A ride or two in Hyde Park as a baron wouldn’t risk much. Then Philippa could return to her vaunted world, and Tommy could return to the more shadowy corners, where she needn’t hide who she was behind a waistcoat and a title.
“I am perfectly happy just as things are,” Tommy told her siblings. “We have each other. What else could we need?”
“We love you, too,” said Marjorie.
Graham grinned at Tommy. “Wynchesters forever.”
All five siblings touched their hands to their hearts and raised their fingers to the sky.
9
At noon, Philippa found herself once again alone in the dining room. Usually, such meals were unbearable. Today, she was consumed with thoughts of Baron Vanderbean. What was he doing at this moment? Would he take meals with his scandalous wards?
Philippa paused with her forkful of sliced fruits halfway to her mouth.Didthe Wynchesters ever take meals together? Were they ever home long enough for such a formal event to occur? Or were they always off on one adventure or another, like the chivalric knights in her illuminated manuscripts?
She could imagine Baron Vanderbean in gleaming armor. He had looked magnificent upon his horse, and of all the pretty maidens in the park, he had chosen Philippa to rescue from boredom. Why had he done it? Would he do it again?
Whatever his motives, she was certain he did not return his gelding to the mews and immediately question his equines about their literary preferences. The image brought a smile to her face. A smile! By herself in the dining room! The baron’s effect on her was magical indeed. He made her feel less lonely, even when she was all alone.
Philippa finished her dessert. She sipped her wine, but never more than that. She liked to remain in full control of her body. It was the one thing shedidcontrol.
As she left the drawing room, she peeked through the ground-floor rooms in search of her parents. They took their meals separately, Mother in her private chamber and Father in his study. Nonetheless, one or the other occasionally ventured downstairs. Mother, to entertain guests. Father, to read his paper by the superior light of the cerulean sitting room.
“Upstairs, I’m afraid,” Underwood murmured from his post at the door when Philippa neared the sitting room.
She sighed. “Thank you.”
There was no sense pretending she was poking her head into doorways because it amused her. Underwood had watched her toddle in search of her parents from the moment she could walk.
As an adult, Philippa was far more likely to escape into a book. In fact, now was as good a time as any to take a closer look at her Northrup manuscript.
Glimpsing the reused paper in the binding of Philippa’s book had given Damaris the idea for the cipher. Perhaps Philippa paging back through it would spark an idea of how to help.
Andit could help to keep her mind off whether handsome Baron Vanderbean really would return to Hyde Park today.
She cleared the combs and brushes from her dressing table and placed the manuscript in the center. Her dressing room was a poor substitute for a library, but it made a serviceable private study.
This second volume of Sir Reginald’s collected tales of English chivalry was in wretched condition. Philippa pulled on gloves and wished she’d purchased pristine copies of all four volumes before her parents had forbidden new acquisitions.
She eased open the cover as gently as she could. The meticulously crafted binding had begun to crack and peel on the interior side of the cover, revealing tantalizing glimpses of other text beneath.
Manuscript binders often reused older material. There was even a word for scraping the text off old parchment and covering it with new text:palimpsest. Parchment reused in that manner tended to become part of the primary pages. These were never meant to be seen beneath the binding.
It was fascinating to think she might glimpse a page from an ancient manuscript. Wouldn’t that be exciting?
With the tip of a clean quill, she nudged a torn edge of the interior binding aside to reveal a bit more.
What she could see of the exposed section appeared to be penned in a style similar to the finished manuscript. No forgotten medieval treasures today, then. It didn’t appear to be scraps, but an unbroken piece of parchment. She wondered if something had happened to an original draft of something or other. Perhaps a cat had spilled ink on part of the page, or a leaky roof had ruined part of a book.
She eased the loose fragments aside a little more with her quill.
Was the text penned by Sir Reginald? Did he always reuse his own discarded papers, or might Philippa’s manuscript be special?
She longed to liberate the hidden page, but could not do so without destroying the binding.
“Drat.” Philippa pulled off her gloves and leaned back.
If she owned a duplicate copy in better condition,thenperhaps she could justify destroying an ancient manuscript in the name of satisfying her curiosity. Better yet, she ought to acquire the entire collection.
