Horace lectured at Bart’s as well, but Harry had too many enemies there. Working in London, amid so many competing egos and theories, wasn’t easy for anyone.
“I’m taking my first patient right now,” Daniel said. “She and I are going to the kitchen to forage for suitable nutrition. Then I’m putting her in one of the cages outside. It’s warm enough for a tropical animal. She’ll be more comfortable there than in our room.”
Nora approved of removing the wombat, but said, “I must prepare for my obstetric lecture, and I can’t cover rounds here. I invited a guest to attend.”
“We’ve got a bone spur removal at noon.” Horace sniffed huffily into his tea, probably smarting over Daniel’s gibe at his failings as a naturalist. “What guest?”
“Harry can tackle the bone spur,” Daniel said, shifting his struggling burden. “And yes, what guest?”
Harry wasn’t at breakfast. Most likely on a call. He’d love this, though, so Nora faithfully committed the details to memory to share later.
“Harry bloody well cannot!” Horace snorted. “He’ll take the whole heel off.”
“Horace,” Nora said in the level warning tone normally reserved for their carriage mare when she pinned back herears.
“Harry was out half the night withyourpatients,” Julia told them, and the unusual sternness in her voice turned Horace’s belligerent face contrite. “And he left early this morning to rebandage the Thompkins girl. If you speak of my husband, I expect your tone to drip with gratitude.”
Nora’s smile quirked on one side as she waited for Horace’s reaction. Horace conveniently forgot his truce with Harry at least once a day.
Harry Trimble—Daniel’s best friend since they had met as students at the Sorbonne—had joined their household along with his wife, Julia, the previous year. Horace never liked reminders of how close they’d been to losing this place following his stroke, or how much he owed to Harry’s timely financial investment. Without Harry’s money, they’d never have been able to stave off the banks.
The past was a crooked, thorny road when it came to Harry. Presuming on their friendship, Daniel had lied and named Harry as his assistant in a hernia surgery that Nora had performed. He’d done it to protect her. If anyone had discovered Nora had cut into a living man, she’d have been at the mercy of the courts. Under normal circumstances, Harry would have happily, perhaps theatrically, taken credit. Tragically, he’d been performing a different illegal surgery the same night—an abortion on a seventeen-year-old girl named Julia who had attempted to kill herself when she discovered she was pregnant. Harry could only protect one woman, and he chose the woman who would later become his wife.
Harry had been forced to reveal Nora to the medicalcommunity, driving her to Bologna and nearly costing Horace his career—a debt difficult to pay off in money alone. But he had managed it by taking over much of the work Horace could no longer do—long days of patient calls and surgeries, in addition to seeing a large caseload of district patients.
Humbling himself—something he never did for anyone other than Julia—Horace ducked his head. “Quite right. I’m sorry, Julia.”
Nora and Daniel exchanged a silent laugh.
“What guest did you invite, Nora?” Horace asked, pushing the focus away from his own surrender.
“Mrs. Franklin.”
“The midwife?” Julia’s head snapped up. “To a medical lecture? With the physicians and surgeons?”
“Yes.”
Perplexed frowns and silence all around.
“And what’s wrong with that?” Nora demanded.
“Nothing,” Daniel offered. “But will she be able to make sense of the terminology? Midwifery is not scientific—”
“Precisely,” Nora shot back. “Think of what she accomplishes with experience and intuition alone. And think of what she could do if trained. She wants to learn to use short forceps.”
Horace’s teacup landed with a clatter. “You put those tongs into the wrong hands, and you’ll have a headless baby.”
“You always say Mrs. Franklin is more skilled than most doctors,” Nora argued.
“She is,” Horace agreed. “And I’d take her over nearly any student at Bart’s. But you said yourself she works by good senseand long experience, not science.”
“Maybe it’s time we combine them.” Nora exhaled, disappointed in their responses.
“It’s an interesting idea. You can tell us about the results at supper,” Daniel conceded, without relinquishing the wombat. “But we need to sort out a meal for this creature.”
Nora frowned skeptically. “You don’t have time to play with the wombat.” There were nine women, three children, and one elderly man waiting in the two wards on the other side of the house.
Daniel’s eyes widened. “Play? I’m saving a life.”
