Page 57 (2/2)

Noonan eyed hi to be there—she’s still travelling in soodforsaken place with your father”

“It doesn’t ry, of course She’ll just be very, very disappointed in you”

Noonan shuddered “God save me”

“My brothers are intent on refor me,” Brandon said “Charles is convinced I shouldwith a special license and a bride at the ready I need you to protect me, Noonan”

Noonan snorted “And you’re so docile you’ll go along with it without a whi to o, aren’t you?”

“Same back at you, old man”

Emma Cadbury was covered in blood It splashed her face, her hands, up to her elbows, and she scrubbed away at it, at her nails, ignoring the discomfort

The girl had died E she could, and she’d been convinced that this time she’d won the battle, but the poo

r girl had died anyway She was the third one in a week, and no matter what Emma had done she’d slipped away, nameless in death as she had been in life

The s, ill-trained coterie of irl, and when things had turned bad there’d be no one to save her Emma scrubbed her hands more fiercely This had happened too many tiure out why the women hadn’t survived when they appeared to be on their way to recovery, and she would not forgive herself for that

She was alone now in the small room they’d set up for her and she stripped off her bloody clothes, down to her che into the bins, including the cap that covered her hair Patients died She couldn’t weep for each one

She stepped inside the cold shower bath the hospital had grudgingly provided They could hardly let her leave the place covered in blood, and the handheld puery, the stately Mr Fenrush, had accepted her under duress, but Temple Hospital was the best in London, in the entire country, and she’d wanted to work there rather than a glorified butcher shop Benedick Rohan, her best friend’s husband, had generously seen that she did, and Mr Fenrush’s outrage had caused her a little discomfort and a fair amount of quiet amusement

She was anathema to him on every level There were a few female physicians, with their very proper honorific of “doctor,” in other countries, but not in England Feared the iination of all but the most broad-minded of men Emma was content to work behind the scenes so as not to horrify English society The fact that this particular surgeon had also been one of London’s most notorious madams in her early twenties would haveThe revolt that had followed her appearance had been long and ugly, led by Fenrush himself, who seemed to view her as a colorful combination of the Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon with a trace of Jezebel and Satan thrown in for good measure He was a Godly Man, or so he had infor over her he sees, as Jezebel was, or into St Matthew’s fiery furnace

Instead he had no choice but to accept her presence, to treat her with the barest minimum of decency, since Benedick Rohan, Viscount Rohan, heir to the Marquis of Taverstock, was a major benefactor of Temple Hospital If Benedick withdrew his support, there would simply be no hospital, and at least she labored in obscurity, and the men were more than happy to take credit for her successes

Mr Fenrush’s absolute hatred of her always struck her as extreme, but she’d run into it before, usually in siet rid of her, he had done what he could toroom after the chloroform had been administered and was shunted from the place before the patient woke up and discovered the horror of a female’s hands upon him

But in between, she was learning everything, and soeons had eventually let her participate and then conduct the surgeries

She generally counted herself content, which was a triumph in itself Between the hospital and her work at the Dovecote, her best friend Melisande’s charity for fallen women, she found her life filled

A rough cough wracked her body again, and she let out a sigh of weary frustration It had been a terrible week, and not just at Tes fro it easy to get rid of the irritation

The Dovecote had gone up in fla that had served as a home for ere described as “the poor unfortunates,”

and what Melisande’s husband had naone This place for the women to live and learn a new profession, a way station to a new life, was now a pile of rubble and ash

It had been a close call Melisande lived with her husband in Suffolk, and she’d already repurposed the dower house on the estate for her soiled doves The last feomen had left the day before the fire, thank God, or E her old friends like Mollie Biscuits and Long Polly

Instead Emma had been alone in the place when the fire broke out, trapping her, and if she weren’t so familiar with the house she would never have survived As it was, she’d ful of smoke and a few scratches,

Now she cleared her throat as she wound her braids around her head, securing theh stabs of the metal hairpins She didn’t bother to check in the mirror someone had placed for her convenience She knew her hair was neat, she knehat she looked like, and if she forgot, those around her reminded her