Chapter 16
Heart thudding, lips pinched tight, Nora cast her eyes over the room, searching for an escape, when the far door opened, revealing her father-in-law at the front of the short parade of men, ringed in a cloud of fragrant smoke.
Nora exhaled.
Daniel. He was used to his family’s meddling and would handle them expertly. She nearly sprang to her feet but held herself in place, drawing up whatever shreds of dignity remained.
Daniel’s relaxed posture proved he’d endured no such interrogation. He took his time locating her, unaware of the hammering in her chest. With a languid wave of the hand, he crossed the room. Too slowly. Sarah and Aunt Wilcox awaited her answer with pointed looks.
“What are you three gossiping about?” Daniel asked as he leaned over them. He’d not yet picked up on her tension.
“We’ve only touched on the gossip.” Aunt Wilcox stopped her slow fanning. “I’ve offered Nora a distinguished position with the British Ladies’ Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners.”
Daniel laughed. “Dear heavens, that’s more of a mouthful than my anatomy tomes.”
Aunt Wilcox narrowed her eyes. As did Nora. The name of the society was the least of her worries. And he’d had more than one glass of port.
The older doctor from the other end of the dinner table approached with his wife.
“Dr. Russell”—Aunt Wilcox shot one last glare at Daniel before fixing a welcoming smile to her face—“volunteers with our society. He’s treated several of our women after their terrible ordeals in the jails.”
“Dreadful conditions,” Dr. Russell agreed. “But my wife wanted to come see the lady doctor this evening. Rumors reached us in Berkshire.”
Mrs. Russell was heavy-jowled, her skin sliding down her aging face like a landslide. She dipped her head at Nora.
It gave Nora a chance to stand. She’d been a bird perched between two cats for too long. And perhaps the woman’s admiration would quiet Daniel’s relations. “I’m Mrs. Gibson, surgeon.”
The woman took her fingers in a weak grasp. “Surgeon? I thought you were only a physician.”
Dr. Russell laughed. “Not that conversation tonight. I’ve witnessed two scuffles at the Athenaeum Club over the regulations for each royal college.” He wagged his finger at Daniel and Nora. “You mustn’t join ranks against me because I’m only a physician.”
The cutthroat debate continued as always, well known and fraught with casualties. Beside her, Daniel grinned. “We run a charity clinic and see our fair share of all three branches of medicine. Nora specializes in obstetrics.”
“Midwifery.” Mrs. Russell sighed with relief and smiled at Nora. “I imagined you…” Her face pinked. “Well, never mind.”
“Yes, I saw Adams’s petition to outlaw unlicensed midwives and send business to trained doctors like yourself.” Dr. Russell nodded with a satisfied grin. He thought he was complimenting her. “Of course, I live outside of London, so I cannot sign it, but I certainly would.”
Nora dipped her eyes, following the curving red line of the Turkish carpet beneath them.
“Petition?” Aunt Wilcox asked. They were speaking her language. She’d pitched complaints before Parliament and gathered signatures the way other ladies collected china figurines.
Dr. Russell lowered his voice and straightened his vest. “Everyone was howling over an anonymous article where a midwife forced some duchess onto the floor on hands and knees to deliver a baby.”
Nora ground her teeth. He’d gotten it entirely wrong.
Daniel’s smile fled, his lips parted as if searching for words.
“What in the world was a midwife doing with a duchess?” Sarah demanded.
She wasn’t a duchess. Mrs. Roland held money, but no title.
“The doctor brought her,” Dr. Russell said with an incredulous lift to his voice. “Apparently the midwife took over when the doctor panicked.”
Aunt Wilcox gasped. “No.”
Nora opened her mouth but caught the shake of Daniel’s head, barely perceptible but enough to freeze her.
Russell was as errant on the facts as the many doctors who’d been published in the paper this week, decrying her case.
She didn’t mind now that Daniel had insisted she sign her article only under her initials.
“Fortunately”—Dr. Russell panted a bit breathlessly from the port and the excitement of a captive audience—“the doctors started a petition to prevent any such error from occurring again.”
“Daniel?” His mother looked to him for both confirmation and apology for not telling her such salacious news.
He gave the slightest shrug, his color decidedly more yellow than when he’d first approached them.
“She wasn’t a duchess and the doctor didn’t panic.” Nora couldn’t resist.
“Did you sign the petition?” his aunt asked, ignoring her.
Now he would explain the true facts of the case. Nora waited, forgetting to exhale.
“There’s always more than meets the eye…” he began reasonably.
Aunt Wilcox scoffed in exasperation and dropped her fan. “You didn’t sign it? Why must you always make unnecessary difficulties?”
“Don’t scold your nephew,” Dr. Russell said, looking pleased to once more command the center of the conversation. “I’m sure he signed the petition. And certainly his signature counts for his wife as well.”
“No, he didn’t—” Nora blurted out.
“Yes.” Daniel spoke over her, covering her words. “I did.”
It didn’t make sense the way the notes of the piano continued drifting across the room when everything else froze. Words tripped over Nora’s paralyzed ears, falling before they reached her. She saw only the purple shadows under Daniel’s cheeks. He mottled when embarrassed.
She would have demanded an explanation if she’d been able to find her tongue. Her feet shook, strangely disconnected from her legs.
“Thank the good Lord.” Aunt exhaled in relief. “I’m sorry I accused you. You’re growing some sense at last.” Her blue eyes marched over her nephew, showing a glint of pride that made Nora inexplicably despondent.
Void of other ideas, Nora fixed her eyes on Daniel’s married sister carrying on what looked like a painful conversation with the doleful Whig MP.
“I believe Lillian needs me,” she murmured, not at all concerned how her abrupt exit would be perceived.
She felt Daniel’s eyes track her across the room, as firm and sure as a touch.
A memory clutched at her throat. The same difficult breaths, her vision fuzzing at the periphery, her feet unable to feel the floor beneath her. She’d walked like this before.
The Stabat Mater Hall.
Visions arose of the vast room in Bologna where four professors had interrogated her for hours with medical questions before reluctantly signing her surgeon’s license.
The stifling air. The red curtains. The curled lips and narrowed eyes.
She drew up silently to Lillian’s side with a show of composure she didn’t feel.
“Excuse me, Mr. Briscoe,” Lillian said to the MP.
“I’ve not seen my sister-in-law in months.
” She took Nora’s arm in a grateful crunch of fingers and led her to a solitary sofa in the corner.
Nora’s eyes flitted to the mantel clock.
Half an hour until she could escape to the dark, quiet interior of their carriage and sift through the wreckage of their conversation.
Had he said yes only to deflect their ire?
The possibility allowed her to take a full breath as she closed her eyes for a moment.
Lillian gestured to a deck of cards. “Shall we?”
Nora nearly turned her down, but that would require an explanation. However, she needed something that required less concentration than whist. “Snap?”
“Why not?” Lillian giggled, adding in an undertone, “What did you talk about with Mama and Aunt Wilcox? They had you cornered from the first moment. They looked like they were plotting a revolution.”
“I—”
“No, I didn’t mean it,” Lillian interrupted. “And you don’t have to tell me. They’ll both be moaning about it later. I’ll hear it all then.”
Charming.
Lillian dealt out the cards and smiled at Nora.
“Poor dear. I know they can be fearsome.” Her eyes traveled slowly from Nora’s face to her skirt, and a line of concern burrowed between her eyebrows.
“We need to get you another gown. I do love that one, but I’ve seen you in it three times now. Don’t you own any other dresses?”
Joan’s music came to a pounding stop, the echo ringing through the room. Nora glanced at the clock again, waiting for deliverance. Whoever called surgery brutal had never suffered through such a dinner party.