“Many Russian ladies are taught the cultural dances by their nannies in nursery. Do you know the steps?”
“Not these, but others like them.”
Mama sidled closer to Svetlana. “My daughter was training to join the Imperial Russian Ballet.”
“Is that so?” Sheremetev rolled his gold pen between his fingers as he studied her. “I imagine it has been some time since you danced. Would you like to do so again?”
Her heart tugging her, Svetlana glanced at the dancers, then looked away. “Someday perhaps. There are more pressing matters than ballet.”
“So there are.” He wrote Mama’s name in elegant script on the To line of the cheque, then hovered over the Amount line. “You would show us perhaps.”
“No, I’d rather not.”
He pulled his pen away and frowned. “No?”
Leonid stepped to her side. “Papochka, Angel does not wish to entertain. Look at this rabble. For her they are too unrefined.”
“Nothing in my club is unrefined, a point well to remember if you ever hope to succeed me.” Sheremetev kept his voice even, but there was no denying the warning in his eyes.
Leonid dropped his gaze. “Remember, da.”
“Good. Go see to the orders in the basement. Our clients are waiting.”
“But, Papochka—”
Sheremetev jabbed him in the chest with his pen. “Go.”
Leonid cast an apologetic look over his shoulder to Svetlana as he scurried away under his father’s foreboding stare. Her champion gone as quickly as he’d tried to rise to her defense. He was, indeed, her good friend.
Sensing the rebuttal had weakened her cause, Mama’s eyes skittered from the unfulfilled cheque to Svetlana. She clutched her arm. “Silly child. Of course she will.” Her nails dug into Svetlana’s skin. “Please Mr. Sheremetev with a dance.”
Svetlana stiffened against her mother’s restraint. She wasn’t a windup toy perched on a box to perform at whim, and she certainly wouldn’t lower herself to dance in front of card-playing castoffs as they guzzled drinks into oblivion. Ballet was not for casual amusement.
Across the room, the count stared with hatred as his fingers rapped against the cashier booth. If he held true on his promise to alert the authorities, Mama would be arrested with unimaginable horrors awaiting her. Mama would never recover from the humiliation, and her family may never recover from the cost of bail. Money that was to be saved for their survival.
Sheremetev’s gold pen hovered once more over the Amount line. One more payment of debt to their account. He watched her, waiting.
As Mama’s nails dug farther, Svetlana swallowed the knot of pride and nodded. “I will dance for you.”
Smiling, Sheremetev touched his pen to the cheque. “Excellent.”
Chapter 9
As the same question was repeated yet again in a different syntax, Wynn glanced longingly at the pitcher of water mere feet away. His throat was parched after an hour-long presentation before the hospital board and another hour in which questions and accusation had been lobbed at him from every angle in the Paris School of Médecine’s lecture hall. The room seemed to shrink in on him with every passing minute. He dare not step away for a drink lest the white-haired doctors in the gallery smell weakness. He couldn’t afford weakness at this crucial moment when the old dragons had to be won over.
He’d been summoned to explain his cardiological surgery on Lieutenant Harkin after his supervisor learned of the rogue procedure and reported it to the board. Following a month of paperwork, Wynn had finally been called to testify.
“It is often the practice of qualified surgeons to ascertain whether an object is best left unremoved to forgo further complications. Death for instance.” From the second row, the questioning doctor squinted at him through large spectacles. “Why did you negate such a practice?”
Wynn tried not to think about the cool water as he answered the question. The same question. For the tenth time. “While this is a tried method, it is not always successful. In the case of my patient I felt he was better served to remove the object.”
“You felt. How quaint. A physician’s job is not determined by emotion but by studious examination, facts, and knowledge gained by those who have gone before.”
“All of which I consulted before making a final decision and gaining permission from the patient.”
“A patient cannot be trusted to know what is best for them. They have not the learning.”
A doctor at the far end of the front row stood up. With dated muttonchops and a pristine white coat, he commanded attention. “While I am in agreement that patients do not have the learning to understand the workings of our profession, I cannot agree that their opinion is invalid. A good doctor must weigh both. It speaks well of Dr. MacCallan that this Lieutenant Harkin confided in him regarding the continuing pain.”
The first doctor inclined his head, causing his spectacles to slip down his nose. “Your words are highly respected, Dr. Lehr, but a good bedside manner cannot be confused with medical aptitude.”
Wynn knew his kind. Shuffling behind his medical books and claiming they held all the answers, too afraid to seek improvement beyond the sacred texts. These men lived in the Dark Ages where medical advancement was akin to witchcraft.
Wynn wasn’t going to the stake based on that man’s stupidity. “If you challenge my aptitude, then you challenge Romero, Williams, Cappelen, and most recently a surgeon in Malta. All performed similar successful operations. As was the surgery performed in Cambrai last year, from which medical notes I used as a basis to my decision.”
“Youth’s arrogance often leads to downfall.”
“A physician’s age does not determine his arrogance. In fact, I’ve found that advancing age often hinders one’s ability to see past their own inclinations.”
A gasp sounded around the room, the inhaled vacuum quickly filled with murmurs of outrage. Hang it all. Wynn grabbed the pitcher and poured himself a liberal amount of water. He downed the glass in one gulp and forced himself to remain calm for the sake of crowd control. He was losing them fast, and if he didn’t recover the discussion they might bar him from medical practice for good.
“Gentlemen, please. I realize how heretical this may sound as the heart is considered a sacred organ, but as well-respected physicians you also know that it is another part of the body. We have an obligation to our patients and the welfare of future generations not to leave it a mystery.” He gazed across the rows of the lecture hall and into the upper galleries. Half empty as many could not spare time away from their patients, but enough had come. All different ages and levels of skill, but a common purpose drew them together. It must continue to bring them together if the world was to have any hope.
“Every man here has seen the horrors of war raging mere miles from our hospital doors. Soldiers, men, boys are brought to our operating tables broken and bleeding. It is our duty, nay, our vow to heal them within our powers and do no harm. I consider it a great harm to neglect procedures that can and will save lives. Lives that we will be held responsible for at Judgment Day.”
Another hour later Wynn had drained a second pitcher of water and packed up his presentation materials. He’d never talked so much in his entire life. All he wanted was to go home and pull the covers over his head until morning without saying a word to another soul.