A pang of loneliness filled her. How lovely it must be to have a shared passion with one’s spouse outside of the bedroom. To work side by side on something wonderful. It was a shame Sir Reginald’s wife’s involvement had been lost to history. Their partnership was just as romantic as any of the tales they’d written inside.

She turned back to the letter.

“‘I leave a part of myself in this volume, as I do every time, and I know that you silently do the same. Our names may never be known to anyone but ourselves, but the only esteem I have ever craved is yours. Being known fully to you has always been enough. Yours, Katherine.’”

Philippa blinked.

Katherine?

She quickly revised all of her theories. Sir Reginald hadn’t been the artist creating these volumes after all. Agnes and Katherine had. But who were they? Female apprentices? Were there female apprentices?

To Philippa’s knowledge, illuminated manuscripts had been penned first by monks for centuries, and later by secular artists, but were almost always the exclusive domain of men.

Who were these women? Might they be…no, of course they weren’t lovers. If such things were scandalous in modern times, they would be unheard of two centuries before. Any such practitioner certainly wouldn’t create physical evidence.

Perhaps Agnes and Katherine were the artist’s daughters. Children often assisted the family business, did they not? Although…no mention was made of Sir Reginald himself. In fact, based on the contents of this letter, one could think the sole artists were Agnes and Katherine, and that Sir Reginald had little to do with the illustrations at all.

Mayhap he’d drawn the first set, and the ladies made copies. Incredible copies. Copies so skillful and intricate, they appeared penned by the master himself.

Except…Katherine had said, “writing our words again year after year.”

Our words.

Not “Sir Reginald’s words.”

It could be a lie or braggadocio, but what would be the point? If she and Agnes worked half as closely together as the letter intimated, Agnes would already know the truth of the matter. These were their words, their illustrations, their books. Philippa’s heart beat faster.

The ladies’ genius hadn’t been “lost” over time. It had been hidden.

This was a scandal!

Philippa wiggled atop her dressing stool. Captain Northrup would definitely wish to obtain this document before its contents fell into the wrong hands and sullied his oh-so-important knightly ancestor’s spotless legacy.

Perhaps this was the leverage they needed! It was bad breeding to hold a document hostage until one’s demands were met…but if Northrup gave Damaris the credit she deserved, that was well worth a little extortion.

As Mother had said: blackmail was a part of life.