“If you’ll excuse me,” Glen said, “I need to make a call to get everything ready. We’d made arrangements to house a new knight and hadn’t planned on opening up the Sovereign’s apartment.”
“Anything is fine. I just need a bed. I’m ready to get started.”
“Come on,” Storm said. “Let me walk with you and help you get situated with credentials and a tour while they’re getting your quarters ready.”
They were chatting as they walked. Unbeknownst to Storm, Sol was asking sly questions for the purpose of getting up to date and up to speed on what was going on in his absence.
He was totally focused on that conversation when Storm stopped and said, “Okay. I’m dropping you off here, but I’ll catch up with you in a little while.”
Sol nodded and turned his attention to where he was.
There were two things that almost caused him to give himself away. The first, and by far more traumatic, was standing behind a counter a few steps away. The sight of her almost made his knees buckle and, at the end of his life, he would say the hardest thing he ever did was to keep from vaulting over the counter and pulling her into his arms.
“Can I help you?”
He thought she looked much the same, but with a touch of sadness maybe. She was wearing her business persona: crisp, efficient, determined not to miss a single detail. Few Black Swan employees had ever seen Farnsworth off duty and relaxed.
A lifetime of discipline helped with the control. Instead of grabbing her up and showing her how much he missed her, he stared and swallowed until she repeated herself.
“Is there something I can do for you?”
His presence of mind snapped into place and he knew he had to play the role of newcomer. He stepped back outside the door, pretending to read the placard. “Operations, right?”
“Yes. This is Operations.”
He walked up to the counter and smiled with the sort of warmth she didn’t usually get from the knights.
“Rev Farthing. Reporting for credentials.” She lowered her eyes and reached for the clipboard that held her docket. “And what’s your name?”
“Everybody calls me Farnsworth,” she said without looking up as she reached for the packet sitting near her right hand.
“Farnsworth. I’ll bet our names will be next to each other on the revised list of J.U. personnel.”
She was distracted and only halfway listening to what he was saying. When she realized he’d been speaking to her, a little line formed between her brows. “What?”
When she looked up, she met his eyes and registered that his gaze was intense.
He pointed to the personnel manifest. “Farthing. Farnsworth.”
“Oh. Yes.” She placed the packet on the counter in front of him, “Here it is,” then turned her head to the left to speak to a trainee who was doing office time. “Mr. Chorzak, take Sir Farthing on a thorough tour of the facility.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Spaz hurried around the counter and waited by the door.
Sol leaned so far toward Farnsworth that she took a small step back. The fact that he’d put her in a position of retreat pushed at least one of her buttons and made hackles rise. With satisfaction he saw that fire could still be brought to her eyes.
He held onto her gaze like he was trying to cast a spell. “That’s Sovereign Farthing.” He said it softly with a slight smile, making it sound more like a promise than a correction.
“Sovereign?” She looked confused and a little flustered, which she tried to hide by looking through paperwork. He noticed that she wasn’t wearing the ring, but wasn’t surprised. She was no longer engaged. “I don’t have any documentation to that effect.”
“Just got the job. Technically I’m on probation for ninety days.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “Well, um, congratulations, Sovereign Farthing.”
It was hard for her to imagine someone else filling Sol’s role, but intellectually she recognized that the page had to be turned.
If Farnsworth wasn’t acutely aware of the difference in their ages, she would have thought the probationary head of Jefferson Unit was flirting with her. But she’d just reviewed his file that morning as she prepared to complete the transfer of a knight. She knew that he was thirty-one. That put her at a whopping thirteen years older.
Internally, she scoffed at her imagination for sending the thought of flirtation across her radar. She told herself that she was old enough to be his mother, at least in a few drastically primitive and barbaric cultures.