Chapter Twenty-Nine

A t five o'clock the next morning Pippa took the doctors' shared carriage home. It had been lovely talking to Nick's friends throughout the night, but she didn't want to Wife Six to catch her sneaking back to Cloverdale House. Thus, she returned to the breakfast table as usual and took her customary seat next to Bea, who gave her an inquisitive stare. Pippa couldn't answer at the moment. She sat there, ignoring Wife Six. As she'd predicted, nobody besides Bea had noticed her absence. All was as usual and Pippa felt for the soft spot on the side of her breakfast roll before she split it open, her glasses safely tucked away. And yet, everything had changed. Her little tolerance for Wife Six had evaporated and Pippa had grown impatient with her father's hypocrisy, indulging himself in a destructive lifestyle while scrutinizing Pippa for the slightest transgression.

Not that seducing Nick and agreeing to marry him was a small transgression.

It was all but and it meant the world.

Now Pippa had to get the world to bend to her will the way Nick managed to make light bend through a lens. And she refused to remain silent.

"How can you pay Sir Matthews so much for laying rocks on your back daily?"

"It's called crystal therapy; he's a healer."

"Why don't you go to a real doctor instead?"

"Ah, where would I find a trustworthy doctor, hm?" Father's question was rhetorical, and Pippa knew it was best not to answer. "I've had enough experience with doctors, Pippa. It has sufficed for a lifetime."

"Well, I don't believe Sir Matthews is doing you any good. On the contrary."

"Who made you the expert on doctors, hm?" He had the same telltale you-are-just-a-girl attitude whenever Pippa offered constructive criticism.

"I had the same experience as you. Do you think I forgot the surgeon who came out of Mother's bedchambers shaking his head in defeat? Or the physician who cut her wrist to let her blood? Or the other physician who gave her so much laudanum that she hallucinated?"

Her father grunted and shrugged, which made his big belly jiggle like lemon custard.

"And I remember the last one, the youngest of them all. He sat with us for two days and a night, checking her breathing and her pulse. He didn't leave her side until her time had come."

"He waited with us for her death, Pippa. That's all." Father's voice had a vulnerability and sincerity that Pippa hadn't heard in a long time.

"He knew it was hopeless, yet he stayed to make her comfortable."

"No, he didn't know what to do and couldn't help her, so she died. Pippa, your mother died because none of those damn doctors could help her." Father was always read to condemn the doctors, but he refused to take responsibility for letting his own health decline.

"She died because she was ill. She'd fallen ill a long time ago, and it got worse over the years. None of the doctors made her ill." You, on the contrary, are doing something to make yourself ill. And your newest wife makes me sick.

"They didn't make her better either."

"That may be. But they didn't kill her."

"The hopelessness did, Pippa. Every time one of them told us that there was nothing like it that they'd ever encountered, she wilted a bit more until it was finally too late to come back."

"How can you blame the doctors? She was already ill when they met her. She didn't catch it from them, nor was it their fault that whatever she had was incurable. Even hope couldn't save her."

"Don't be so naive, my child. A doctor is far from a good Samaritan. They don't take on a patient out of the goodness of their heart and try to make them better. It's their job, and they charge a lot of money for that."

"So what? We have enough money to pay them. There's more than Mother could spend in her lifetime."

"Yes, but that's not the point. They started something, a healing process, and made promises to cure your mother, but they failed. And yet, we had to pay them."

"But you pay for food when you get it, not after you digest it, which fuels your body. How is that different?" Pippa was furious with her father, not merely because his worldview was so skewed, but also because she'd taken so long to confront him. How could she have allowed her life to come to this? She'd been mocked by the blob her father had turned into, duke or not, and it had taken Nick risking his practice and life's work to be with her to awaken her good sense. Enough!

"Once a healer lays a hand on a patient, they have trust and responsibility to succeed. It's not a transaction that you pay for."

Unless that doctor happens to be "Sir" Matthews. And what successful treatment has he provided you? Pippa knew better than to put voice to that thought. "But they provide a service, medicines, and they use their supplies. You pay a teacher and a cook, regardless of whether a student learns or whether the food is well digested. Why doesn't a doctor get the benefit of the doubt?"

"Because of their expertise, Pippa. Their training puts them above the patient in understanding the ailments more deeply than the patient. And that understanding sets doctors apart."

Pippa thought about that for a moment. She couldn't picture Nick like that, nor Felix. "The way I see it, a doctor is like a teacher. They sell their expertise. But they don't get paid for studying their subject and all the years of training."

"Ah, and that's where your young age forgives human vices, my girl. I'm no longer prone to that."

Even though she disagreed with her father, he'd finally called her "his girl" again, and Pippa's heart warmed. She continued, "Where's the vice in a young person who goes to university and studies uncountable treatises on human conditions for years and years? Then, that person goes through various apprenticeships and training; some even travel the world to perfect their craft. And when they offer their expertise to help patients, isn't it natural that they'd charge for it? They are just people; they need to live and eat. And who pays for their supplies? For the white linens, the clove oil, the glass lenses, and for sharpening their tools?"

Father squinted. "You know an awful lot about what it takes to run a medical practice."

"No more than about running a school."

"And you got that knowledge from attending school, I know. When have you gone to a medical practice?"

The time had come. Pippa reached for her reticule and opened the ribbon that kept it closed. Then she felt for her leather etui and pulled the spectacles out. She put them on.

Father saw and clenched his jaw. "Where did you get those?"

"From the oculist."

"Where, I asked."

"87 Harley Street."

He pursed his lips. " Argh … take them off."

"No." Pippa crossed her arms.

"Now!"

"No, Father. I won't. They help me to see better."

"Nonsense. Ladies don't wear glasses. Nobody will marry you with spectacles, Pippa. Off with them! Now!" He leaned forward with an alacrity she didn't expect from him anymore, and he grabbed the glasses from her face.

Then he squashed them in his hand.

"Father! No!" Pippa cried.

"I didn't give you permission to seek out an oculist. They're all quacks. Just like the surgeons, dentists—"

"It would do you good to see a dentist!" Pippa shouted, heat rushing to her head as she grabbed the bent spectacles back from her father. One of the lenses had popped halfway out. She tried to squeeze it back into the metal frame with a shaking hand, but she was so angry that her eyes welled up with tears making it even more impossible to see clearly.

"You're embarrassing us with those, on top of making no effort to wed. How do you expect us to continue to pay for you, the clumsy goose on the shelf?"

Pipa seethed with fury. "I'm so ashamed, Father."

Ashamed of what you've become. Who you are. And your foul, common wife.

"As you should be, my girl. Being caught with spectacles could compromise you. It would show the Ton that you're defective and deficient."

There it was, that word again. But it wasn't a comment about her eyesight, it was a comment about her . Pippa sniffled. She realized her tears came from anger, not sadness, and the feeling didn't fade when her father reached out to her, his hand swollen, and his skin stretched and purple. This was not his father's loving hand from her childhood; this was a vexing man who'd been manipulated into an unhealthy, thoughtless marionette.

"It's been so hard to watch you degrade, Child."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You withdrew into your greenhouse or your mother's country estate. Don't think I didn't notice how often you snuck out of dinners and feigned tiredness at balls. You made a fool of yourself as a clumsy goose, and then left society as a whole."

"I'm sorry I embarrassed you, Father," Pippa said with all the grace she could muster, her chin held high even though hers ran down her cheeks and dripped from her chin. "I have never felt more shame."

"For your clumsiness?"

"No, Father. For you."

"M-me?" He thundered. "How dare you!"

"How. Dare. You," Pippa growled, rose from her seat, and left.