Chapter 4: Rule Eleven

At ten o'clock Conrad left for the office, and at ten past I put Posy's boots on.

"We're going for a walk," I told her. "Walks are in the contract."

They are not. I checked.

Posy zipped up her yellow jacket without a word and held the folded drawing.

We went out the kitchen door and across the lawn in the thin sun.

The boathouse stood at the edge of the water, gray shingles and a green door, with an outside staircase going up to the flat.

I stopped at the bottom.

"Last chance to be a good nanny," I told myself out loud.

Posy tugged my hand.

I climbed.

He opened the door before I knocked, and I knew he had watched us the whole way across the grass.

He was in his shirt sleeves, a pencil behind his ear, papers all over the table behind him.

He took in me, then the small yellow jacket beside me.

Something crossed his face that I did not have a word for.

It was too raw to be only surprise.

"Rule eleven," he said, and his voice cracked on the second word.

"I know," I said. "I'm told I break things."

Posy stepped around my legs, held up the drawing in both hands, and said nothing.

Valen went down on one knee.

He took the paper like it might burn.

He looked at the blue figure standing alone by the brown box, and he was quiet for a very long time.

"Thank you," he said finally. "This is the best one I've ever been given."

She leaned in, put one small hand on his sleeve, and then ran past him into the flat to look at everything.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Nanny's Rules: Forbidden Desires from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.