Crescent City Courtship. Elizabeth White
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on a plain side table. Bathed as it was in quiet shadows and antiseptic odors, the room looked inviting enough. John was glad he’d elected to come here, rather than the hospital.
“A maternity call I made late this afternoon. Breech delivery.” As Winona turned down one of the four beds with movements unhurried but efficient, John kept an eye on Abigail. She stood just inside the room, hands clenched in the folds of her skirt. She looked more than out of place. She kept looking out the window as if expecting to be followed. “This is Abigail Neal,” he said.
Winona, in her unassuming way, exchanged nods with the other woman.
“We lost the baby,” John said as he laid his burden on the smooth, clean sheet.
“Bless her heart,” Winona breathed, touching Tess’s wan face and pulling up the top sheet.
“She’ll be fine, but we need to arrange a burial in the morning.” John took the baby out of Tess’s arms. “Where’s Dr. Laniere?”
“Gone to deliver another baby.”
John winced. “Gone how long?”
“Maybe an hour. He’d just come back from the hospital and sat down to supper. Miss Camilla’s upstairs puttin’ the children to bed.”
“All right. I’ll stay until he comes back.” John glanced at Abigail, who looked like she might topple over, if not for the wall behind her. “Winona, could you fix Miss Neal a cup of tea and a biscuit or two? Maybe find her a clean dress and a nightgown for the patient?”
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