I promised to return Miss Neal to the clinic before noon, so we’d best hurry. I or one of the other fellows will stop by here tomorrow to check on Paddy. I’ll send some bleach to wipe down the floors and ceiling. Some say that keeps down the spread of croup.” He gave Rose a quick nod and offered his hand to little Sean. “Help your marmee out by playing quietly when the baby’s asleep, won’t you, old man?”
Sean nudged his sister. “Would you bring more candy when you come back?”
John winked. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Goodbye, Rose.” Abigail smiled at her neighbor as she followed John out to the entryway. “Don’t forget about the fish.”
“Thank you, Abigail.” Rose’s expression was considerably less troubled than when they’d first arrived. “I don’t know what else to—just thank you.” She shut the door hurriedly.
As they began the long walk back to the Lanieres’, Abigail took John’s proffered arm and sighed. “She’ll listen to you, I think.” She glanced at him. “You were very sweet to the children.”
She knew she’d used the wrong word when his fine eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you’d expected me to growl at them.”
Smiling, she shrugged. “You did surprise me a bit. I confess your motivations confuse me, John. People like Rose—and Tess and me, for that matter—cannot pay you in coin, and you seem to have a rather contemptuous attitude toward our entire class. Why do you want to be a doctor? Is it simple scientific hunger?”
He didn’t immediately answer. “Imperfections bother me,” he said slowly. “I suppose that could be considered a character flaw. But I see no reason for those little ones to suffer from hunger and disease if there’s anything I can do about it.” He glanced at her, cheeks reddened, she thought not entirely from the wind whipping off the river. “I don’t mean to be arrogant.”
An inappropriate urge to giggle made Abigail look down, pretending to watch her step. “Because imperfections annoy me as well, I’ll take it upon myself to correct you as needed.” She gave him a mischievous glance from under her lashes.
To his credit, John laughed. “Magnanimous of you, Miss Abigail. You’ll give me lessons in social intercourse, and I’ll keep your considerable predisposition for interference well occupied. We should get along famously.”
Almost lightheaded with the unexpected pleasure of intelligent repartee with an attractive—if slightly prickly—male, Abigail turned the conversation to his background with the Laniere family. John Braddock was like no man she’d met in her admittedly abnormal life. Perhaps she had more to learn than she’d thought.
“It’s got to be here somewhere,” John muttered to himself that evening as he skimmed through the last of six pharmaceutical books he’d borrowed from Marcus Girard. He sat on his unmade bed, his back propped against the wall, a cup of stout Creole coffee wobbling atop the tomes stacked at his elbow.
The cramped and exceedingly messy fifteen-by-fifteen-foot room on the second level of Mrs. Hanley’s Boarding House for Gentlemen was one of John’s greatest sources of personal satisfaction. It hadn’t been easy to endure his mother’s tearful accusations of ingratitude nor his father’s blustering threats of disinheritance. But in the end, John’s determination to live on his own had worn them both down. Two years ago, on his twenty-third birthday, he had packed his clothes and books into four sturdy trunks and had them carted to the boarding house. He then rode his black mare, Belladonna, to the livery stable around the corner on Rue St. John—another serendipitous circumstance which afforded him no end of amusement.
Mrs. Clementine Hanley insisted on absolute moral purity in her lodgers—the enforcing of which she took quite seriously and personally. She also set a fine table and could be counted upon to provide fresh linens daily.
Unfortunately, she was not so dependable in the matter of functioning locks.
John looked up in irritation when the doorknob rattled. The key worked its way loose and hit the floor with a clank. “Girard, if you come in here again, I’m going to souse every pair of drawers you own in kerosene and set them on fire.”
The door opened anyway and Marcus’s ingenuous, square-cut face insinuated itself in the opening.
John glared. “Go away!”
Marcus leaned over to pick up the fallen key and tossed it at John. The key plunked into the half-full coffee cup. “Oops.” He gave John an unrepentant grin. “A little iron supplement for your diet, old man.”
Snarling under his breath, John used his pillow case to mop up the sloshed coffee. “You’d better have a good reason for interrupting me again.” He fished the key out of his cup.
Marcus swaggered into the room with his usual banty-rooster strut, hands thrust into the enormous pockets of a peacock-blue satin dressing gown. He paused in front of the skeleton spraddled in a straight chair under the room’s tiny, solitary window.
“Hank, old bean.” Marcus bowed, sketching a salute. “I trust this evening finds you hale and hearty.”
John resisted the urge to laugh. Encouraged, Marcus could go on for hours in that oily false-British accent. He closed the book on his finger. “What do you want, Girard?”
“Stuck-up rotter, ain’t you?” Giving the skeleton a thump on the cranium, Marcus hopped onto the window sill and folded his arms across his barrel chest. “Came to rescue you.”
“Rescue me? The only way you can rescue me is to find me another pharmacy book.”
“Braddock, I’ve lifted every book m’father has on the subject. If what you’re looking for ain’t there, it just—ain’t there. Come on, I know you’ve memorized the lists for the test. Let’s toddle over to the District and slum a little.”
The notorious red light district was located a few blocks from the medical college and Mrs. Hanley’s Boarding House. It also happened to be where John had encountered Tess and Abigail. Yesterday’s experience had destroyed whatever appeal the District once had. And going back with Abigail this morning to visit the McLachlin family had turned it rather into a source of conscience.
John opened the book again. “I’m busy. And if you had even half as many brains as Hank, you’d take one of these books down to your room and have a look yourself.”
Marcus gave John a puzzled look. “What’s got into you today? You didn’t go to church this morning, did you?”
John gave a bark of laughter. “Not exactly. I attended a funeral.”
Marcus sat up straight, his thin, sandy hair all but on end. “I’m sorry, Braddock! Who died?”
“Nobody you know.” John had no intention of exposing the life-changing experiences of the last two days to Marcus’s inanities. “I’m just—not in the mood. Comprendez-vous?”
Marcus pursed his lips. It was common knowledge that John’s family ties took him in directions that less well-connected students could only dream of. “Certainly. I understand. Death and all that.” He slid off the window seat and sidled toward the door. “You were my first choice of companion, but I guess I’ll head down to Weichmann’s room to see if he’d care to get his head
