Page 67 of A Sight to Behold
“It’s not my blood,” she cried. “It’s Truffles! He’s been stabbed.”
Alfie came closer, bending down to peer at Truffles, limp in Nick’s hands. “Is this a rabbit?” Concern and surprise warred in his voice.
Pippa nodded. “Mushroom cap,” she gasped. She dropped her face onto Nick’s shoulder.
“Who took the mushroom cap?” Alfie came to stand behind Nick to see Pippa’s face as she cried onto Nick’s shoulder.
“My father.”
“It’s a dangerous poison, Pippa. We have to help the duke if he took some,” Alfie said.
Nick took the bunny and carried him to his operating table. “Alfie, water—”
“Here.” Alfie brought clean towels and a metal bowl of water, needles and thread; Nick had set the bunny on the table where he stood, trembling, ears back, eyes big and staring with what Pippa thought might be fear and pain.
She realized that Chromius was underfoot, leaning his shaggy side against her legs, but unlike his usual boisterous self he wasn’t jumping on her. It was as if he sensed there was something gravely wrong.
“I’m not sure of the safe amount for a rabbit. I have a good idea for a human patient, but even then there’s always a risk.” Alfie dripped some laudanum onto a cloth that he waved near Truffles’s snout. In a few moments, Pippa’s bunny had collapsed. She blinked back tears.
Nick held him on his back as Alfie shaved the area around his wounds.
“It’s not deep. I don’t see any cuts on his organs. I’m not an animal doctor, but I think a few stitches will work to stop the bleeding.”
Pippa held back her tears as she watched them work together to stop the bleeding. “He looks so small.” She wiped any escapedwetness from her face. “Is he going to be all right? Is he going to…”
“As long as he doesn’t develop any infection, he should be fine,” Alfie said.
“I’ve got some ointment,” Nick said. He used a flat, wooden stick to swipe over the stitches, and then wrapped a clean strip of linen around the rabbit to cover them. “He’ll probably be a bit stiff, and he’ll probably be somewhat groggy, but I think he’ll be fine.”
He was right; within a few minutes, the bunny woke up and drank water from a clean pipette that Alfie fed him. “I’ll get a carrot from the back for him soon, or some carrot-flavored laudanum if he needs more,” he joked.
Nick nodded, then turned his focus to Pippa. “Now. You were talking about poison. And your father? Pippa, what is happening?”
She drew a ragged breath. “Wife Six is poisoning my father, I think—one dose at night. And I think Sir Matthews gives him another in the morning when he goes for his…treatments. That’s why—” Tears spilled down her cheeks once more.
Nick lifted his gaze to Alfie’s. “Matthews from across the street?” He turned back to Pippa.
But as soon as Nick asked the question, he saw that a veil had descended over Pippa’s red-rimmed eyes. He’d seen it before. It was the same face that doctors put on when they gave a terminal diagnosis, or when they informed family members of a surgery that had gone wrong, or the death of a baby at birth. It was the same face he’d viewed in his mirror after his best friend had gone blind and there had been nothing he could do.
Pippa leaned against the table to regain her breath. “I have to tell you something.”
And with these words, she began. Sentence by sentence, she shattered his heart.
Nick was under no illusion that Alfie didn’t know what he felt. Alfie stood by, his eyes flicking to Nick, who struggled to keep his composure. As if giving Nick the space to confront his heartbreak, Alfie methodically began cleaning the operating table and their tools, his motions deliberate and seemingly detached.
And it was Nick’s fault for not heeding his friend’s warnings. He hadn’t kept his hands off the lady. It had been impulsive. Exciting, yes. Wonderful. Stupid, certainly. He’d so thoroughly compromised her that it couldn’t be undone. The quack from across the street had a daughter, married to Pippa’s father, who wanted to keep Pippa unmarried so that he could control her inheritance. If the stepmother outlived Pippa’s father, she’d inherit. Pippa would be penniless. And if word got out that Nick had compromised her, the practice might be left in shambles.
Mr. Matthews had found a way to ruin the practice and Nick had gotten entangled in a trap. If the authorities got involved, too, rumors would spread worse than a nettle rash.
And the price he’d pay was… everything.
Alfie waited until she finished her account. Nick watched the scene unfold as if he were reading about it in a book, but he couldn’t shut it down and set it aside. He’d brought this upon his own life, imposed on an aristocrat’s daughter, and tried to meddle. Why couldn’t he just let her be? He’d diagnosed her because he knew spectacles would cure her hardship. And then he’d deflowered her, compromised her. Because he’d fallen in love with her, even though he’d known it was not his role to play.
Now, he and his friends could lose everything for one pair of spectacles for a pretty lady. When the gentry and nobility clashed, it was like hot and cold air in the sky; there was thunder, lighting, and bad weather. The question would be how and if their practice could weather the storm.
When she’d finished, she heaved for air, tears running down her cheeks.
But something inside of Nick had changed. He suppressed the urge to touch her. A part of him wanted to wrap himself around her and soothe her tears, but the other part, the rational one who’d worked so hard to get here, wasn’t willing to sacrifice everything because of the quack’s web of traps.
