Crescent City Courtship

“Professor!” Braddock’s hazel eyes all but popped out of his head. “This woman is no nurse! She’s a prostitute!”

Abigail came away from the wall, indignation overpowering her sense of unworthiness. “Tess and I are both respectable women who have fallen on difficult times. We are not prostitutes. Do not compound your idiocy by spouting such utter claptrap!”

“My idiocy—”

Dr. Laniere raised a hand. “The two of you may continue this discussion outside, if you please. I wish to examine my patient in peace and quiet.” When Braddock looked about to argue, the professor’s brow knit. “Now.”

Braddock clamped his lips together and stalked toward the doorway into the kitchen. He paused beside Abigail and bowed with elaborate exaggeration. “After you, ma’am.” He waited for her to precede him out of the ward.

She grasped her skirts as daintily as if they were finest silk and gave him the curtsy her mother had made her practice before a mirror when she was a little girl. Rising with gratifying grace, she turned to Dr. Laniere. “I shall meet you in the carriage house in the morning, sir.” She smiled at her unexpected champion. “Thank you, sir.”

Braddock followed her outside into the shadow-dappled courtyard, shutting the door sharply behind him. “What do you think you’re up to?”

She whirled to face him. “Accepting an invitation.”

“You invited yourself. What possible help do you think you’ll be—you’ll only get in the way of those of us who have paid tuition and earned a spot at the professor’s side.”

“What difference does it make to you whether I’m there or not? Do you think my brain will absorb all the information in the room, leaving you without any?” Closing her eyes, she placed her thumbs at her temples in imitation of a French Quarter spiritist. “Ooh, I think you’re right. I definitely sense your intellect dissipating by the second.” She looked at him in mock sympathy. “No wonder you seem so monumentally stupid.”

“Don’t be absurd.” His mouth quirked a little in spite of the heavy frown. “It’s a matter of what’s fair.”

“Fair?” She could feel her fingers curling into her skirt. “How does Dr. Laniere’s generosity remove your benefit? Besides, even if I had the wherewithal to pay tuition, I wouldn’t be allowed to take classes with you. So don’t prate to me of fairness, Mr. Braddock.”

His mouth opened, but he couldn’t seem to articulate whatever was boiling behind those hot multihued eyes. “It’s just not right,” he finally muttered. “We keep women out of medicine to protect them.”

“Well, I’ve been protected right out of my homeland and my family, thank you very much,” she said. “Now that I’ve landed on my feet here, you’re not going to convince me to go back.”

“Miss Neal—Abigail,” his voice softened, “I wouldn’t send you back to the District. I merely want you to consider carefully before you force your way into a place where you won’t be accepted, much less welcomed. The other fellows will be brutal if you show up tomorrow morning.”

Abigail stared at him, chin raised. “Your warning is well taken. And I shall prepare myself accordingly.” She dipped him another curtsy and turned for the door. “Good afternoon, Mr. Braddock.”

She forced herself not to look over her shoulder as she reentered the kitchen, leaving her adversary fuming on the other side of the door. John Braddock had a thing or two to learn about women if he imagined he’d thwarted her desire to follow rounds in the morning.

Chapter Six

“Girard, if you want someone to crack your knuckles, I’ll be happy to do it for you.” John continued his circular route around the Charity Hospital entryway, almost hoping for an excuse to vent some of his pent-up restlessness.

John and Marcus, trailed by Weichmann, had arrived at Charity Hospital thirty minutes earlier than the time appointed for rounds with Dr. Laniere. None of them wanted to be accused of slacking, and John was determined to be the epitome of punctuality and dependability for the rest of his life.

Miss Charlemagne had let them in, her garments pristine as always, though John had noted a streak that looked suspiciously like a pillow crease on the elderly woman’s round cheek. No one had ever seen her so much as yawn. She was the first person he saw in the morning and always seemed to be available for nighttime emergencies. He could only suppose she slept with her eyes open. She was not a nurse, but her genius for administration made her more valuable to the doctors who attended from the medical college than a hundred nurses.

After pocketing the brass key suspended from her belt with a copper chain, she had cautioned the three young men to be quiet, then whisked herself into the chapel to pray. John had considered asking her to pray for him, but the memory of Weichmann’s response to yesterday’s mention of God and burning bushes dissuaded him.

Weichmann, seated beside Marcus on the next-to-lowest step of the central staircase, pulled out an enormous pocket watch that he claimed had been given to him by an uncle descended from German royalty. “Braddock, there’s probably time to send Crutch out for breakfast. I wish you wouldn’t be so stubborn.”

John took another turn across the tiled foyer. “If you’d seen Prof’s face last night—”

“We did see it, when you didn’t appear yesterday morning.” Marcus grimaced. “If you have a death wish, Braddock, there are less painful ways to go about it. I had more to drink than you did and I still managed to get up on time.”

Weichmann put away his watch. “Are the tests graded yet?”

Marcus avoided John’s eyes. “I don’t know.”

John pounced. “You’ve seen the grades. Did I pass?”

“I told you I don’t—” Marcus tried to pull John’s hands away from his cravat. “Let go, you Neanderthal. I saw mine, but Pa caught me before I got any farther.”

Releasing his friend, who indignantly tried to restore order to his mangled neck cloth, John shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. “So what was your score?”

“Let’s just say I won’t be starting my own pharmacy anytime soon. And don’t say you told me so. I studied in my own way, it just didn’t stick. All that Latin. Gads! Why can’t we speak English?”

At that moment the front door opened, admitting Dr. Laniere, followed by a troop of medical students and a beautiful young woman.

John did a double take. He’d never imagined Abigail Neal would have the brass to show up this morning. She wore a different dress than the ugly black one she’d had on yesterday, this one a high-necked affair that quite incidentally duplicated the new-leaf color of her eyes. It was a bit short-waisted, and…his gaze traveled to the hem, which, judging by the deeper hue of the fabric, had been recently let out. He frowned, shaken by this reminder of Abigail’s poverty.

“Mr. Braddock, if your breakfast disagreed with you this morning, I shall be happy to excuse you to return to your bed.”

John looked up to find Dr. Laniere and the other students eyeing him with varying degrees of amusement, sympathy and gleeful malice. Abigail herself gazed over his shoulder, an expression of supreme indifference on her serene face. Except for the slight quirk at the corner of her mouth.

“Gads!” repeated Marcus. “You ain’t bringing a woman into the hospital, are you, Prof?”

“Ah, I neglected to introduce Miss Neal, didn’t I?” Dr. Laniere turned to smile at Abigail, sweeping an ironic hand toward John and his cohorts. “Miss Neal, I present to you Marcus Girard and Tanner Weichmann, both second-year students. Mr. Braddock you’ve already met, of course.”

“Already met her?” blurted Marcus. “Is this your Amazon?”

John sent a scalding look over his shoulder, ignoring the guffaws of his fellow students. He regretted the pink that stained Abigail’s sharp cheekbones.

Her lips tightened, but she looked down at Marcus as if he were a particularly nasty species of cockroach. “And you would be his…” She hesitated. “Harlequin?”

Marcus, red-faced and speechless, tugged the carnelian-and-saffron diamond-patterned waistcoat down over his trim stomach.

Laughter erupted among the other fellows and John struggled not to join them. She’d pegged Girard to the penny. Time to flank his troops and reconnoiter. “Nurse told us a new gall bladder case arrived last night, Professor. Second ward.”

“Excellent,” said Dr. Laniere, “but first I wish to make one thing clear to you gentlemen.” The doctor’s deep-set eyes bored directly into John’s. “Miss Neal is here at my express invitation and I expect her to be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy.” Prof tented his long, elegant fingers beneath his chin and scanned the faces of his students one by one. “Am I understood?”

Silence fell as everyone else looked at John. He swallowed hard. He had nothing against the woman, really. In fact, there had been a moment of connection at the baby’s funeral—a connection he was at a loss to explain. Although she was odd as a three-legged duck, he had no objection to handing off nursing duties to her, as long as she kept her mouth shut and didn’t challenge him at every—

Her lashes lifted; the magnificent green eyes slammed into his and he suddenly realized Abigail Neal’s presence was going to be a very dangerous thing, indeed. This was no off-limits matron with a pillow crease on her cheek. Intelligence and humor and mockery and all sorts of mysterious elements were buried in those eyes. He was going to have to be very careful not to get left behind in his chosen profession—especially if Professor Laniere decided to take Abigail Neal under his wing.