скачать книгу бесплатно
Crescent City Courtship
Elizabeth White
Indulge your fantasies of delicious Regency Rakes, fierce Viking warriors and rugged Highlanders. Be swept away into a world of intense passion, lavish settings and romance that burns brightly through the centuriesAbigail Neal dreams of escaping her life in the slums of New Orleans someday.But how can a woman alone unprotected ever fulfill her dreams of becoming a doctor? Then, young medical student John Braddock comes to pay a call on a neighbor. Though the scars left on her heart have taught her never to trust anyone, Abby is drawn to John's caring nature.Soon an unlikely friendship develops between the son of privilege the poor daughter of missionaries. But when Abby's mysterious past comes back to haunt her present, will she call upon her faith to help right a wrong make a new life with her very own Prince Charming?
“Tell me, Abigail, why it is you don’t subscribe to the belief of romantic love between marriage partners.”
She blinked and cut a glance at John. “What?”
“I’m curious to know if you are one of those women looking for all-consuming passion in a marriage partner.”
“I shall never marry.”
He laughed, assuming she was joking. But when she simply stared at him, his amusement faded. “You cannot be serious.”
She shrugged. “Who would marry me?” A faint smile traced her lips. “According to Dr. Pitcock, my head is too big.”
“No—what he said is that you are surprisingly normal for such a bright woman. I suppose you think there isn’t a man capable of keeping up with you.”
ELIZABETH WHITE
As a teenager growing up in north Mississippi, Elizabeth White often relieved the tedium of history and science classes by losing herself in a romance novel hidden behind a textbook. Inevitably she began to write stories of her own. Torn between her two loves—music and literature—she chose to pursue a career as a piano and voice teacher.
Along the way Beth married her own Prince Charming and followed him through seminary into church ministry. During a season of staying home with two babies, she rediscovered her love for writing romantic stories with a Christian worldview. A previously unmined streak of God-given determination carried her through the process of learning how to turn funny, mushy stuff into a publishable novel. Her first novella saw print in the banner year 2000.
Beth now lives on the Alabama Gulf Coast with her husband, two high-maintenance teenagers and a Boston terrier named Angel. She plays flute and pennywhistle in church orchestra, teaches second-grade Sunday school, paints portraits in chalk pastel and—of course—reads everything she can get her hands on. Creating stories of faith, where two people fall in love with each other and Jesus, is her passion and source of personal spiritual growth. She is always thrilled to hear from readers c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279, or visit her on the Web at www.elizabethwhite.net.
Elizabeth White
Crescent City Courtship
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
—Mark 2:15–17
To Emma—because she loves historicals
and because she prays.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Questions for Discussion
Chapter One
New Orleans, November 1879
Gasping for breath, Abigail Neal pounded on Charity Hospital’s enormous oak front door, bruising her fist and driving a splinter into the heel of her hand. She’d covered the six blocks from the District at a flat-out run, but no one had offered to pick her up and take her to her destination. Not that she’d expected it.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered. “Someone answer the door.” She pounded again, this time with the flat of both hands. The sound echoed off the tall columns and wooden floor of the porch and reverberated through the hallway inside.
Where was everyone? Yanking the splinter out of her hand and sucking away a welling drop of blood, she peered through the little pane of glass in the door. Why lock the door of a hospital? To defend against marauding sick people?
Tess wasn’t going to make it if a doctor didn’t come soon.
Abigail was about to bang again when a pair of filmy, protruding eyes met hers on the other side of the window. The latch scraped back and the door opened, revealing a short, barrel-chested man with a pockmarked face. “You’ll have to go to the back door,” he said, squinting up at her. “Nurses are all in evening prayers.”
“I don’t need a nurse. I want a doctor.” Abigail forced herself to stand still, clutching her fingers together to keep from wringing her hands. People often wouldn’t help a person who seemed desperate.
The man scratched his head, disturbing the few wisps of gray hair clinging to his shining scalp. “Ain’t no doctors here to the front. That’s why I says go to the back and wait—that’s where the clinic is.” He looked her up and down. “You don’t look sick, no ways.”
“I’m not sick,” Abigail said, striving for patience. “I want you to fetch a doctor so that I can take him back to the—I want him to come with me.”
“Ain’t none here right now,” the guard repeated stubbornly. “Doc Laniere’s teaching a surgery lesson—”
“Doctor Laniere?” Abigail grabbed the man’s arm. “He’s the one I want. Someone told me he’s very kind and he’s the best doctor in the city.”
“He’s the best all right. But he’s busy, and—”
“Take me to him immediately.” Abigail straightened, well aware of the intimidating effect of her full height. “What is your name?”
“They call me Crutch.” The man glanced uneasily over his shoulder. “Mayhap I could see if Nurse Charlemagne—”
“I told you I don’t want a nurse. I want the doctor.” Abigail found herself on the verge of frustrated tears. Every moment of delay endangered not only Tess’s life but that of the baby. Pride hadn’t done a bit of good so far. “Please, Mr. Crutch. My friend is having her baby—she’s been laboring all day and most of last night. She’s getting weak, I don’t have a way to get her here and I don’t know what to do.”
An enormous sigh was followed by a clicking of tongue against teeth. “He’s gonna squash me like a mosquito,” Crutch muttered, then to Abigail’s relief, disappeared through a white pedimented doorway beyond the staircase.
Even though Crutch left the door standing wide, allowing an unobstructed view of the unadorned entryway, Abigail remained on the enormous two-story porch, unwilling to risk expulsion. She stood watching horse-drawn carriages rattle down Common Street. Some turned on Baronne before reaching the hospital, some continued to Philippa, where they rounded the corner of the beautiful green sward of grass which gave Common Street its name, then disappeared beyond tall rows of businesses. The scene was infinitely refined and orderly.
And she was going to bring the great doctor back with her to a tenement in the District. Well, he would just have to take her and Tess as he found them. She sat down on the broad top step of the porch and linked her fingers across her knees.
An interminable time later, Abigail heard the clatter of footsteps on the stairs behind her. She jumped to her feet and turned, expecting to see Crutch returning with the doctor. Instead she found a young man striding toward her with a black leather case in one hand and a fine felt hat in the other.
“I’m John Braddock,” he said with curt nod. “I understand you need a doctor.”
“Yes, but—” Wide-eyed, she stared at him. That name. What an odd coincidence. She blinked. “Mr. Crutch went for Dr. Laniere. He should be right back.”
“I sent him to bring the mule cart around for us.”
“But—I wanted the house surgeon. Where is he?”
Braddock frowned. “Dr. Laniere is conducting a surgery. Do you or do you not need a doctor?”
“I do, but—”
“Then we’d best hurry. Here’s Crutch with the cart.” He ran down the steps to the drive path, where the messenger was alighting from a small wagon pulled by a lop-eared mule.
Abigail picked up her skirts and followed. “But are you a doctor?” He was very young, perhaps in his mid-twenties.
Braddock vaulted onto the seat of the cart and took the reins from Crutch. “This is a medical college,” he said, reaching a hand down to Abigail. “I’m a second-year student, top of my class. Professor Laniere wouldn’t have sent me if he didn’t think I could deliver a baby. Come on, get in.”
Abigail stared up at him. A student? But Dr. Laniere was in surgery and Tess needed help now. She allowed young Braddock to pull her up onto the narrow seat, settling as far away from him as she dared without pitching herself onto the pavement.
“Where is the patient?” he asked, glancing at her.
“Tchapitoulas Street.”
“That’s a long street. Which part?”
“The District,” she managed, burning with humiliation. “We’re next to the saloon on the corner of Poydras.”
“I might have known.” He flapped the reins to set the cart into motion.
Abigail refused to look at him again, although the jostling of the cart forced her elbow to brush his again and again. She gritted her teeth. By the time they traversed the short distance to the tenement room she shared with Tess, her nerves were a raw jangle of anxiety, fear and resentment.
The young doctor spoke not another word to her until he stopped the cart in front of the saloon and lightly jumped down to tie the mule to a hitching post. He reached for his bag, then offered a hand to Abigail. “Perhaps you could tell me what the trouble is and who I’m to treat.”
Disdaining his hand, Abigail got down from the cart on her own. “My friend Tess has been laboring to deliver her baby all day and most of last night. She was so weak and frightened…I didn’t know what to do.”
“When did contractions start?”
Abigail hurried for the door of the tenement. “About this time yesterday.”
Braddock grabbed her arm. “She’s been in labor for twenty-four hours and you’re just now asking for help?”
“I’ve delivered babies before.” She jerked away from him. “It’s just that I’ve never encountered this difficulty.” Not for the first time she wished she’d had the opportunity for training this rich boy had. Then she’d have known what to do without incurring his disdain.
“Never mind. Which room?” They were in the tiny ground-floor entryway. Narrow unpainted doors opened to the right and left and the treads of a rickety staircase wobbled straight ahead.
“This way.” Abigail turned to the door on the right and lifted the door latch. There was no key because there was no lock. “Tess?” She entered the dark, shabby little room, frightened by the silence. She could sense the silent young doctor behind her.
A soft moan came from the shadows where Tess’s pallet lay against the wall.
Relieved, Abigail hurried over. “Tess, I’ve brought a doctor. He’s going to help us bring the baby out.”
“I can’t…I’m too tired, Abby.” Tess’s voice was a thread.
Abigail fell to her knees and laid a gentle hand on Tess’s distended belly. “Yes, you can. Dr. Braddock is going to help you.” She looked over her shoulder to find him setting his bag on the table.
He looked up. “We’ll need all the extra linens you have. You’ve a way to boil water?”
Abigail swallowed. “Of course.”
“Abigail? Abby?” Tess’s voice sounded terrified. “It’s starting again. The pain—” A scream interrupted her words, ripping from the center of her being.
Torn between compassion and the practical need to attend to the doctor’s wishes, Abigail hurried to find the pile of clean rags she’d been collecting against Tess’s lying-in. As she mended the fire she’d left burning low in the tiny cookstove that squatted against the only exterior wall of the room, she was conscious of Tess’s inhuman, wailing accompaniment to Braddock’s rather jerky movements.
He laid out a collection of shining instruments on one of the rags, arranging them with fastidious neatness. He seemed slow, reluctant.
She watched him with resentment. She should be the doctor, not him.
By the time she had a tin pot of water boiling to her satisfaction on the stovetop, Tess’s screams had subsided to whimpers. Abigail gestured for Braddock’s attention. “Now what?”
