye she replayed Mrs. Franklin at the dissection table, explaining the birthing position as she held the crude model of the baby.Perhaps it was more than just an answered question…
“Might want to tweak your methods,” Daniel suggested. “Adams, in particular, wasn’t happy deferring to untrained midwives.”
“Adams isn’t happy deferring to anyone,” Nora pointed out, though she hardly knew the man. She knew only that he refused to discuss his methods—including the use of short forceps—selling them exclusively to a tiny selection of high-paying students, while she worked endless hours in a charity hospital.
She glanced at the open ledger—nothing entered yet today. She ought to remember to charge for things. “I assure you, Mrs. Franklin is well trained in the matter under discussion.”
Daniel held back a reply, doubt in his eyes. “Adams did attend your lecture and pay for your expertise. Wouldn’t you say that was liberal of him?”
“Should I write him a thank-you note?”
Daniel glanced up at her, the air growing almost as hard as the brass mortar and pestle resting between them. “Don’t be like that.” He sighed. “You have doctors willing to listen to you because of your expertise, but asking them to attend a lecture from a neighborhood woman—”
“I didn’t—”
“They seemed to think you did.”
“And what did Horace say?”
Daniel shifted his head. “He reminded them the value of agood midwife.”
“As you should have done!” Nora sensed tears marshaling along her eyelashes, threatening to charge.
“Nora.” His voice softened. “I’m not trying to make you cry. It’s just…you don’t need to make enemies, especially of doctors willing to listen to you. I’m certain if you reach out and explain to Adams that it won’t happen again—”
