“And your human patients?” Nora tilted her head.
“I don’t think you can pass off rounds here to Harry when he gets back,” Julia said. “He’s been out all night.”
“I’ll do both,” Daniel promised. The delay would almost certainly make him late to St. Bart’s, but there he did have the luxury of a team of student apprentices—dressers—who’d manage things in his absence. “There aren’t that many to tend today.”
Since Nora’s return from Italy, the patient wards here had never been full—not like the crowded wards in London’s teaching hospitals. But she wasn’t permitted there.
That didn’t mean she could manage everything on her own, though.
“Daniel, my patients—”
“They’ll have to wait while I attend to an important foreign ambassador.”
The bag gave a low grunt. “It will be fine,” he promised, grinning so widely that the knot eased in her chest.
It will be fine, she repeated to herself as he hurried awayto the kitchen. Mrs. Phipps rose and followed him with rapid steps. “Don’t you put Cook out. If we lose her, we’ll starve.”
Unable to resist, Julia followed, sounding her own warning. “And don’t put it on the butcher block, Daniel. We’re rolling out pie crusts today.”
“I’m the one who found she likes roots!” Horace shouted after them.
“Yes, you’re brilliant,” Nora placated, taking a seat at the almost empty table with a sigh. “But I’m glad you never tried to be a locksmith. Could you keep your wards under better watch? For their sake and ours.”
“Keep my wards locked up,” Horace grumbled, his whiskers quivering. “That’s what they said about you, you impertinent little—”
Nora burst into laughter, almost dropping her bread. “It is, isn’t it?”
Horace’s eyes flashed blue lightning. “I kept you alive, didn’t I?”
Sobering at once, Nora laid light fingers on his wrist. “You certainly did.” Before he grew embarrassed, she added, “But no more animals rummaging through my wardrobe, or I’ll send you my dress bill.”
He shrugged and turned back to his plate, dismissing her threat. Horace paid little attention to money, and lately that had almost undone them all.Thank God for Harry and Julia, Nora thought. They were solvent again—house, hospital, practice, and clinic—but only just. So everyone worked, and Daniel kept a close watch on accounts. Her obstetrics lectures brought in some much-needed money. Another reason she hadto do well today.
But first she needed to put a measure of fear into Horace. That wombat in her room was the outside of enough. “I recommend a little more caution with the creatures, Horace. You never know what I’ll put in your room as revenge.”
Horace looked up and grinned. “You know, I believe you would.”
Nora’s lips quirked. Serve him right if she did.
Chapter 4
Nora peeked through the red curtain between the hospital hallway and the lecture room. Horace had hung velvet instead of installing a door because it was much easier to roll cadavers through curtains than to maneuver them through solid oak.
She didn’t like entering the lecture theater while doctors were still settling in. Something about standing in the bare circle in the center, surrounded by rows of rising benches, made her feel as exposed as a menagerie animal. Horace and Daniel usually finished straightening their instruments and tying their smocks while exchanging news with the students and doctors readying notebooks and pens. Nora took a different approach—waiting for all attendees to settle before making an efficient sweep into the buzzing room and diving headlong into the subject without pause or greeting. It was how Magdalena always corralled students’ attention, and it worked well enough that Nora had adopted the technique.
She straightened her apron and reviewed her meticulous notes in the dim light from the window at the end of the hall. Daniel and Horace attended her lectures whenever they could, but the bone spur surgery kept them away today, leaving her without allies if anything went awry.
You wouldn’t think academic lectures would get out ofhand, but she’d seen all kinds of horrors at them, and not just on the dissection table. Shouts, insults, accusations, brawls—they weren’t particularly uncommon. So she peeked again, careful not to move the curtain enough to alert anyone to her presence. She wouldn’t for the world be caught cowering outside her own theater.
Seventeen attendees. A good number, though not nearly as many as at one of Horace’s lectures. Everything appeared hazy through the slit between heavy velvet panels as the gentlemen moved about. That should be nearly everyone, and her watch said—
Some change in the buzz of conversation caught her ear—a sudden easing of syllables and then the distinct tones of a female voice. Mrs. Franklin had arrived. Nora had almost given up on her.
Abandoning her carefully planned entrance, Nora emerged through the curtains. Up in the risers, Mrs. Franklin’s usually phlegmatic face shone pink with excitement. Beside her, two other women in work-a-day wear stood uncertainly, scanning the room.
“Mrs. Franklin?” Surprised by the additional women, Nora couldn’t keep her greeting from sounding more like a question.
“I’ve brought Mrs. Bailey and Mrs. Howell. They’ve been in the business for over twenty years, both of them. We’re all interested.”
