Page 26 of A Sight to Behold
“I came to feed the bunny,” Bea said, but Pippa noticed the same number of apples and carrots as there had been earlier that day. The sifter for the barrel of rainwater Pippa had harvested was full of popping bubbles and showing much movement.
“I see that you checked on the mosquito larvae?” Pippa chuckled.
“Are the round one the ones that have pupated?” Bea bent over the barrel.
“Yes.”
“It’s such a dastardly plan, Pippa,” Bea said, and leaned on her heels, her hands clasped behind her back. “Only you would think of using insects as weapons to antagonize your enemy. It’s quite clever.” She giggled. “How long now?”
“They will be able to fly in two or three days now,” Pippa said. “All I need to do is hide them in Wife Six’s bedroom. The maids are very willing to help, of course.”
“Not a minute too soon then.” Bea cocked her head to suppress a mischievous smile. “Just in time for her ball.”
“Yes.” Pippa smiled. She was going to sting Wife Six where it hurt her most, her vanity.
“It’s justice considering how many times Wife Six had contributed to your embarrassment,” Bea said.
“I’m thinking that putting the bowl under her bed will be the perfect place for them. Hopefully, they’ll swarm during the night. In the morning, the maids can shoo them out the windows. Some of them, anyway.”
A knock on the glass door sounded then, startling her just as she was feeling for the prickly bulb of the pineapple. She cut herself on one of the sharp palm leaves.
Instinctively, she stuck her finger in her mouth. Then there was another knock and Pippa saw a tall figure behind the glass door. Of course, the raindrops broke the light into tiny rainbows surrounding the gorgeous blond figure behind the glass door.
It was him.
“Let me!” Bea walked to the door and just when her hand touched the handle, she cast Pippa a knowing smile over her shoulder. “He’s sweet!” She said it just so that Nick could hear her the moment she opened the door. She gave Nick a once over as she left without making an introduction.
Pippa fumed as Bea left, and lowered her gaze to her plant.How embarrassing.
“Ouch!” Pippa cursed under her breath when she examined the cut on her finger.
“You are bleeding.” He rushed toward her, setting down his doctor bag and rummaging around. “I have a clean muslin but where are my scissors. Let me see… how much shall I cut?”
“Of what?” Pippa took her finger out of her mouth just for long enough to speak, then stuck it back in.
“The muslin. For the bandage.” But he’d stopped rummaging around his bag. Instead, his gaze had affixed to her mouth.
“Take this,” Pippa turned and reached for the long knife hooked onto the column behind her.
His eyes grew wide, and he jerked his head back.
“Oh, it’s just my mother’s machete.”
“Your mother’s machete. Oh good. I thought it was a sharp weapon.”
Pippa stifled a laugh and took her finger out of her mouth. She couldn’t see red oozing brightly against her pale skin so the cut must have been small, and the iron taste of blood had subsided. Her finger was fine. “It’s for the pineapple—it’s ripe. It’s not your muslin.”
He arched a brow and surveyed the raised bed.
*
Nick found herirresistible, yet he couldn’t bask in her charm. His career hung in the balance, and a patient’s vision was at risk. So, he’d chosen to deliver Pippa’s glasses himself.
“I need the machete to cut the pineapple,” she said, flipping the rather large knife in her hand if it were nothing but a ruler. “It’s ripe today, I was just about to harvest it.”
She pushed the sharp long leaves aside as if they were nothing but blades of grass, careful to touch the flat blades rather than the sharp edges. She moved with such dexterity that Nick was amazed. Most people with a vision deficit like hers would be rather clumsy, but Pippa was so intelligent that she must have sharpened her other senses to make up for the diminished vision.
With her left hand, she grabbed a bulb twice the size of her fist and tilted it. Then, with her right hand, she cut the thick stem off from which it protruded. It was a funny-looking prickly thing, rather fat and shiny, and had a pattern on its surface like a closed-up pinecone.
