Crescent City Courtship

Winona nodded. “Was just goin’ to suggest that. Be back in a bit.” She paused in the kitchen doorway and gave Abigail a kind glance over her shoulder. “Ma’am, there’s a chair over there in the corner if you want to sit down.”

“Thank you—” But Winona had already disappeared. “What a lovely young woman.” Abigail moved the wooden straight chair close to the bed.

“Yes, and she’s a wonderful cook, too.” John had been moving about the room, but when the silence became prolonged, he looked around to find Abigail, head bent, folding pleats in her ugly skirt. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

John shrugged and moved to the window, where he stared at his reflection in the dark window. He hoped the professor would be back soon.

Chapter Three

Abigail straightened the lye-scented sheet across Tess’s shoulders and brushed the lank hair away from her face. The chair beside the cot had become most uncomfortable in the last hour, despite the pleasure of the tea and biscuits Winona had provided.

Tess, now clothed in a plain white nightgown Winona pulled from a supply closet, was finally asleep. Abigail herself had been given a faded dark blue cotton dress with elegant jet buttons marching up the front and ending at a neat white stand-up collar. She couldn’t remember ever having worn such a lovely garment.

She looked up at John Braddock. He had ceased prowling the room and now towered at the foot of the bed, holding Tess’s nameless little one close to his sharp-planed face. He had not put the baby down once since he’d picked her up. Expression somber, he brushed the waxen cheek with his knuckle, then examined her minute fingers one by one.

Abigail wondered what drove the emotions that crossed his expressive face. Was it remorse for the loss of his little patient? Did he regret his earlier condescension?

She could hardly believe some of the things she’d done and said to him in the past few hours. Up to this point, her anger at him and fear for Tess had given Abigail strength beyond herself, but something about the young doctor’s tearless grief flayed her emotions. She bent to lay her forehead beside Tess’s shoulder and let hot tears soak the sheet. She was empty. She didn’t know what to do, where to turn.

“Birth and death, all at once.”

Abigail turned her head. “What?”

“I never realized how closely tied they are. Some of us get a lot of time and some get none at all.” John lifted his gaze from the baby’s face and Abigail saw stark confusion in the heavy-lidded hazel eyes. “Do you think it’s all predetermined? Am I wasting my time?”

“I don’t know.” She sat up and scrubbed away her tears with both hands. “The baby might have been dead before you got there.” It was hard to admit that. “Tess would’ve died, too, if you hadn’t come. I was thinking—I’m not sure I could’ve carried on if she had.”

John’s face was a study in consternation. “Is she your sister?”

“No.” Abigail adjusted the sheet again and checked to make sure Tess’s breathing was still regular. “Six months ago I arrived in New Orleans with nowhere to go, no family and no friends. Tess took me in and helped me find a job.”

He stared at her and she felt her face heat. What must she look like to this educated, expensively dressed young high-brow? Even in stained and wrinkled clothing, with his thick hair falling into his eyes from a deep widow’s peak, he looked like he belonged in somebody’s parlor.

“Where did you come from?” His elegantly marked brows drew together. “You don’t look like the usual fare from the District.”

Abigail came out of her chair. “Give me that baby right now—” she tugged at the infant corpse—” and get out of here.” When he resisted, looking down at her as if she were crazy, she glared up into his multicolored eyes. “If you don’t like the way I look, go put on your smoking jacket and settle down for a beer with the fellows. Then you can laugh over us slum wenches to your heart’s content and not think about us one more second.”

The fellow refused to behave in any predictable way. He hooked his free arm around Abigail’s shoulders and yanked her close, the baby between them. “Abigail, I’m sorry.” His voice was husky, almost inaudible.

Abigail stood with her face buried in the fine, still-damp wool of John’s coat, the soft, bulky shell of a baby pressing against her bosom. Her world shifted.

How long? How long since she’d been held in the hard strength of a man’s embrace? Not since she was a small girl, before her mother left and her father became the Voice of God.

She ought to pull away from this improper embrace. Humiliating to need it so much. No more crying, though. She stood stiff, wondering what he was thinking.

“Braddock, what’s going on here?” The deep, resonant voice came from the doorway.

John Braddock let Abigail go and stepped back. “S-Sir! I’m so sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Looked to me like you knew exactly what you were doing.”

Abigail turned, straightening her hair and smoothing her skirt in the presence of the tall, distinguished man who strode into the clinic carrying a black medical bag. His thick black hair, gray-shot on the sides, and the lines fanning out from intelligent black eyes put his age somewhere in the mid-forties, but the trim, athletic figure would have rivaled many a younger man.

Abigail glanced at John, waiting for an introduction. The younger doctor seemed to be struck dumb with mortification. She dropped a curtsy toward the professor, whose mouth had quirked with disarming humor. “Thank you for coming, Dr. Laniere. I’m Abigail Neal. I’m the one who came for you on behalf of my friend Tess.”

“Ah, yes.” Dr. Laniere’s expression sobered. “The difficult labor.” He approached Tess and bent to lay a gentle hand against her forehead, then lifted her wrist to check her pulse.

Abigail met John’s gaze. She started to speak, but he shook his head once, hard, his lips clamped together. “Prof, the baby didn’t make it.” At the professor’s inquiring look John continued doggedly. “Breech presentation kept the baby too long without oxygen. The mother was losing blood quickly, so I made the decision to save her.” His tone was firm, almost clinical, but Abigail heard the note of distress in the elegant drawl.

The young doctor’s contained anguish inexplicably drew Abigail’s sympathy. She had a crazy urge to comfort him.

Dr. Laniere steepled his fingers together, propping his forehead against their tips. For a moment the only sound in the room was Tess’s harsh breathing, then the professor dropped his hands and looked up with a sigh. He approached John to clasp his shoulder. “We’ll talk about your procedures later, Braddock.” He laid his other hand on the baby’s head, as if in benediction. “Why did you bring him here?”

Although he’d missed his guess at the swaddled infant’s sex, Abigail noted with gratitude that he didn’t call the baby “it.”

“They wanted a burial and didn’t have any place to go,” said John. “I told them you’d help us find a minister and a gravesite.”

“Did you?” Dr. Laniere sounded amused.

“Please, sir,” Abigail intervened before John’s defensiveness could spoil their advantage. “We’d be grateful if you could help us. All we can afford is the charity catacombs and I just can’t see that poor little one abandoned there.”

Dr. Laniere stood with his hand resting on Braddock’s shoulder, but he fixed Abigail with a look so full of compassion that she nearly broke down in tears again. “I understand your distress. But you know the baby is in the arms of the Father now.” He smiled slightly. “Perhaps, of all of us, the least abandoned.”

Abigail wished she could believe that.

Hope lifted the discouraged droop of John Braddock’s mouth. “That’s so, isn’t it, sir?”

“As I live and breathe in Christ.” Dr. Laniere squeezed his student’s shoulder. “Now let’s see what we can do to make your patient more comfortable and take care of the baby’s resting place.”

“You will not give her that beastly powder.” Abigail stood in the kitchen doorway, effectively preventing John’s entrance into the clinic. The professor had gone to take care of the burial arrangements, leaving the two of them to watch over Tess. “I’ve known women who never rid themselves of the craving, once they taste it.”

John showed her the harmless-looking brown bottle of morphine. “But it would ease her pain and help her sleep.”

“Yes, but if you slow her heart enough, she may not wake up at all.”

“What do you know about it?” John stiffened. “We’ll ask Dr. Laniere.”

She’d studied on her own, but hadn’t known enough to help her mother. “I know what I’ve seen—”

“John, at the risk of sounding uncivil, what are you doing here so late?”

Abigail turned.

A pretty, curly-haired young matron entered the clinic with a baby of about six months propped on her hip. She tipped her head to smile at Abigail around John’s shoulder. “I’m Camilla Laniere. Meggins, say ‘How do you do.’” She picked up the baby’s hand to wave.

John looked guilty. “I’m sorry if we disturbed you.”