Rori stood up and began pacing back and forth beside the table. He was back in the same meeting room from the day before. He looked over at the picture of Judge Thorpe and then back at the more obvious door into the room, wondering which door she would come through.
While Nolan and the others might believe that he had gotten the journal because of some sort of romantic possibility between him and the senator, it just wasn’t true. He’d done it because it was the right thing to do. Others had stolen from her and now the wrong done against her had been corrected.
If you added on top of that the fact that she was also a follower of Meredith, he didn’t see how anyone would expect him to do anything less.
He sat back down on the chair and tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in his stomach.
It had been fairly hard to get word to Ulbricht that he needed to meet with her. She was, like most senators he supposed, intensely busy. It had taken a lot of perseverance and persuasion on his part to even get the person manning the front desk to give Ulbricht a message immediately and not for him to just simply drop off a message that they assured him would get to her ‘eventually’.
After what seemed like an eternity, she’d sent a short note that said she was busy trying to wrap up everything she needed to accomplish in Willowsbrook before she headed to Lorenthia. After another round of persuasion and passed notes, he’d finally been brought to this room and told to wait. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting here, but it seemed like forever.
He got back up and started pacing again.
The book hanging around his neck thumped gently against his chest as he moved.
After several more laps back and forth he dropped back into the chair.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the rug if you keep that up,” said a voice from behind him.
Rori spun around and was surprised to find Karyn standing there. Clearly there was more than one secret entrance into the room.
She was wearing a long, cream-colored dress that left her shoulders bare. A crimson red sash was tied around her waist. Her hair was pulled up to leave her neck exposed. The amulet of Meredith that she’d previously kept hidden hung in plain view above her décolletage.
One look and he immediately realized two things. She was beautiful and he’d been kidding himself about his feelings for her.
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“You look stunning,” he said in a low voice.
“Thank you. Aren’t you nice to say so. I have a handful of meetings with people I want to impress and possibly unsettle. This is seeming to do the trick.”
“I can believe it. I’m pretty unsettled myself. Nice necklace by the way.”
“Well, I couldn’t hide it under my shirt if I was going to wear this, so it was either leave it at home or wear it proudly. I obviously chose the latter.”
“What about tomorrow? Will it go back into hiding?”
“I haven’t decided.”
There was a long silence during which there was at least one moment when they were looking directly at each other. Finally, Karyn spoke.
“It is nice to see you, Rori and on any other day I’d be happy to spend some time with you, but as I said in my note to you, I am exceedingly busy. I have to leave for Lorenthia in the morning and that means I have to get everything I need to do in Willowsbrook done today. I don’t want to be rude, but I only have a few moments between meetings. Did you need some more information or something?”
“What?” said Rori drawing his mind back to matters at hand. “No, I just wanted to give you this.”
Rori pulled the chain up over his head and drew the journal out from beneath his shirt. He watched as the initial confusion in her eyes changed to the dawning realization of what he had and then finally turning into pure joy.
“How?” she asked as he took a few steps forward to give her the book. Before he could answer her, she began to speak again.
“Actually, I don’t want to know. You can’t give away secrets that you don’t possess. Rori, you are amazing.”
“Honestly, it wasn’t that difficult.”
“Hush, again I don’t need to know. But I do want to reward you. I also want to dance, and I want to shout in triumph, but that would bring in the guards and then people would see.”
“See what? That you have the journal back?”
“Yes, partly that. Assuming you did like you said you were going to and got it anonymously, right now Hargraves only knows that he lost it. He has no idea who has it. It might be good to let that remain a secret for a while.”
Rori seemed unsure of what to say as she stared up into his face. It was clear she was mentally trying to determine a course of action, weighing which of her options she should choose. So Rori just stood awkwardly in silence.
“Rori, I have two responses to what’s transpired.”
“Okay,” he replied a little confused.
“The first response is from Lady Ulbricht, Senator of Lorenthia. I cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done. I have nearly driven myself sick with worry over the last several weeks trying to figure out what was going to happen and how far I was willing to bend before I had to expose Hargraves and myself. You have saved not only my career, my family name and done a great service to me, but, assuming it doesn’t sound too self-important and pompous to say, I would like to think that you have also done a great service to Lorenthia. Because now I can continue on trying to fight this corruption. I obviously can’t give you any sort of official reward or commendation without revealing the very things we’re trying to keep secret, but if you ever need an unofficial favor or something else, please just ask.”
“Um . . .okay. But really it . . .”
She hushed him by putting her finger over his mouth.
“The second response is a bit less formal and is from Karyn Ulbricht, because as a senator I should probably not be doing this.”
Karyn stepped forward, put her arms around Rori’s neck and pulled him down to her. She kissed him and when he got over his initial shock, he kissed her back.
