Chapter Four

The next day…

P ippa sat at the breakfast table in her family's dining room with her cousin Bea, her father, and—she swallowed bile at the thought—her stepmother.

"Did you see the Earl of Langley and his pretty young wife at the ball last night?" Wife Six asked as she set her teacup on the saucer with a clank.

"Yes, he seems to be doing rather well for himself these days," Father mumbled from behind the paper.

"Why do you say that?" Pippa asked.

"Oh, just an observation. He smiled and flashed large golden teeth. Expensive stuff," Father mumbled, turning large pages of the Morning Chronicle with the telltale riffling of pages.

"I wouldn't want to kiss that mouth." Across the table from Pippa, her cousin Bea grimaced.

"Why?" Pippa asked in a hushed tone to not draw Wife Six into the conversation. It was common at the family's breakfast gatherings to have her father seated at the head of the table opposite his sixth wife, at least ten feet away from her, since breakfast was taken in the dining room under Wife Six's regime. Anything she did was an occasion for pomp and circumstance, even if she was only buttering her toast.

"He's a rake. His reputation is that of a rather wild boar."

"He's married now."

"To Violet, I know. I was at their wedding. A sow and a boar are a perfect match. They can roll around in their muddy personalities."

"Still…" Bea tapped on her soft-boiled egg until the top of the shell cracked. With her perfectly manicured nails, she peeled off the thin white shells and piled the bits up on the side of the egg cup.

"Their wedding was lovely. I thought Violet was a gorgeous bride." Pippa felt the need to say something nice after they'd spoken so much of the truth. Didn't everyone deserve the benefit of the doubt? Violet had been a rather mean girl and coined the nasty nickname "clumsy goose" that Pippa couldn't rid herself of. If it hadn't been for Violet, Pippa wouldn't be "the clumsy goose." And yet, Pippa thought that there must be some good in all people, even Violet.

Bea shut her eyes and stuffed her mouth with toast and egg. "If you like that sort of thing." She shrugged and chewed heartily. Her opinion of Violet's doom was seemingly a foregone conclusion.

Pippa set her spoon down, her appetite gone. "What's wrong with kissing the Earl of Langley?"

"Oh, Pippa," Bea exhaled and took a big swig of her tea. "Where to begin?"

Pippa leaned back and set her napkin aside. "Anywhere."

"Imagine kissing a man who has kissed so many women before. It's as if you were kissing them all."

"No."

"Yes."

"Tell me more about that. I'm all ears."

"A little less ears would suit you better, dear. Perhaps even help your chances to marry some third son or widower," Wife Six said from five feet away. She had sharp hearing like an owl, and her personality matched that of a ruffled bird of prey. She was ready to descend on a tiny mouse any time, but she'd circle a larger piece of prey for as long as necessary until she could sink her sharp claws into it.

But Pippa decided to ignore her and press Bea for the gossip. Pippa knew that it was a fallacy in Bea's thinking that was all too typical for diamonds of the first water like her cousin; gossip could easily be taken at face value.

"Well," Bea whispered, turning her back to Wife Six. Every time she took Pippa's side, her cousin endeared herself more and more, and that was hard because Bea was already Pippa's favorite person in the world—the ones who were alive, at least. Mother had been… but that was in the past.

"I heard that the Earl of Langley was rather adventurous in his youth. Daring even."

"His youth? I saw him at their wedding; he looked young to me."

"His adventures have aged him." Bea leaned closer to Pippa and held her hand straight up as a wall shielding the sound from reaching Wife Six 's ears. "He's been on a Grand Tour for three years."

"After his studies at Oxford, I assume. He must have had a gentleman's education. Did he graduate?"

"He earned honors a term early and then went on the Grand Tour starting in Paris. He's about two and thirty now."

"It's not uncommon for young aristocrats to pay Louis XVIII a visit these days."

"And is it common for them to go to Carnival in Venice three years in a row?"

"Do you think Casanova was the only man there every year?" She whispered to ensure the duke didn't hear her speaking of such scandalous people.

"I also heard that the earl has been to the Austrian court in Vienna, the Prussian court in Berlin, and the Russian court in St. Petersburg."

"Good for him."

"Pippa, aren't you listening? He's been all over!"

"And that's a problem?" Pippa ate her egg; it had gotten hard and cold already while Bea was undeterred in trying to convince Pippa of the many vices of the earl.

"You're not listening to me. He's been to every place in Europe where scandal soared during the exact seasons he visited."

" Hmpf !"

"He probably seduced every woman at the royal courts of Europe." Bea waved grandly and then froze, looking over her shoulder to Wife Six, who'd arched one of her thin brows.

"I hear that the Earl of Langley has excellent diplomatic connections," Father mumbled again from behind the paper. "Sometimes a man shares a glass of wine, beer, or whiskey to forge alliances. He's done well for himself."

Of course, a lady would be ruined by as much as standing alone in a room with a man. But an earl could hop through all the beds in the courts of Europe, and he had "good connections." That was the essence of society's rules. Pippa shook her head.

"His life of splendor made him sick," Wife Six said. "The Viscountess Cunningham told me over tea that the earl paid a certain dentist on Harley Street a small fortune for his treatment."

"Harley Street, you say?" Father folded his paper and held it to his side. The butler retrieved it instantly. "Where on Harley Street?"

"I don't remember. Seventy-eight or eighty-seven." Wife Six lingered on the house number and turned her eyes upward. Then she grew silent for an instant and studied Father's reaction. She was oddly attentive.

Pippa felt for the white card with Dr. Folsham's address in her pocket. It burned as if it were aflame. 87 Harley Street exactly.

"Has he been to anyone else there?" Father asked.

"The viscountess told me he recently had eye surgery, but it wasn't clear," Wife Six continued.

"And how does she know that?" Father peeked out from behind the paper.

"I believe her daughter needs some treatment of the delicate nature, and she inquired about recommendations for physicians. That's how the young doctors on Harley Street came up in conversation, and the viscountess had a recommendation from Violet's mother, Lady Durham."

"What does her daughter need? I didn't expect her debut until next season," Bea said, ever aware of whose turn it was to become her competition at Almack's.

"She may not make it, dear. She needs a lot of dental fillings, and if any self-respecting man sees the girl smile with a mouth full of silver, she won't—"

"I think they can use gold these days and white materials," Pippa said.

"How do you know?" Father thundered. "What did you do?"

"Nothing, Father." Pippa withdrew like a snail in its shell. But I might need spectacles. She thought quickly so as to escape his wrathful curiosity. "You just said that the Earl of Langley is doing well for himself with all those gold fillings."

"Ah, yes, I suppose I did." Father shook the paper in a show of dominance, or so Pippa imagined. "But beware of those charlatans; they scrape the teeth of the rich, hollow and fill them with rubbish to charge for silver by the gram."

"They don't have to scrape much to hollow out your teeth, darling," Wife Six said from across the table. It was a friction point in the Pemberton household that Father resorted to various methods to alleviate the pain of his many ailments rather than seek out treatment to cure them.

"Symptoms muted, disease saluted," he mumbled. "Add some sparkle to the deficiencies, and everyone will see them!" He'd probably say that about spectacles, too. They were for men or scholars. He was well matched with the wife of the year, having exchanged the rest of wives two through five nearly annually since Pippa's had mother died with a divorce granted by Parliament. Though, to his credit, two of the wives had run off never to be seen again. "I'd rather have hollow teeth than none." And with these words, Father snapped his paper shut, rose from his chair, and left.

"I still don't understand what is wrong with the viscountess's daughter." Bea was seemingly stuck on her competition, always scouting the prettier ladies at the balls.

"She has a sweet tooth, and she's in pain, and her mother said she won't have any offers this season. Last I heard, they made appointments for her to see a dentist every day for a whole week."

"On Harley Street?" Pippa asked.

"Yes, at eighty-seven," Bea answered.

Pippa recalled that she'd seen the address, 87 Harley Street, when she'd accompanied Father to his appointments and now she had the oculist's card.

"And then she will be compromised. If her smile isn't perfectly restored, she has to trap a good man into marriage before the next season." Wife Six left the table with a scheming plan hanging in the air as if it were naught to manipulate people's lives to suit the Ton's whims. If the sole value in life were to impress the Ton, Wife Six would say that the end justified the means, regardless of their immorality. Fairness, integrity, and morality were not usually thoughts she bothered herself with. If any question of that nature arose, when Pippa brought it up, Wife Six waved it away like a nasty mosquito that buzzed around the imported tropical plants in the orangery.

Pippa remained alone at the table with Bea and stared at her half-eaten breakfast.

"Don't waste the egg. Can I have that?" Bea asked, switching her empty eggshell in a cup against Pippa's untouched soft—boiled egg.

"Doesn't it bother you at all?"

"That you had some of this egg already? No."

"I mean with the girl. She's in pain and needs a doctor."

"Seems like she'll get one." Bea licked her lips and reached for the saltshaker.

"And as a punishment for needing medical treatment, she cannot make a debut and has to stoop so low as to trap a man into marriage?" It was worrisome, to say the least. Not that she'd have the chance to debut, but it was saddening to think of how she herself would need to trap a man into marriage. She was defective, after all.

Nick—Doctor Folsham's—words rolled through her mind as if he'd just whispered them in her ear: A vision deficit doesn't mean you are deficient in any way. Easy for him to say, though the words were quite nice to hear…

"Won't be the first." Bea scooped out the egg white with bits of the yellow-orange yolk that had hardened and crumbled on the spoon. "Why do you care? They're not your teeth. Yours are fine."

But my eyes may not be , Pippa couldn't help but think. The handsome oculist had drawn her attention to her impaired eyesight and the issue hadn't left her mind since he had. Or was it the thoughts of his lop-sided smile and warm eyes that had preoccupied Pippa more?

"It bothers me because it's a double standard. The Earl of Langley's gold fillings are like trophies for his exploits and experience, making him seem much more accomplished." Bea shrugged.

Pippa lost her patience. "It's not fair that he was considered the catch of the season despite his debauchery while a young woman is easily shelved like an old shoe at the slightest hint of a scuff."

"You admitted it! Debauchery!" Bea laughed and reached for her napkin as she finished the egg.

Bea was far too clever, sometimes. "I stand corrected. I have no facts to judge his life on."

"You don't need facts to judge. He married Violet. A man who marries a venomous snake like Violet can only be a snake himself or be poisoned by her venom."

"That's vile, Bea. Don't catch the nasty gossip bug from the Ton only because you mingle with them. I cannot form an opinion without facts. Judgment based on hearsay is gossip."

"That's the best kind!" Bea gave a mischievous wink and left Pippa alone at the table.

It was a double standard to judge men and women differently, and it oughtn't be a standard at all. Making it the norm to treat women differently than men made Pippa bristle, not in the least, because her father and Wife Six showed such complacency. If a lady needed treatment and there was an excellent doctor to offer it, Pippa decided, then she should be able to receive it without losing her prospects for a favorable marriage.

Pippa's head spun with what she'd been taught and what she believed in her heart. Truth and judgment were not congruent regarding how the English aristocracy picked their spouses nor how marriages were judged. As cruel as Violet was, she'd caught an earl in her first season, so she was forever redeemed in society. The earl, in return, had a young wife, and his rakehell past was instantly forgotten. Pippa shook her head; if Violet was a beacon of respectability judged by people like Wife Six, she attributed no value to the Ton. And yet, their rules were what kept her from finding her path in life.

It was unfair.

And she wouldn't stand by and let life and love pass her by for that.

Pippa wanted to go through life with an open heart and open eyes. And if she'd see better with spectacles, she'd take the handsome doctor up on his offer and get some.