with full photo coverage and much flaunting of grotesquely large diamond rings.
Now Savannah was checking herself into a clinic famous for its celebrity clientele, most of whom seemed to Martha to be struggling solely with the pressure of being too rich and too thin. Meanwhile poor little Viola Valerian had been abandoned by both parents and handed over to her grim uncle.
Martha felt sorry for her. Lewis Mansfield might be a responsible figure, but he didn’t look as if he would be a very jolly or a very loving one.
Which was a shame. It wasn’t that he was an unattractive man. Her dark eyes studied him critically. If he smiled he could probably look quite different, she thought, her gaze lingering on the stern mouth, but when she tried to imagine him smiling or loving a queer feeling prickled down her spine and she looked quickly away.
‘Who’s looking after Viola at the moment?’ she asked, really just for something to say while she shook off that odd sensation.
‘Her nanny. She’s been with Viola since she was born, but she’s getting married next year and she doesn’t want to be away from her fiancé for six months.’
It seemed fair enough to Martha, but Lewis sounded impatient, as if Viola’s poor nanny was being completely unreasonable in wanting to stay with the man she loved.
‘I need someone experienced at caring for babies who’s prepared to spend six months in St Bonaventure,’ he went on, and Martha straightened her back, pleased that they had at last come to the point.
‘I’m your gal!’ she told him cheerfully. ‘You need someone who knows how to deal with babies. I know how to deal with babies. You want someone who doesn’t mind going to St Bonaventure for six months. I want to go there for six months. I’d have said we were made for each other, wouldn’t you?’
She should have known better than to be flippant. Lewis regarded her with deep suspicion. ‘You don’t look much like a nanny to me,’ he said finally.
‘Well, nannies nowadays don’t tend to be buxom and rosy-cheeked old retainers,’ Martha pointed out.
‘So I’m discovering,’ said Lewis glumly. He was obviously hankering after a grey-haired old lady who had been with the family for generations and who would call him Master Lewis.
Come to think of it, why didn’t the Mansfields have someone like that to call on? Martha wondered. She didn’t know much about them, but they had always sounded a famously wealthy family, the kind that threw legendary parties and flirted with scandal and generally amused themselves without ever doing anything useful.
At least, that was how she had thought of them until she met Lewis. Perhaps he was a throwback?
‘We may not be very good at tugging our forelocks, but it doesn’t mean that modern nannies don’t understand babies just as well,’ she said, and smiled fondly down at Noah, who had propped himself up on one chubby hand and was patting the leather cushion with a puzzled expression. He hadn’t come across anything quite so luxurious before.
‘I suppose so.’ Lewis sounded unconvinced, and was obviously eyeing Noah’s exploration of his sofa askance.
Martha dug around in the capacious bag she always carried with her now and pulled out a rattle to distract Noah. Grabbing it, he shook it energetically and squealed with delight. The sound that it made never failed to amuse him, and the way his round little face split into a smile never failed to squeeze Martha’s heart.
He was so adorable. How could anyone resist him?
Glancing back at Lewis, she saw that he was resisting Noah’s appeal without any trouble at all. Still, at least he had come to sit on the sofa opposite her. That was something, Martha thought hopefully.
‘Is this your current charge?’ he asked, as if Noah were some kind of bill.
‘He’s my permanent charge,’ Martha told him, pride creeping into her voice. ‘Noah is my son,’ she added patiently when it was clear that Lewis was none the wiser.
‘Your son?’ He didn’t actually recoil, but he might as well have done. ‘Gill didn’t mention anything about you having a baby.’
Gill hadn’t mentioned anything about him being the human equivalent of the north face of the Eiger either, thought Martha. You could hardly hear yourself think for the sound of illusions being dashed all round.
Not that she really blamed Gill. The other woman had taken over from her as fashion editor at Glitz, and she was clearly keen to pack Martha off to the Indian Ocean where she wouldn’t be in a position to angle for her old job back. Martha could have told Gill that she was welcome to the job, and she certainly would have done if it had meant that she had been rather better prepared to face Lewis Mansfield.
As it was, things seemed to be going from bad to worse. She would never get to St Bonaventure at this rate.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said carefully. ‘I assumed that Gill would have told you about Noah.’
‘She just said that you were experienced with babies, that you were free for six months and that you could leave almost immediately,’ said Lewis, as if bedgrudging allowing even that much. ‘She also said that you were very keen to go to St Bonaventure.’
Thanks, Gill, said Martha mentally, revising her earlier, less grateful opinion of her successor.
‘All that is true,’ she told Lewis. ‘I’m very—’
She stopped as Noah threw his rattle at Lewis with a yell. ‘Shh, darling,’ she admonished him, reaching over to retrieve the rattle, but it was too late. The baby sleeping in the carrycot had woken up and was uttering sputtering little cries that signalled a momentous outburst.
Lewis rolled his eyes. ‘That’s all I need!’
Leaping to her feet before Lewis could get too harassed, Martha went over to pick up Viola and cuddled her against her shoulder until her cries subsided into hiccuping little sobs.
‘Now, let’s have a look at you,’ she said, settling back on the sofa and turning Viola on her knee so that she could examine her. ‘Oh, you’re very gorgeous, aren’t you?’
All babies were adorable as far as Martha was concerned, but Viola was exceptionally beautiful, with her golden curls, pansy-blue eyes and ridiculously long lashes where the tears still shimmered like dewdrops. She looked doubtfully back at Martha, who smiled at her.
‘I think you probably know it too, don’t you?’ she said, and Viola dissolved into an enchanting smile that in anyone older than a baby would have undoubtedly been classified as a simper.
‘How old is she?’ Martha asked Lewis as she tickled Viola’s tummy and made her giggle.
‘What?’ Lewis sounded distracted.
‘She looks about the same age as Noah.’
Annoyed for some reason by the unexpected sweetness of Martha’s smile, Lewis pulled himself together with an effort. How old was Viola?
‘She’s about eight months,’ he said after a mental calculation.
‘Oh, then she is the same as Noah.’
