“Me neither.” Nora shifted. “I’ve been thinking.”
Daniel’s eyebrows lifted. She could almost see the anxiety tightening around his chest. “Nothing terrible,” she promised. At least, she hoped not. “I think…I think maybe there’s another way.” One that didn’t involve giving up. Or giving in, because she was not signing Adams’s petition or abandoning midwives like Ruth.
“Adams and his colleagues are right. Unlicensed practitioners are dangerous.” She didn’t say that she was happy to lump Adams in with the shamsters, although what kind of care was he offering if he didn’t physically examine his patients?
But Daniel was right. She wouldn’t win a brawl.
“And?” Daniel prompted.
“We’re overrun, Daniel. There aren’t enough doctors to deal with the sickness in London. What doctor wouldn’t be relieved to be spared an eleven-hour delivery?”
“I would,” he admitted. “Especially today. If anyone comes—”
“Our hands are full already.”
“Yes.” He offered a rueful smile. Hope quickened her breathing.
“In Italy, midwives attended the lectures and trained with the doctors.”
“Yes, you’ve told me.”
“So we’re drawing a battle line where we should be greeting an ally. Abolishing a trade when we could train, license, and partner with midwives instead.”
He exhaled in thought, his eyes softening.
“If we could just arrange a discussion,” she began. “A public one people could attend.”
“You mean a spectacle.” He twisted his wedding band around his finger. “That’s risky. For all of us.”
She couldn’t argue. Public lectures and symposia could be volatile events. Her first and last one had been a disaster that spurred her flight to Italy. The discovery that Daniel had lied, taking credit for the hernia surgery that was more Nora’s than his so they could publish their findings, had nearly cost him his career.
“It would be different. I’m licensed now, and we aren’t trying to hide anything. Everything I’d be presenting is backed by the Italian medical establishment. Once doctors learn of the possibilities—”
“If Horace arranges a lecture, doctors will come,” Daniel admitted. “But that would be intentionally gathering a mob that’s already against us.”
Nora pictured the angry doctors circled around her in the lecture theater. “Adams made this dispute public. Maybe we need to use that to our advantage.”
She had another idea, but she was scared to use it.Don’t be a coward.
“I don’t want to keep books for your aunt, but I did think of a way we could collaborate.” It was like offering to partner with a bear—a fierce creature capable of lumbering along benignly until it wasn’t. Nora didn’t want to end up being devoured.
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Suppose she arranged the lecture.”
He said nothing for a long, long moment. Nora couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. “Why do you suggest that?”
“Horace will attract a good number of doctors and scientists. But if the event is organized by your aunt, women will come, too—members of Parliament. And their wives. Women who chair philanthropic societies and—”
“I see what you’re driving at.”
“Yes. And I can explain how training midwives will help doctors and patients. Especially in times like these, when doctors are overtaxed.”
Why wasn’t he grinning as brightly as she was? It was a brilliant tack—capturing all the wind of Adams’s ire and using it to blow her toward her own harbor.
“And we would get Aunt to agree, how?” Daniel asked as he stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. “She’s already offended.”
“You’re her favorite. Surely—”
