“Ah, well.” Tommy waggled her eyebrows. “I hope you don’t expect Baron Vanderbean to stop flirting with you.”
“He can do so,” Philippa said. “Just to keep up appearances.”
The way things were was the way they had to be. There was too much at stake to allow something as foolish as a heart to make decisions. The life she lived. Her parents’ love. She could not bear to lose her family.
“How about you?” Tommy asked. “Have I crossed your mind these past few days?”
Only every single second.
“Baron Vanderbean is the flirt,” Philippa replied. “Not Miss Philippa York.”
“I thought you might write,” said Tommy. “Perhaps with news about the manuscript.”
“My mother reads my correspondence.”
“You could have sent Tiglet,” Tommy pointed out. “He’s trained to return home.”
“I noticed,” Philippa said wryly. “If that kitten so much as senses an open window, he’s off like a shot. Underwood must oil the hinges of the door twice a day so that Tiglet doesn’t hear it opening. I’ll lose three stone if I keep chasing after him like this.”
“Then give him back,” said Tommy. “I don’t want you to lose a single curve. You’re perfect as you are.”
“No reneging,” Philippa said. “Tiglet is mine until we secure justice for Damaris.”
In fact, she had spent several lonely nights trying to counter-train Tiglet into recognizing Philippa’s chambers as his new home. It was not working.
“I have news,” she said. “About the manuscript.”
Tommy’s eyes were cautious. “Tell me.”
“The decorations on the edges aredifferent.”
“Um.” Tommy’s forehead wrinkled. “Why wouldn’t they be? You did study it close enough to realize it’s a different volume in the set of four?”
“Not the chivalric tales inside,” Philippa explained. “When the book is closed, an illustration appears on the edges of the pages. It’s hidden from sight whilst the book is nestled in a shelf, and obscured when opened to read. Mixed in with the violets and pomegranates are strange markings I wondered could be symbols.”
“Are they?”
“Yes,” Philippa said with satisfaction.
“How?”
“Katherine and Agnes were devious enough to leave a secret message in plain sight. Well, not quite plain sight,” Philippa amended. “The page edges are the part of a book looked at the least. First would be the spine, facing out from the shelf, and then the pages themselves, with their tales of chivalry.”
Tommy nodded her understanding. “To most, illustrated edges are just a whimsical touch. Pretty enough, but easily forgotten.”
“Just so. These are arranged at exactly the same intervals. Flourishes obfuscate the important markings, but parts of the symbols repeat. It’s like a cipher.”
“What does it say?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Philippa admitted. “Even Damaris couldn’t decipher it. We’d need all four volumes to have the entire message. At the moment, we possess book two and book four, which means what we have doesn’t even go in order.”
“Then we steal the entire set,” Tommy said.
Philippa pressed her lips together. This “we” was probably the “we” of the Wynchesters. Philippa despaired at being excluded, though she understood why. Her involvement was a terrible idea.
And she would have said yes in a heartbeat.
“I have news as well,” Tommy said. “Graham was able to trace Northrup’s family history through parish registers.”
