‘Very wise,’ said Jay with a faint smile.
‘What?’
‘Turning down the fizz. Champagne should be drunk on a terrace at sunset, to the sound of music. It loses its magic at thirty-eight thousand feet with your nose up against someone else’s seat.’
Zoe laughed. ‘That’s because you’re too tall. My nose isn’t anywhere near anyone else.’ She stretched, laughing, and wriggled her freshly painted toenails. ‘Look at that. I’ve never travelled anything but economy class in my life. This is a treat all on its own.’
He did not laugh. ‘Sometimes I remember how very young you are.’
She gave him a naughty look. ‘Not that young. Just poor.’
Jay was ironic. ‘Poverty is relative.’
She was instantly contrite. ‘Of course. I should have said relatively poor. When my father left we still had a roof over our heads and an education in progress. The roof just crumbled a bit, that’s all.’
He looked at her curiously. ‘Was life difficult after he went?’
Zoe shifted her shoulders. ‘We got through,’ she said evasively.
He hesitated, as if he wanted to pursue the subject further. But then the screen on his laptop went dark and he was recalled to the work in hand. He went back to his draft speech.
Zoe was relieved. Perhaps he didn’t know quite all her secrets, she thought wryly. Probably just as well if it stayed like that. After all, she was not likely to see him again once she left Culp and Christopher, was she?
After that her pleasure on the luxurious flight dimmed, for some reason. She stopped staring out into the brilliant sky and even dozed fitfully.
It was the sort of sleep where you had dreams.
She was sitting in a boat. It was a tall, silent boat, coming up fast on a fortress in the dark. She was terrified and cold and alone. She thought, I can’t do this.
Then suddenly she wasn’t in the boat any more. She was inside the fortress and running, running, running… And someone moved out of the shadows. She stopped dead, trying not to breathe. But it was hopeless. Her breathing sounded like an avalanche. A shadow detached itself from the darkness, moved towards her. She thought, My enemy? And then the shadow fell over her, engulfing her and— and—and—
And she woke up.
Jay took his hand off her shoulder and sat back. ‘Seat belt,’ he said briefly. But he gave her an odd look.
It was only a dream, Zoe told herself. Only a dream.
But she was glad that he did not try to touch her on the way from the airport to the hotel.
And when they got to the hotel she forgot fears and dreams alike in sheer amazement.
‘It’s a palace,’ she said, awed.
Jay was signing them in. A double room. Of course. Zoe stood and stared at the cherubic trumpeters on the marvellously painted ceiling and tried to pretend that she did this all the time.
The bellboy loaded their cases onto a six-foot brass birdcage and summoned them to follow him. The elevator was discreetly hidden behind panelled doors decorated with pastel nymphs and knowing satyrs. Zoe avoided the satyrs’ eyes. Jay seemed unaware.
‘It probably was a palace originally,’ he said indifferently. ‘A merchant’s palace anyway. In Venice rank strictly followed profit on the high seas. They weren’t big on idle aristocrats.’
Zoe was impressed. ‘I never did history,’ she confessed. ‘I was always more of a scientist. My degree is in chemistry.’
He gave a choke of laughter.
‘What?’ she said, suspecting mockery.
‘And this is the woman who rebuked me for not being a people person!’
She chuckled wickedly. ‘Ah, but I learn about people from life, not books.’
He shook his head. ‘Well, this weekend you’re going to learn about Venice if it kills me.’
And then they got to their floor and she found he had booked not just a double room but a whole suite. She was embarrassed by this extravagance, and said so disjointedly as soon as the bellboy had left, well tipped.
Jay shrugged. ‘I promised you no pressure.’
It silenced her utterly.
He was disposing his things with the automatic efficiency of a man who had worked in a lot of hotel rooms. He put his laptop on a small baroque desk, plugged it in, adjusted the lighting to suit. Then he hung up his suit and a spare pair of trousers and took his sponge bag into the bathroom.