“That’s why I want you close,” Daniel answered before she finished.
He turned to his aunt, still fossilized in her chair. “It’s safe to go now.”
She stared at his outstretched hand like she’d never seenone before. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” Aunt Wilcox whispered. Her eyes, he saw, were full of tears, dammed by rapid blinks of her short, blond lashes. Her hands fisted together.
“Aunt, don’t,” Daniel protested.
“I’ll take a cab,” she said stiffly. “I’m not—” She shook her head. “This.” She jabbed a rapier-like forefinger at the room, a wide black scorch marring the new wallpaper. “This is what you did. Miss Vaughn—the young lady who nearly burned to death—is supposed to marry next week. Mr. Brandon has been my friend for forty years. Can you honestly tell me he will mend?”
Daniel rolled words over his dry tongue but couldn’t force them out.
“I didn’t think so.”
“We didn’t start this panic,” Nora reasoned.
Daniel tried to catch her attention, to warn her with a shake of his head. This was not the way to comfort his aunt.
“It could have been defused if you’d been just a little self-effacing. If you’d not tried to advance your agenda by scaremongering about cholera.”
Nora blanched.
“She was talking about treating cholera,” Daniel countered. “Dr. Croft only wanted to show—”
“Your Dr. Croft,” Aunt sneered. “You encouraged him.”
Nora shook her head. “You know I only wanted to secure funding to help the midwives.”
“No one will consider that now,” Aunt Wilcox scoffed. “Not if I have anything to say about it. This should have been an uneventful, mildly interesting lecture on the qualificationsof midwives—not a riot. I’ll be exceptionally surprised if I’m ever permitted to organize anything again. In addition to this evening’s casualties, you’ve pummeled my reputation.”
Nora’s lips thinned. Before she could answer, Daniel jumped in. “Adams started the battle. What were we to do?”
Aunt pulled her mouth into a severe line. “Respond with dignity and restraint.”
“I think I did,” Nora said. “My aims—”
“Are finished,” Aunt Wilcox interrupted cruelly.
Daniel’s heart twisted as Nora bit her lip, but he couldn’t think of anything helpful to say. He disagreed with his aunt on many points, but he couldn’t dispute her on this one. This lecture, this attempt at enlisting support, wasn’t just a failure; it was a catastrophe.
As Aunt Wilcox tried to move past, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “How do you propose to travel home?” he asked quietly. “I must be sure you are safe.”
“I’m safer on my own than near you two.” She sniffed. “Leave me alone.” On that, she swept out, leaving them to stare after her.
They were not alone in the vast hall. A few remained amid the broken lamps and overturned chairs. But no one felt like speaking, and Nora looked done in, defeated.
“If I ever consider another public lecture again,” Nora said quietly, “please talk me out of it.”
Chapter 33
For a week, Nora avoided the clinic as adamantly as the stacks of mail and the papers delivered twice a day. If the hallboy appeared, she remembered urgent business in the dispensary or notes she needed to review. Only in the evening, alone, could she bear to glance at the news, privately imbibing sensational accounts of the lecture, stampede, and fire.
For days, it seemed like the London papers spoke of nothing else, despite mounting cholera deaths and intrigues abroad. Daniel’s tactful inquiries revealed that Miss Vaughn and Mr. Brandon were making slow recoveries, but that was small comfort.
Nora hadn’t expected a procession of admirers after her lecture, but a fiery conflagration was abysmal luck, even for her. After days of refusing to see patients, no one—not even Daniel—attempted to ban her from the cholera ward. Instead, they softly coaxed her to return to work, perhaps deeming the risk of infection less harmful than spending her empty hours reliving the spectacular humiliation.
The first time she had shuffled into the large, overfilled ward, Daniel looked up with something resembling relief.
“Here,” he had said, passing her a nursery book. “Amelia wants me to read it again, but she’ll like it much better coming from you.”
