Chapter Thirty-Two

W hile Pippa and Alfie returned to the orangery to dig out some of the ipecac plant's root and infuse into the chocolate desserts they'd laced with charcoal; Nick had to return to Lance.

Lance had been right all along.

"So, my lenses are both cloudy?"

"It's one of the worst cases I've ever seen." Of course, it was. The man was blind, after all.

"And yet, it looks familiar?" Lance asked, oddly hopeful to have a diagnosis that explained his blindness.

"It's the back of the lens, Lance. That's why you lost your vision so quickly. Where the light has to pass through, I mean where it's bundled—"

"Don't speak to me like I'm a layperson. If I have a posterior subcapsular cataract, say so. I get it," Lance bellowed. He pressed both hands flat on the table and was tense. "Take them out."

"What?"

"That's what you do, don't you? Take the bad lenses out and give me crystal glass ones. Please!"

"Lance, I… ahem…" Was that why he'd come? To coerce Nick into operating on him? He'd had an inkling that there might be an ulterior motive besides introducing his wife to him and their friends, but he was usually the one to pick the cases for surgery, not vice versa.

"You don't want to operate on me?"

"No."

"Why not? I'll pay. I can pay, Nick!"

"I don't want your money. I never asked for it."

"Then why not operate on me? Take them out!" Lance stood abruptly and cramped his hands into claws over his eyes as if he could tear them out and sprout a better pair. "Please!"

"Why do you want the lenses out so badly? It's not something anyone has ever asked me for. People don't just come to me and say, ‘Doctor, slice into my eye and take my lens out, please.'"

"They don't understand. It's physics, Nick. Clarity won't come in if you don't let the light through. It's easy."

"The theory is, yes, but the procedure is not."

"Except that your surgeries always go well."

Nick shrugged. It had been a close call with the Earl of Langley recently, but he'd fully recovered by now. Sometimes, the cases were so complicated that he feared losing touch and breaking the streak of immaculate surgeries. One lousy surgery and he feared he'd lose his footing from the slippery top of this mountain. And with the pressure from the quack and the threat of his slander looming over him, Nick feared he might not perform as well as he should. And it was never more critical than right now.

"You're renowned like a puppet master of the eye, Nick. Don't you know?"

Nick mumbled, "No."

"I have read your papers. Isabel read them to me. The journals write about your papers after they publish them. There are seminars at the University in Vienna with hundreds of men discussing your calculations. How do you not know?"

Nick thought about it. Wendy did bring him correspondence with invitations for lectures sometimes. He never gave it much thought because he had surgeries scheduled.

"Your track record is perfect."

"Because I pick my cases."

"Based on which criteria?"

"Well, the case has to be serious enough to warrant surgery."

Lance waved his hand impatiently to nudge Nick on. "What else?"

"The patient has to be healthy enough to recover from the surgery. I need to know that it can heal."

"Fair enough." Lance squared his shoulders.

"The patient needs to understand that the risk of failure is blindness."

"Check. Already there."

"Lance," Nick exhaled.

"I'm already blind."

"You see a light sometimes."

"Fantastic. I can tell when the world has daytime, and I'm still at night. But I want to wake up, Nick. I am only twenty-seven. My wife… Isabel… I've never seen her, Nick. I want to see her when I kiss her, and she lays in my arms. You should know. How would you feel if you held Pippa, and you couldn't see the expression on her face when you made love to her?"

A flash of an image came before Nick's eye. Pippa was atop him, glistening with sweat from their lovemaking. He brushed some hair from her face, and she gave him one of those dreamy looks. The innocent ones that first made him fall in love with her. Then he closed his eyes. If he couldn't see her, how would he feel?

He'd love her just as much. But seeing her meant the world.

"Life's incomplete without seeing your love, isn't it?" Nick asked.

Lance nodded. His head was turned his way, but when he blinked, an instinct the eye maintained despite being able to see, he looked past Nick. He couldn't see him.

"Felix!" Nick shouted, his mind made up. "Wendy!"

Lance's face brightened.

"Andre."

Now, Lance beamed. The door opened, and Wendy soon appeared; Felix came just that moment and stood behind her. Andre peeked out from his apothecary door and wiped his hands on a clean white towel.

"What is it?" Felix asked.

Wendy gave a wide-eyed look when she saw Lance. "Oh, Nick!" She clasped her hands over her chest.

"He convinced me," Nick said. "But I need all of your help, please." Nick looked at Felix, who clenched his jaws.

"You can't operate on a friend," Felix said warningly.

"Why not? You've done it."

Andre came across the hall and had a serious mien. "What do you mean?"

"I did it once and never again. It almost ended my career," Felix said without looking at Andre, who was now standing in the room with them.

No worries, none of them would betray Felix's secret, yet they'd all learned from the mistake.

"I have some calculations to do. We just took the measurements," Nick said as he walked to his desk and pulled open the drawer of lenses. "Could you all prep him for surgery?"

"Both eyes today?" Wendy asked.

"Both today," Lance said sternly. He had the doctor's tone mastered even though he hadn't graduated from university. Some just had the clinical touch in their voice.

Nick heard footsteps coming from the staircase as Felix told Lance to come with him to rinse his face. Wendy began to lay linens on the operating table.

"Lance?" Isabel said from the bottom of the steps when she saw Lance walking upstairs with his hand on Felix's arm. "Why are you going with Felix?"

"I'm prepping him for surgery," Felix said, but Lance had already entered his office.