Chapter Two
Eight Years Ago
Columbia College Medical School
Manhattan, New York
“How much longer?” Abigail queried the middle-aged woman seated behind a small writing desk in the middle of a vast receiving room.
Aside from the desk and the terribly uncomfortable chair that she herself was sitting on, the room was empty.
But it wasn’t the room and its lack of furniture that concerned her.
It was the room beyond this room. Specifically, the room beyond the double set of doors marked with a gold placard that read Dr. Samuel Bard.
She had written to Dr. Bard no fewer than a dozen times over the past year. The first eleven letters had been ignored. The twelfth had garnered a curt, three sentence response.
Dear Lady Abigail Pratt,
Your persistence in this matter is admirable, but misguided. Columbia College Medical School had never, nor will it ever, accept a female candidate for our medical doctorate program. Should you seek employment in a more suitable field, you may make an appointment with my secretary, Mrs. Fielding.
Respectfully,
Dr. Samuel Bard
Dean of Columbia College Medical School
The woman behind the desk—presumably Mrs. Fielding, although unlike her employer, she did not have a gold placard—looked up from the missive she’d been transcribing onto a blank piece of paper to squint at Abigail. “What are you here for again?”
“I have an appointment.” When Abigail’s fingers threatened to tremble with nerves, she tucked them neatly under the leather satchel she’d brought with her.
Not because it carried anything of importance, but because she believed—she hoped—it would make her appear more official.
“With Dr. Bard. I’m sure he told you about it. ”
“He did not.”
“Then he must have forgotten.”
“Dr. Bard does not forget things.”
“Then . . .” Think, she told herself furiously. You did not travel over a hundred miles stuffed into an overfilled stagecoach like a sardine in a jar just to speak with Dr. Bard’s secretary. “It is of the utmost importance that I speak with Dr. Bard. A matter of life and death, really.”
Mrs. Fielding frowned. “Are you ill? You do not appear ill.”
“I’m not ill,” Abigail burst out, half rising from her chair. “I . . . wait. Yes. I am ill. It is a very new, very rare disease. I should like to give Dr. Bard the first opportunity to study it, but if he is too busy, I can always go to the University of Pennsylvania—”
“Wait right there.” Mrs. Fielding disappeared through the double doors, but only for a moment. There was a muffled shout, and then one of the doors sprang open and she gestured Abigail forward with a short, flustered wave of her hand. “Dr. Bard will see you now.”
Clutching her empty satchel to her pounding heart, Abigail walked past the secretary into an office nearly half the size of the receiving room and made all the smaller by the large, ornate mahogany furniture and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with orderly stacks of medical journals.
The air smelled vaguely of cigar smoke, a smell she recognized from her long journey here.
In the middle of the office, centered in front of a window overlooking the gray, gloomy shore of the Hudson River, was a desk piled high with papers, ink pots, and pictures in matching silver frames.
Behind the desk sat a man. A man with gray hair cut to his shoulders, creases in the corners of his eyes, and a bulbous nose.
“Dr. Bard.” A combination of excitement and dread rose up in the base of Abigail’s throat as she crossed the room and extended her hand.
“It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. I’ve read A Discourse Upon the Duties of a Physician too many times to count, and your enquiry into the cause and cure of angina suffocative was pure genius. ”
Dr. Bard took her hand, but did not shake it. Instead, he pressed his index and middle finger to her pulse. “Heart rate is regular,” he mused, releasing her hand. “If a tad quick. Have you a rash anywhere on your person?”
“A . . . a rash?”
“Discoloration of the skin. Typically found in a cluster on the inside of the arms, chest, or abdomen.”
“Yes, I am aware of what a rash is, but—”
“Any fever? Night sweats? Vomiting? Watery bowel movements?”
Abigail’s cheeks pinkened. “No, Dr. Bard. I am in fine health. I . . . I only said that I wasn’t in order to gain an audience with you.
I realize you must be very busy, but I’ve come all the way from New Haven.
I thought if you saw me demonstrate my knowledge of human anatomy and my skills with stitches and a scalpel in person, you would reconsider admitting me into your school despite my gender. ”
Dr. Bard leaned back in his chair and fixed her with a hard stare. “You’re Lady Abigail Pratt.”
“I am.”
“You’ve sent me twelve letters over the past year. That’s one every single month.”
“I . . . I have. But that’s only because—”
“If I am not mistaken, I made myself quite clear with my response to your query. Columbia College Medical School is no place for a woman, Lady Abigail. I fear you have wasted your time in coming here. More importantly, you’ve wasted mine. My secretary will escort you out.”
“But if you would just listen—”
“Mrs. Fielding!” he barked. “Come get our guest.”
“Dr. Bard, please—”
“My dear.” The pity in his gaze cut more deeply than the scalpel she’d been practicing with morning, noon, and night.
“I can see this is a disappointment. No doubt you have a bright mind, but being a physician requires an intelligence that a woman simply does not possess. If you wish to pursue a career in the medical field, might I suggest becoming a midwife or apprenticing with an herbalist?”
Apprenticing with an herbalist. Which meant he didn’t even think her capable enough to make remedies and tinctures on her own, something she’d been doing for the past eighteen months after helplessly watching her mother waste away from consumption.
A terrible disease that she’d successfully cured in no fewer than a dozen patients since then.
People who had come to her out of desperation when the local doctor—a man—turned them away due to their lack of coin.
Now another man was telling her that her education could not be continued because she had a female’s anatomy.
Completely discounting the fact that her brain likely possessed more intelligence in her prefrontal cortex than half his students did in their entire frontal lobe.
“Mullein leaf,” she said even as the door opened behind her and Mrs. Fielding marched up to take her by the elbow.
“When the leaves are crushed and soaked in a tea, it has proven to be most effective in clearing a patient’s airways of consumption before it has time to settle in the lungs and turn deadly.
The trick is in the steam. The tea must be boiled hot enough and then a damp towel draped over the back of the patient’s head as they lean their face over the kettle to trap in the vapors. ”
“That is enough,” Mrs. Fielding hissed, pulling on Abigail’s arm. “Come with me before you embarrass yourself further.”
“Wait.” Dr. Bard held up his left hand and used the right to scribble something down in a leather-bound notebook. “A damp towel, you say?”
“Yes. It acts as a moisture barrier.”
“The mullein leaves or the flowers?”
“The flowers will work to some extent, but the leaves, particularly those on a young plant that has not yet reached maturity, have proven most effective.”
His quill pen dashed out a few more lines, then paused, the steel tip hovering in midair. “What is the name of the doctor responsible for this discovery?”
“You are looking at her, Dr. Bard.” With that, Abigail allowed herself to be escorted from the office.
Falling snow and frosted breath greeted her when she stepped outside.
Belatedly, she realized that she’d left her cloak behind in the receiving room, but there was no point in going back for it now.
Why retrieve something as unimportant as a cloak when an entire education was being withheld from her?
Yes, she could continue to learn on her own as she had been.
Pouring over whatever books she could get her hands on and filling entire journals with carefully crafted notes, observations, and potential treatments for ailments both common and rare.
But if she wanted to be a doctor, then logic dictated she be taught by a doctor.
If only they lowered themselves to teaching poor, simple-minded females.
Allowing herself one last, wistful glance at the towering front doors of the college—doors that would remain closed to her, it seemed, for the undeterminable future—she took an absent step toward the pavement and plowed headfirst into a hard, broad, immovable object.
An immovable object with muscular arms dressed in emerald green and large hands enclosed in black leather gloves that clamped down on her shoulders.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you to look before you leap?” drawled a deep, masculine voice from above.
Tilting her head back, back, and then back some more, Abigail found herself staring at the chiseled countenance of a man her age, perhaps a few years older.
With dark side whiskers framing a granite jaw, a firm mouth twisted in the faintest of smirks, a straight nose, and eyes the color of burnished copper set beneath slashing ebony brows.
As a woman of science, Abigail knew that a person’s physical attributes were nothing more than a series of traits inherited from their parents.
No one could control what they looked like any more than they could control weather, and so she’d never placed much importance on outward appearance.
What, then, was that odd fluttering in her belly?
And why did her palms suddenly tingle? And why had her pulse rate increased?