Page 89 of A Sight to Behold
“You’re actually not sick, Father. You’ve been poisoned.” Pippa spoke with such dignity, her chin raised high and her back ramrod straight. Nick was proud of her. Clearly, the nobility had a way of handling problems that was new to him. Although he recognized the process. Pippa had prepared the patient and was coming in for the first incision.
The duke was so nasty and disgusting, Nick cringed. He wanted to take Pippa away from him and shield her forever from such scum, regardless of their title.
“Sir Matthews has been poisoning you with mushroom cap in the morning and Si—I mean—Carolyngave you an extra dose each night.”
“Why would they do that and where do you get such ideas from, Pippa? Ridiculous. Poison? You’re embarrassing yourself again.”
His stomach growled again. He began to sweat and turned an unhealthy green in the worst possible way. “Urp.” He patted his hand to his chest. “Urrrrrp!”
“No, Father. You’re embarrassingyourself. We’ve been giving you charcoal to absorb the effects and help you. You just had a second dose of an emetic to release the poison.”
“What? You’re poisoning me?”
“No, we’re trying to purge the poisonfromyou.”
“Who’s we?”
Nick noticed that Pippa bit her tongue. She had concocted the plan of how to give him the medicines with her cousin Bea’s help but it was Nick who’d welcomed Alfie’s help in procuring the right doses.
“Me.” Nick stepped forward. “I’m a doctor and hate to see patients suffer from charlatanerie. Plus, I wanted you to be alert when I ask for her hand in marriage.”
“Denied, boy, I told you. Who’s the charlatan now?”
“Mr. Matthews is your father-in-law, did you know that?” Pippa stepped forward. Her voice was rigid.
“Pippa, shut up.” Her father bent over and held his massive stomach. With the other hand, he still leaned against the elegant desk. He was too vile to hold to such an exquisite piece of furniture. But he was mostly too vile to be in the company of Pippa, Nick decided.
“She injured my bunny and threatened to kill me with Mother’s machete!”
“Oh dear, now you’ve lost your mind. Where would she find that old thing?”
“In the orangery. The day of the flop with her charity ball, Father. Do you remember? I bred the mosquitos that stung her. About three hundred—or more—larvae. I released them into her bedchamber. She retaliated by trying to kill Truffles.”
“You stupid little brat,” her father growled, bent lower. He let out an enormous groan and Nick stepped back. It appeared things were coming to a head—for the man’s stomach.
The duke panted. “You have… no right to… treat Carolyn with… such disrespect. I thought… they’d gotten those pranks… out of you in finishing school. I had hoped… to be rid… of you if… they give you a little polish and refinement.”
He drooled.
So much for polish and refinement, Nick thought.
Pippa ignored it. “Father, I wish to marry Dr. Folsham.”
“You should give your blessing,” the Earl of Langley said. “With a little luck, you might qualify to stay in your current bedchamber and undergo the rehabilitation program with a real doctor.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. Matthews and his daughter are going to be prosecuted for their crimes. Surely poisoning a peer of the Realm and threatening his daughter rank higher than some of their petty fraud, but it will add up.”
“What?”
“There’s trickery, attempted murder, breaking and entering, charlatanerie, embezzlement, collusion—” The earl enumerated the various crimes for which Sir Mathews and Wife Six would likely be tried. Once Pippa had felt safe in the knowledge that he and the rest of the doctors at 87 Harley Street would not be affected by Wife Six’s blackmail, and with the Earl of Langley and Lance by her side, she was willing and ready to report to the duo’s crimes to the constables.
“You damn bastard!” Pippa’s father shouted.
The archbishop turned to him with a pointedly arched brow. “Come on now, save your dignity and acknowledge defeat.”
“I won’t be defeated by my daughter’s disgrace. And if I had had a boy, I wouldn’t have to put up with this clumsy goose. Look what she’s done to me!” He made a terrible throaty noise and gripped his cravat at the same time. “I never want to see her again!”
