her palm, the softness of her skin. Something tiny but powerful tingled all the way up his arm. He shook her hand. ‘It’s a deal,’ he said, his voice rumbling in his own ears. ‘You’re hired.’
But as he pulled his hand away he started to wonder if he knew exactly what he’d got himself into.
RUBY SHOULD HAVE realised when the limo driver gingerly put her hastily packed canvas rucksack into the boot that this journey was going to be different. She was used to travelling, used to crowded terminals in international airports teeming with the whole spectrum of human life. She was used to queuing just to buy a bottle of water and browsing the endless shops filled with travel gadgets in order to fill the time. She was used to playing ‘hunt the chair’ in the departure hall, and dozing on it with her jacket for a pillow when she found one.
She was not used to hushed and elegant lounges in small city airports, free food, drink and entertainment. Even though her father could easily afford to fly business class everywhere, he refused to, preferring what he called ‘real’ travel. If he wasn’t squished into Economy or standing at a three-mile queue at Immigration it wasn’t a real trip. Of course, the public loved him for it. Privately, Ruby had always wondered why dust and the ubiquitous Jeep with dodgy suspension were more ‘authentic’ than air-conditioned coaches these days, but she wasn’t daft enough to argue with him. He was disappointed in her enough already.
She sighed. It had been better when Mum had been alive. Even though she’d done exactly the same job, travelled along with him and presented the programmes alongside him, she’d always been good at hugs and sending postcards and presents to boarding school to let Ruby know that just because she was out of sight, it didn’t mean she was out of mind. Her father was no good at that stuff. And after she’d died he’d channelled his grief into his work, meaning he lost himself in it more than he ever had done before.
Ruby found herself a spot on the edge of a designer sofa in the lounge and reached for the bowl of macadamia nuts on the table in front of her, only scooping two or three out with her fingers and popping them quickly into her mouth, then she returned to doodling on a paper napkin with a pen she’d pulled out of her bag.
It was supposed to have been easier once the journey got under way. She’d thought that at least the ‘travelling’ part of being a travelling nanny would be inside her comfort zone. Wrong again, Ruby. And she didn’t even have anything work-related to do to keep her mind off her awkwardness, because Sofia, obviously exhausted by the sheer graft of tantruming half the day, was stretched out on the plush sofa with her thumb in her mouth, fast asleep and completely unaware of her surroundings.
Her new boss didn’t make it any easier. He’d hardly made eye contact with her since they’d left her flat, let alone talked to her. He was a right barrel of laughs.
She filled the short time they had by quickly sketching him as he remained, granite-like and motionless, hunched over his laptop; the only parts of him moving were his eyes and his fingers. She used only a few lines to get the back of his head and his jaw right, leaving the strokes bare and uncompromising, then settled down to reproducing the wrinkles on the arms of his jacket, the soft shock of dark thick hair that was trimmed to perfection at his nape.
Thankfully, once the flight was called and they had to head to the gate and board the plane, Ruby started to feel a little more normal. Jollying a freshly woken toddler along kept her occupied. It wasn’t that difficult. Sofia was a sweet child, even if the quiet curiosity hid a will of steel, like her uncle’s. Poor child must have been scared and upset when she’d seen her mother disappear out of Max’s office without her. It was no wonder she’d screamed the place down.
As the plane began its descent to Marco Polo airport Ruby began to feel the familiar quiver of excitement she always got at arriving somewhere new. She’d always wanted to visit Venice, had even begged her father to go when she’d been younger, but he hadn’t been interested. It was a man-made construction, built on stilts in the middle of a lagoon, and the city itself had few open green spaces, let alone rare wildlife—unless you had an unusual passion for pigeons. Ruby didn’t care about that. She liked cities. And this one—La Serenissima, as it used to be known—was supposed to be the jewel of them all.
It was a disappointment, then, to discover that they weren’t going to be arriving in Venice by boat, as many visitors did. Instead Max had ordered a car to take them along the main road towards the city of Mestre, which then turned onto the seemingly endless bridge that stretched from the land to the city across the lagoon.
Sofia began to whine. Although she’d had that brief nap at the airport, the poor little girl looked ready to drop. Ruby did her best to calm her down, and it helped, but what the child really needed was someone she knew. She might have taken to her new nanny, but Ruby was still a stranger. As was her uncle, Ruby guessed. The sooner she was reunited with her grandmother, the better.
The car pulled to a halt and Ruby looked up. Her face fell. Usually, she liked catching the first glimpse of a new place, seeing it as a far-off dot on the horizon, and getting more and more excited as it got closer and closer. This evening, she’d been so busy distracting Sofia back from the verge of another tantrum, she’d missed all of that. They’d arrived at a large square full of buses. They were in Venice at last, and yet this didn’t look magical at all. The Piazzala Roma looked very much like any other busy transport hub in any busy city.
People were everywhere. They spilled off the large orange buses that seemed to arrive and leave every few minutes, dragging luggage behind them as they set off on foot, maps in hands; or they queued wearily and waited for the buses to empty so they could clamber inside and head back to the mainland.
The driver started unloading the bags. Ruby took her rucksack from the boot before this one had a chance to be snooty about it, then reached inside and unclipped Sofia from her car seat. The little girl grizzled softly as she clung round Ruby’s neck. They walked a short distance to a waiting motor launch on the side of a nearby canal. But Ruby was too busy trying to work out if the sticky substance Sofia had just wiped onto her neck was tears or snot to really pay attention. The boat driver nodded a greeting to Max, and then started up the engine.
For the next few minutes they took a dizzying route through the narrow canals—the equivalent of back streets, she supposed—and she could hardly see more than whitewashed or brick walls, oddly placed ornate windows high up in them, or the odd washing line strung with underwear, waving like unconventional bunting above their heads. But then they emerged onto the Grand Canal and Ruby was glad she was sitting down, with Sofia’s weight anchoring her to her seat in the back of the boat, because she surely would have thumped down onto her backside if she’d been standing up.
She’d never seen so many beautiful buildings in one place. All were ornately decorated with arches and windows and balconies. Some were crested with intricate crenellations that reminded her of royal icing fit for a wedding cake. Others were the most beautiful colours, the old stone worn and warmed by both the salt of the lagoon water that lapped at their bases and the soft sun dangling effortlessly in a misty sky.
She was still sitting there with her mouth open when the boat puttered to a stop outside a grand-looking palazzo. Instantly, two uniformed men dashed out of an ornate wooden door and onto the small, private landing stage, complete with the red-and-white-striped poles, and collected their bags and helped them from the boat. One tried to relieve Ruby of Sofia, but the little girl wouldn’t have it. She clung so hard to Ruby’s neck that Ruby almost choked. She had to make do with letting one of the men steady her as she clambered, a little off balance, onto the small stone jetty.
Ruby
