Chapter Forty-One

I f Pippa thought she could make an elegant escape from the ball, she'd been mistaken. Society's scorn awaited her among the splendor of Violet's ball. In fact, immediately upon entering the ballroom on Nick's arm Pippa lifted her eyes to the ceiling, where a grand chandelier hung, its golden branches holding up the drip trays with crystal flutes shielding the gas lamps. Made up of symmetrically arranged branches, each was hung with chains of crystals sending beams in all directions and illuminating the drama playing out below. It would all have been rather spectacularly beautiful if she didn't dread entering the large room filled with so many members of the Ton who knew her as "the clumsy goose." Then again, that had been in the past.

The elaborate dance of rococo flair and its intricate designs reminiscent of the flamboyant and ornate style of the late Baroque period clashed with the atmosphere, thick with tension so intense that it made the chandelier quiver slightly. The room was filled with people who shot sharp glances at each other, their hostility causing the air to throb. Balls such as these were worse than exams at finishing school; they tested a person beyond what had been prepared.

Bea, Lance, Isabel, and Carolyn stood in the middle of the dance floor, positioned directly underneath the largest chandelier overhead and even the ceiling molding converged in a rosette over their heads, as if a thunderstorm brewed directly above them.

But, in fact, a storm was brewing on the other side of the room, as Pippa heard a woman's voice raised in anger and—possibly—desperation. It was a voice she recognized, and the sound of it made her feel as if her skin was crawling. "An investigation?" Carolyn shrieked.

The rosette, which she had admired just moments ago, now seemed to press down on her. The room grew even more still, the silence echoing the frozen scene on the parquet, as if everyone and everything in the room were holding their breath, waiting for the world to break apart under the strain of the tension.

Isabel stood ramrod straight, her hand resting on Lance's arm. A circle had opened around them. The Who's Who of the English aristocracy listened to their every word. Pippa and Nick approached Bea, who stood slightly beside Isabel, eyeing Carolyn with disgust.

"You poisoned the duke!" Bea squinted defiantly and crossed her arms over her bodice. A ripple of gasps and murmurs washed over the crowd of curious bystanders. Pippa's heart thundered in her chest, a wild drum echoing her mounting panic. Her breath hitched as she surged forward, the urgency of the situation spurring her into action. Bea had helped her and now she was in the crossfire of the Ton. As the clumsy goose and an outcast, Pippa knew how embarrassment felt, but she feared that it would shatter her beloved cousin. The world around her blurred into a whirl of colors and shapes, the grandeur of the ballroom reduced to mere background noise as her focus narrowed down to the figure before her. She pulled away from Nick to push through the crowd.

But the throng was tight and—predictably—someone in the crush stepped on the train of her gown. She could feel the pull, a sharp tug at her waist that halted her momentum and sent a jolt of surprise through her.

Looking down, the world tilted. The opulent patterns of the ballroom floor swirled and danced before her eyes, a chaotic ballet that made her head spin. Her glasses slipped down the bridge of her nose, teetering on the edge of disaster.

And then, it happened. The grand chandelier above, a magnificent spectacle of gold and crystal, caught her eye. Its brilliance reflected off her glasses. Just the wrong angle of reflection in the worst possible moment. It was blinding, disorienting.

With her senses overwhelmed and her balance compromised, Pippa was falling. The sensation was disconcerting, a slow-motion descent into chaos. The world spun as she tipped forward, the elegant tapestries and gilded mirrors of the ballroom whirling into a dizzying vortex.

And then she held on to something.

She hung onto the fabric but it didn't stop her tumble. A loud ripping noise pierced through the air.

She braced for the impact, her heart pounding against her ribcage. But as she fell, someone gripped her from behind. A strong hand came to her rescue and although she was already on her knees, she was pulled up.

Someone else steadied her from behind and she straightened herself.

*

Nick had rushed in just in time and darted to Pippa. "You almost slipped!" he said, gently wrapping his hand around hers, which came to rest on the crux of his elbow.

"She did slip!" the Earl of Langley said who'd appeared a split second later behind Pippa. "Are you well, Lady Pemberton?" he asked loudly, as if he were on stage. As if not enough people were watching them, Alfie, Felix, and Andre joined them in the center of the ballroom.

Pippa had paled, but now she was reddening. Nick surveyed the scene and all the guests in their finery surrounded their little group. He'd walked into quite a society scandal and felt as lost as a fish in the desert.

"Are you injured?" Andre asked Pippa, the orthopedist at the ready for any potentially broken bones or twisted ankles.

"She tore my gown!" a middle-aged woman in a dark green dress cried.

"Carolyn, I'm sorry, it was an accident," Pippa said, lowering her head when the woman's vicious gaze caught her.

"Did you injure yourself, Lady Pemberton?" The earl ignored the infuriated woman and looked at Pippa.

"I think I'm well, my lord. Thank you, Andre."

"I'm not! She tore my…" But the woman didn't have a chance to finish.

"Aren't you glad your dress caught her fall? It's a kind sacrifice to prevent your stepdaughter from taking a tumble in front of everyone here." The earl gestured into the round of his guests and Nick realized that this was Wife Six.

"Why would I do that? The clumsy goose ripped the velvet of my dress!"

"You didn't try to catch her fall?" Violet said. "She has spectacles, and you are supposed to help when some needs assistance."

"Says who?" Wife Six cried out.

"Says common decency," Isabel said cheekily. "If you're in the position to help, you ought to."

"According to whom?" The evil stepmother quirked one of her thin painted-on brows, and it looked like it was being chased up her visage by the overdone, red-painted lips.

"According to Lady Ellington, my wife, the daughter of Viscount Knox," Lance said, giving her a lethal stare.

"They're back." Violet winked at Isabel. Pippa's heart leapt with joy for Isabel because she knew how terrible she must have felt banished to the country. This return was more glorious than her debut would have ever been, and Pippa saw the twinkle in her eye as she let the crowd take a good look at her, bold, beautiful, blemished, and brazen.

For a moment, Carolyn's gaze darted from one to the other and she remained silent. "Who…how…is that…why?"

"They are my guests." the Earl of Langley spoke slowly and loudly, for everyone to hear. "Dr. Felix Leafley, my dentist, Mr. Alfie Collins, my apothecary, Dr. Andre Fernando, the orthopedist, Miss Wendy Folsham, the best nurse in Town, and the esteemed Dr. Nicholas Folsham, with his fiancée, Lady Penelope, with whom you're well acquainted."

With every word, the witch turned more and more the shade of her green dress.

"And you know us, by reputation at least," Lance said. "Looks like we're back." He gave a lopsided smile and exuded sheer noble prowess. It must have been so long that Lance and Isabel had planned a putsch of the Ton.

"And why do you need so many doctors, my lord?" Carolyn's voice was seeped in venom of the extra dangerous kind, a woman about to be scorned by society.

"Doesn't everyone?" The earl shrugged.

"The doctors here are rather amazing and Dr. Nick Folsham here operated on me earlier this week." Lance now turned to the crowd and spoke so grandly it was as if he'd rehearsed it. "I was blind for nearly four years and now, thanks to him, I can see!"

The crowd came to life with appreciative chatter.

"You poisoned my husband," Carolyn retaliated with an accusation that had already become a moot point before she'd uttered it. The room filled with excited chatter.

"No, you poisoned my father! All week, we've been leaching it from his system and being absorbed in his body so that he be sober enough to see you for who you really are!" Pippa brushed a strand out of her face that had fallen from her upswept hair. "He's in the library now releasing the poison you gave him from his stomach," she said.

The crowd gasped and a few sounds of argh and ugh emerged. "You've been poisoning him for years with mushroom cap from your father's…" Pippa waved at Nick. "What do you call a charlatan's practice if it's not a practice at all?" she asked him.

He was speechless and shook his head. "It's not a practice if he doesn't have a license. And he doesn't even have a license of good standing from the local bishop."

" You are the charlatans!" Carolyn pointed dramatically and curled her back as if her finger could shoot the doctors with lightning bolts. "You! And you! And you! And you paint people's teeth with gold for a bloody fortune!" She stopped on Felix.

"Paint?" the earl asked.

"I saw you smiling at your little wife. Your teeth are—"

" Filled with gold, yes. Not painted. Dr. Felix Leafley, as I said, is my dentist. And if he weren't as good at his job as he is, I wouldn't be able to smile at my dear wife. The Countess of Langley, mind you, deserves the best of me."

"And yet, you are a spare parts warehouse!" Carolyn shouted.

The crowd gasped.

"What did you call me?" The earl stepped forward and towered over her.

"False teeth, false eyes, what else did you need help reconstituting for your young bride, hm ?" Carolyn made a show of trailing her eyes down from his face to his chest and she stopped in his middle.

"If he's a spare parts warehouse, then so am I, by your definition." Lance joined the earl. Isabel tried to hold him back, but he was unstoppable. "Except that you're mistaken with one important thing, Lady Pemberton, the sixth, is it? You've replaced five other wives and I suspect some of their departures can be traced back to your father's influence. For years, ‘ Sir ' Matthews has used the information he obtained in confidence to blackmail the Ton, hasn't he?"

"What an absurd accusation!"

"Is it?" Lance spoke clearly for the other guests to hear. "Then why do I know that Viscount Grantham seeks him out? Or Lady Sheridan?" Carolyn's eyes grew wide. "Isn't it true that Lady Sheridan's second daughter was poised to marry the viscount's oldest son but then that arrangement was unexpectedly dissolved due to an unknown reason?"

Even Nick was impressed. What kind of dirt had Lance dug up on the information Matthews held?

"What if she was?" Her face grew red, and Nick could hear the shaking of fury in her voice.

"Well then why would he pay your father every month?"

She stepped back.

"It's hush money, that's why!"

She harumphed .

"And if he doesn't pay the sum that's equivalent of Lady Sheridan's daughter's dowry on the date of their marriage, your father will tell some awful secret, won't he?"

"How does he know?" Pippa asked Isabel, who stood watching her husband with pride on her face.

"Because I planted some juicy half-truth to test the hypothesis," Isabel told her, never taking her eyes from Lance.

"And I helped spread the rumor in just the right directions." Violet smiled. "The gossip spread like a wildfire in less than a week and left a clear trail that led to you."

"With my help," The earl wobbled his head proudly. "I have some connections, as you know."

"B-but the viscount's son is—" Carolyn didn't finish.

"I'm right here, Lady Pemberton." A young man in evening attire cleared his throat. "And none of your vicious gossip is true, except that I love Sophia Sheridan. And you're not invited to our wedding next month." He stepped back and bowed in the direction of the Earl of Langley.

"See, Lady Pemberton, a real doctor would never spread gossip or sell information from a patient. There's no betrayal of trust possible with the young doctors from 87 Harley Street. They keep absolute confidentiality."

"But I can see the work you've had done!" Carolyn cried out.

The earl fumed. Then he walked away and straight to the edge of the crowds where his guests were. "Look at me!" he called out. He didn't need to speak very loudly—everyone's attention was already fixed on the drama unfolding on the dance floor in front of them. He opened his mouth wide and bared his teeth. "I'm admitting to repairs and the use of various medicines to feel good in my body. It's my prerogative to accept the advances in medicine gracefully, and I'm not ashamed." He smiled widely, baring his gold fillings. "I'd be stupid to hide it if it helped me regain my strength after years of ignoring my health."

The guests gasped and some looked away, while others stared curiously, and most gave the group in the center of the throng evil eyes. But the earl kept his chin high and his posture so strong, he oozed control and masculinity.

"And here!" He held his eyes wide open. "Both lenses were replaced because, low and behold, I drank myself nearly blind! Who knows the feeling, hm ?" He nodded at some of the peers in the crowd. At first, they were embarrassed but then they slumped their shoulders and approached the earl. "I wanted to be in the best shape possible for my beautiful wife! Is that so bad? Look at her! She's breathtaking! And intelligent!"

Violet chuckled and took Bea's arm. "I love him. Isn't he wonderful?"

"And yet all the money you spent with the doctors won't give you the one thing that you need," Carolyn snarled.

The earl turned back and returned to her. "What?"

"You need an heir, my lord." Her tone was languid and dangerous like a snake curling itself around its prey ready to squeeze tight to suffocate it. "It's been six months and you ought to have made more progress by now."

The earl inhaled deeply, his fury evident on his face and in his movements.

Wife Six continued, oblivious to the fact that he was only just holding his anger in check. Or maybe she didn't care. "A real man would have fathered a child by now, but you are all but a fool who spent money on these doctors and all you have to show for it are spare parts that will remain long after your body has decayed. But I suppose your doctors haven't been able to cure all of your ailments, hm ?"

Silence washed over the room.

The earl's heavy breathing resonated with the expectant gazes of the crowd.

And then there was a rustle of silk.

Violet came to his side and took his hands in hers, pulling him to face her. "She's wrong."

His gaze lifted and he met Violet's eyes. "What?"

"It's a bit early to say but…" Violet looked over her shoulder at Wendy. "It's possible."

The earl's eyebrows darted up but then his gaze fell to her stomach. He looked like a young boy who'd received the best surprise on his birthday. "A baby?" His voice was hoarse, and his sincerity was plain for the crowd to see.

He was just a man in love with his wife and he'd done what he thought was best to keep up with her. Surely it was a problem to which more than one of the guests could relate.

Now, Pippa approached Carolyn and inhaled a deep breath. Nick knew that what she was about to say would change their lives.