Page 86 of The Perks of Loving a Wallflower

“Or good friends,” Florentia responded. “Either way, their neighbors won’t have written it down for you to ogle over.”

“Some of us can read between lines,” Sybil informed her. “Philippa, what do you think? Were Agnes and Katherine—”

“I’m late!” Gracie rushed into the ballroom with her bonnet hanging half off her head. “What did I miss?”

“Thank God,” Philippa muttered. She was not ready to discuss lifelong Sapphic relationships with her reading circle, hypothetical or otherwise.

Lady Eunice handed Gracie one of the letters. “Fraud is in Captain Northrup’s blood.”

Florentia curled her lip. “Sir Reginald was no artist. He was a liar and an opportunist, just like his disreputable descendant who blithely stole from Damaris.”

Sybil pulled Tiglet away from her earrings. “The Prince Regent is about to christen a chamber of the Royal Military Academy after an unethical landlord whose only contribution to illuminated manuscripts was stealing credit from the female artists who created them.”

Gracie drew herself up tall. “Can we stop him?”

“We have two months until the season opening celebration.” Florentia answered.

“We have less than that,” Philippa corrected. “The replacements for the…er…borrowedmanuscripts won’t pass close inspection. That could mean weeks or days. We must act quickly.”

“Act quickly by doing what?” Lady Eunice took Tiglet from Sybil. “We have no proof of Northrup’s perfidy.”

“We do have it,” Philippa said. “In a hidden message.”

All gazes swung in her direction.

“That is, we have three-fourths of it,” she amended. “I’ve brought two consecutive volumes. You remember the decorative markings on the edges? Watch what happens to the parts that appear to swirl off into nothing.”

After putting on her gloves, she stood the Cambridge manuscript next to the Electi Society manuscript and turned the books toward the reading circle.

Two columns of five equidistant half-moons of extravagantly decorative flourishes dotted along the vertical edges of each book. Each half-moon measured two inches tall and one inch wide…until two volumes aligned next to each other.

Gracie gasped. “They match up!”

The half-moons became full circles, each pair combining to form a single cohesive decorative element. If they had all four volumes to place tightly together, three long rows of circular flourishes would form along the edges, in a five-by-three grid.

Florentia tilted her head. “It reminds me of our cipher. Is there a pattern to the symbols?”

“It is not a cipher. Here, this will help.” Philippa stacked the books on their sides, making three horizontal rows of flourishes. “The loops and swirls and ivy disguise the meaning.” She unfolded the letter from Katherine and pointed at the similar floral illustrations at the beginning and end. “What do you see here?”

“The top one is an A,” Damaris said at once. “And the bottom one is a K.”

“There they are again!” Gracie pointed at the edge of the manuscripts with excitement. “I see it now. If you ignore the pomegranates and ivy and the extra swirls, they’re letters.”

“The spinsters weren’t master cryptographers,” Damaris said. “They hid the truth in the open.”

Lady Eunice gazed in wonder. “Their message is elegant in its simplicity. Incomplete without its partner, and disguised in beauty. It only makes sense when pressed close together.”

“We still need the first volume,” Philippa said with a sigh.

“We’ve contacted every club, library, and manuscript collector in England,” Chloe explained. “No collections still contain one.”

Damaris’s eyes narrowed. “Uncle Northrup has that volume. It was the one I based the cipher on. Small wonder all the other copies disappeared. Uncle won’t let his out of the house. He locks his manuscript in a strongbox inside his library.”

“A wooden strongbox?” Chloe said hopefully. “One we could take an axe to?”

“An iron one, I’m afraid. He keeps the key around his neck.”

“That’s excellent news,” Tommy said.