Page 56 of Counting on Love

But Mother stood also. She looked very pale. “I think I should.”

All three left the room. Peters pulled the door shut.

“Who was that?” Olivia demanded.

Crispin chewed his lip. Reginald said, “God only knows. Jasper will straighten it out.”

Crispin said, “Or vice versa. Are we still having tea, or should we adjourn? Reginald and I have a chair and Bibles to transport. We can reconvene at dinner.”

*

Reginald didn’t know to where the ladies had retired, but he and Crispin went to the library to retrieve the chair. It was a heavy thing. Crispin left him to heave it back up the stairs, saying he had hauled it down. Then they each brought back half the pile of old Bibles and religious tracts.

“A shame,” Crispin said. “I thought this was the capper.”

“I thought sawing the legs off the table was cleverer.”

“Hmph.”

They put the books back on the shelves. Then Reginald shifted a few. Crispin looked askance.

“Can it matter?”

“No. The whole thing offends my sense of order.”

“As in Newton next to Radcliffe?”

Reginald threw up his hands. After a moment, he asked, “Had you ever heard of Tibury?”

Crispin shook his head. “But I think Mother has.”

He was thinking the same. “Any guesses?”

“Nothing I would posit out loud. You?”

“No. If you’re positing anything at all, you’re ahead of me.”

He hoped Jasper would sort it out.