Love's Labyrinth by Anne Kelleher Page A

for them to wear—the scullery maids were the only women in the Talcotts’ bachelor household who might wear clothing that would come close to fitting them, and even Nicholas had not considered their garments suitable. When Geoffrey had approached him to give up one of his shirts and a pair of hose for Olivia, he’d merely shaken his head in disgust. But he’d handed over the clothes. Apparently, their scandalous dress—or lack thereof—was something he was prepared to overlook, so long as they kept to Geoffrey’s study and their own bedroom as much as possible.
    “We all agree that you two must be sent back to your own time as soon as possible.” Geoffrey sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair, which at this point stuck up in all directions. It would’ve been comical if the situation weren’t so grim.
    “Well, what do you intend to do about it?”
    “The trouble is—” Geoffrey broke off. Once more Olivia felt sorry for him. He made a helpless little gesture. “I’ll check through my calculations. Perhaps the angle of the sun…” He sifted through a series of parchments, mouthing formulas. “The answer has to be here somewhere.”
    Nicholas shot him a look of pure exasperation and opened his mouth to speak, but he was interrupted by a knock upon the door. “See who it is.”
    Geoffrey leapt to his feet and opened the door just a crack. He spoke a few words to whomever stood on the other side, then turned back to Nicholas, shutting the door once more as he did so. “A gentleman to see you. Master Christopher Warren.”
    Nicholas looked surprised. “I’d better see him. You do what you can. I’ll be back.” With a muttered oath, Nicholas left the room, shaking his head.
    Geoffrey sighed when his brother was gone. “He’s really not like this usually. It’s just he’s—”
    “Upset,” finished Alison. “Well, we’re all upset.” She got to her feet, sorting restlessly through the parchments.
    “What is all this, anyway? Is there any way we could help you make sense of this?”
    Geoffrey looked faintly shocked. “In truth, mistress, I doubt—”
    Alison narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “This looks like algebra. Or some weird sort of advanced calculus.” She shook her head. “Your brother’s upset, you’re upset, we’re all upset. What we have to do is stop being upset and think. Nothing else is going to get us out of here and back home.”
    Geoffrey narrowed his eyes and picked up the parchment Alison had dropped. “You—you understand these calculations, mistress?”
    She shrugged. “Well, I don’t understand the specific equations without working through them—but, yes, I understand the math. I even got an A in statistics in grad school.”
    Geoffrey looked mystified. He scratched his chin. “Would you—would you be able to help me, then? Review my work?”
    Alison shrugged again. “Of course. Don’t ask Livvie, though. She’s hopeless at math.” She looked over her shoulder at Olivia and winked.
    From her place beside the window, Olivia grinned ruefully in agreement. “Right. Don’t count on my help there.” She looked out the window, from which she could just see the tops of the hedgerows that formed the maze, and, from this height, she could discern something of the intrinsic pattern. “But maybe—maybe I could retrace our steps through the maze, try to figure out where it was exactly we got back, and work backward from there. Remember, Allie, there was that weird feeling of tripping over something at one point, but the path was perfectly clear?”
    Geoffrey nodded. “That’s worth trying. And there is something else—something I hesitate to mention to Nicholas, but it may be the easiest and the most expeditious way of solving the problem.”
    “And what’s that?” asked Alison, looking up from the calculations on the parchments.
    “Dr. Dee, John Dee—I mentioned him yesterday—he was my tutor at Oxford, and we’ve corresponded frequently over