Lost and Found in Venice

by Joanna Knowles

Genres: Holiday Romance

Synopsis

Rosie Redbrush, a travel agent working for Wanderlust Wishes travel agency, is someone who sells holidays but never takes them. At twenty-nine, she lives a quiet, comfortable life in the town she grew up in. But then, just a few days before Christmas, a problematic customer tricks Rosie into becoming a tour guide for a group of ten disgruntled old-age pensioners in Venice! And suddenly, Rosie's quiet life is thrown into disarray.

Escorting an elderly group through the streets of Italy's most romantic city is hard enough, but throw in a neurotic aquaphobe, an accidental Santa race, a regrettable selfie, and a missing backpack, suddenly Rosie finds herself extremely lost in Venice, without a penny or a passport to her name.

Rosie can't go home. And as she travels Italy looking for a solution, what she doesn't expect to find are a loving family, a group of eclectic new friends, and the possibility of true love in the most unlikely of places...

The gorgeous new festive romcom from Joanna Knowles, Lost and Found in Venice is guaranteed to be your favourite new comfort read.

Release date: October 31, 2024

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 320

Sample

‘Thank you for calling Wanderlust Wishes, where we work hard to make all of your travel dreams come true.’ Rosie pressed the receiver back into the base on her desk, relaxed her cheek muscles into a grimace and took a deep sigh. ‘I hate my job.’ She lowered her forehead and let it drop onto her desk with a thud.

‘Oh, come on now, don’t be such a negative ninny,’ Audrey, her colleague, said, tapping the desk opposite Rosie’s to get her to sit up. ‘So, you’re slightly off meeting your quota this month—’

‘Slightly! I’m so far from it, at this rate, I’ll be owing the company money.’ Rosie groaned, her voice muffled by the cold, hard desk close to her face. ‘The gap between what I have earnt and what I should have earnt is so large that the Grand Canyon could easily fit between the opening.’

‘See! Look at you,’ Audrey said, sounding upbeat. ‘Even at the bottom of the leader board, you’re still able to reference travel in your woes. You’re a natural travel salesperson. Who else here knows the exact location of Kiribati? Or the currency of San Marino? Or what country travellers need an ESTA form for?’

Rosie shrugged, and then couldn’t help herself, and muttered, ‘Central Pacific Ocean, the euro and the United States.’

‘See!’ Audrey said, slamming a hand on her desk, causing Rosie to sit up in her chair. ‘December is always a tricky month ; we all know that. Just you wait, I bet the next call you receive will be someone booking a huge trip …’

Rosie’s office phone on her desk rang sharply and Audrey looked at Rosie, her face positive, her eyebrows raised into her hairline as if to say, See?

Rosie picked up the phone, the tension already evident in her arm muscles. She planted a smile on her face, convinced it was able to project itself down the line and into the caller’s psyche.

‘Good morning, Rosie at Wanderlust Wishes here, how may I help you today?’ She listened to the speaker, her face impassive, her eyes focused on Audrey.

‘No, of course,’ Rosie said, nodding as the speaker continued. ‘Absolutely.’ Audrey’s face lightened with every word. ‘Yes, I’m here until 6pm today, so I’ll look out for you.’ She said her thanks and gently placed the phone back down.

‘See! I told you! How serendipitous was that?’ Audrey said, raising her arms and doing a little jig in her office chair.

‘Hmm,’ Rosie said, pushing back her own chair and straightening down her pencil skirt as she stood up. ‘That was Nigel from the magazine distributors. He’ll be dropping off next season’s brochures sometime today.’ She raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at Audrey and grabbed her bag, hoisting it over her shoulder unceremoniously. ‘It’s officially time for a coffee.’ She looked at Audrey, whose triumphant face had been replaced with dejection. ‘Gingerbread latte from Jonah’s?’

Audrey nodded. ‘Go on then, it is nearly Christmas. Whipped cream on top, please.’ She licked her plump lips together, her orangey-pink lipstick contrasting fabulously with her dyed silver bob.

Rosie walked around her desk and out of the store into the gloomy, dark skies of the high street. The weather matched her mood. It was only two weeks until Christmas and the shop frontages were filled with festive sights, all promoting their wares for sale.

‘Christmas,’ Rosie said to no one in particular as she walked towards Jonah’s Café. ‘I’ll need a Christmas miracle at this rate.’

Rosie scurried along the busy high street, just as the darkening clouds decided to release their load – purely onto her, it seemed. A torrent of slushy, icy rain splashed onto her vintage cashmere coat and last season’s beige ankle boots.

‘No, no, no,’ she said, jogging as best she could in three-inch heels.

She could feel her hair flattening to her scalp with each step, thinking of those thirty minutes tonging it this morning in an effort to add some curl to her long, straight blonde hair. Her mind reverted to the office and the large umbrella stand full of branded umbrellas for staff use. Why hadn’t she taken one when she left? Her fingers had literally grazed the stand when she grabbed her coat.

She lifted her purse over her head in an effort to stem the worst of the rain, but it made no difference. By the time she reached Jonah’s, she had rain dripping from her nose and hair, and her boots were mud-spattered and most probably ruined. She pushed open the door with a little more force than intended and it almost slammed into the table for two behind.

‘Shit, sorry,’ she said, holding up a hand in apology before shaking herself down like a wet dog.

There was no queue, which was unusual, so she walked directly up to the counter.

‘Bad day, Rosie?’ Jonah asked, tossing a tea towel over his shoulder, a habitual gesture Rosie had seen him make many times. His big, dark eyes, warm under bushy brows, had a look of fatherly concern as he took in her bedraggled appearance. He removed the tea towel from his shoulder and handed it to her over the counter, which she took gratefully and began to pat her face.

‘A bad month, actually,’ she said, wringing out her hair and placing her dripping purse on the counter. ‘Two gingerbread lattes, with whipped cream, please,’ she said, giving him an appreciative smile. ‘And has Martha been baking her infamous Christmas cranberry and cinnamon cookies this morning?’

‘They’re fresh out of the oven,’ Jonah said, gesturing to the swinging kitchen door, where the sound of whisking was audible. ‘Want me to grab you some?’

Rosie told herself she didn’t need them – that the latte was enough – but then she reminded herself that December was the month for indulgence. That Martha’s cookies were a Christmas special and were only available in December.

‘Go on, then,’ she said, her stomach growling in agreement, ‘make it a dozen.’

Jonah’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into his mop of salt-and-pepper hair.

‘Good girl! Cookies remedy any bad day,’ he said, winking.

‘They’re for the office, too,’ she felt the need to explain, but he just laughed and disappeared into the kitchen.

The coffee shop door opened, a blast of icy wind blowing through. A buxom woman marched towards the counter, wrapped in a designer raincoat with a matching umbrella and hair so fixed into a tight chignon that it could have held in a hurricane. Wide-leg woollen trousers skimmed her ankles, revealing sturdy-heeled boots that Rosie realised were both a fashion statement and a necessity from the way she stomped towards her.

Jonah reappeared through the double swinging doors carrying a white box with the lid still open and the cookies visible, their sugary deliciousness reaching Rosie’s nostrils and making her want to dive right in and eat them all in one go, her tastebuds activating immediately.

‘Here you are, Rosie,’ Jonah said, closing the lid on the cardboard box and placing the box on the counter. ‘Still hot from the oven.’

Rosie went to take the box just as the woman sidled up next to her, her sodden, pointy elbow budging Rosie to one side.

‘Excuse me,’ Rosie said pointedly, taking a step to the right.

The woman either didn’t hear or didn’t care and began to speak.

‘Jonah, I need a dozen of your finest Christmas cookies, please.’

Her tone was demanding and carried an air of expectation. Rosie got the impression that this was not a woman who took disappointment well.

Jonah looked down at the box, then back up at the woman. ‘Good morning, Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe! I’m ever so sorry, but there will be a bit of a wait for the next batch of cookies. Martha has just put two further trays into the oven.’ He shrugged, sliding the box towards Rosie a little more. ‘Maybe a half-hour wait, maybe more?’

‘Well, this simply will not do, Jonah. I don’t have time to wait around in here while your wife fulfils her baking duties, which I’m sure could have been done before the working day actually started …’ she said, lowering her voice snidely.

‘We have many tables still available ; I could offer you some coffee while you wait?’

Jonah was still smiling, but Rosie could see his eyes narrowing. He turned away from the lady towards Rosie without waiting for a response.

‘That’ll be ten pounds, please, Rosie. Martha put extra cinnamon in them this morning. They are pure Christmas magic.’

Rosie opened her purse to extract a ten-pound note but was interrupted by the lady once again.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said, her eyes widening in realisation, ‘are those a batch of Christmas cookies in that box?’

Jonah nodded, his eyes not leaving Rosie’s.

‘Then I will pay double for them. Hand them over.’ She beckoned the box over with her hands, letting out a deep sigh as if this was all just too much of an inconvenience.

‘Er, no, sorry. These are mine.’ Rosie placed the note onto the counter and slid the box safely into the crook of her left arm.

‘But you aren’t in a rush,’ Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe said before turning to Jonah. ‘Jonah, I’m offering double what they are worth. No shrewd businessman would turn down the opportunity to make a profit on what is effectively sugar, flour and fat!’ She looked exasperated, as if trying to negotiate with toddlers.

‘I mustn’t be a very good businessman, then,’ Jonah said, waving Rosie off and removing the note from the counter. ‘Enjoy, Rosie. See you soon.’

‘But, but …’ The woman stood there ; her large chin dropped, revealing a rather large mouth.

Rosie noticed a touch of lipstick on her top two teeth. She looked infuriated.

‘Well, in all my days …’ She turned to Rosie as she made her way to the door. ‘Our generation are to be respected, young lady. What you have just done is tantamount to daylight robbery.’

Rosie turned back as she reached the café door, her arm still clutching the box tightly. She deliberately looked away from the woman and made eye contact with Jonah. ‘Thanks, Jonah, always a pleasure. And the icing on the cake? I didn’t even need this many – a half a dozen would have been enough.’ She beamed at them both brightly, turned and walked out of the café back onto the street, laughing to herself as she held the still-warm box in her arms.

‘Rosie? Can I have a word, please? In my office?’

Rosie looked up from her half-eaten cookie, a sugar dusting already covering her cream silk peekaboo blouse, to find her manager, Benjamin, glaring at her from the doorway to his office. He angrily jerked his head in the direction of Audrey’s desk, where she had clients seated with her, discussing a cruise.

‘Sorry!’ she said in a hushed tone, surreptitiously trying to brush the crumbs onto her navy skirt.

His foot began to tap on the linoleum floor.

‘Coming, boss,’ she said, standing up and knocking her left knee hard into the leg of the desk. ‘Shit,’ she said, wincing, which resulted in a darker glare from Benjamin.

She hobbled around her desk and sheepishly past the clients at Audrey’s desk, slipping past him into his office. Before closing the door behind her, he disappeared onto the shop floor and returned with the box of cookies in his hand.

He stepped back into his office, closing the door behind him, which was never a good thing. Benjamin had always insisted on an open-door policy, which Rosie soon realised was more for his benefit than theirs. Benjamin, or Bastard Ben as he was known to the girls in the office, was notorious for his sleazy, overt gazes at female clients, passers-by, shop assistants, delivery personnel ; basically, anything with a female chromosome. He was divorced – Rosie, to this day, was still surprised anyone had agreed to marry him – and the rumour was that he had slept with most of the city’s north-west female population. With no siblings and no children (that he knew of), he had been spoilt from the minute he could talk and it seemed that, for now, he was demanding the attention of women in their twenties.

‘Take a seat,’ he said, his face serious and his hair slicked back in his usual style, greased to a statuesque peak that wouldn’t look amiss on the stage of Grease. But there was no mistaking his attractiveness. He was chiselled and preened to perfection, with long, fluttering eyelashes and dark, almost black eyes. The gym was his second home and he knew how to work a room so that within minutes he had the whole crowd in the palm of his hand.

But Rosie couldn’t see him in that way. Her mother, before she died, always used to say that you’re only as attractive as your last good deed and Rosie had used that advice with every new relationship, every new friend.

‘Everything OK, boss?’ she asked, sitting opposite him in a plastic chair while he reclined in an executive leather desk chair. She was sure he did this deliberately so that he always held the upper hand.

‘Well, not really, actually,’ he said, pushing his thick-rimmed glasses further up his nose.

Rosie knew that the glasses were superfluous and were simply clear glass, but he liked how they made him feel efficient.

‘I’ve been checking the figures and you are down on your quota. Why is that, Rosie? We can’t have head office find out we are not meeting our targets – that’ll reflect badly on the company.’

On you, Rosie thought. He didn’t want to have to deal with all the paperwork and questions, which, as manager, he would inevitably end up doing.

‘Benjamin, I am doing everything I can to make a sale. I have contacted everyone on my database, I have issued flyers, I have even resorted to stretching further out of our location area. People are not wanting holidays. They have Christmas to deal with, and a cost-of-living crisis, and rising bills …’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Benjamin said, holding up the palm of his hand in her direction as he interrupted her. ‘We all know times are tough. But how come Audrey is meeting her targets, and Elinor, and Isadora?’

‘Well, to be fair, Isadora is on maternity leave, Elinor is only part-time and works weekends, our busiest time, and Audrey is just awesome at her job.’ Rosie shrugged, unwilling to be compared to the others. They were all brilliant at their jobs. It wasn’t them at fault, it was the unrealistic sales targets.

‘And you used to be awesome at your job,’ Benjamin said, leaning forwards and folding his arms across his chest. ‘What’s going on with you, Rosie? The last eighteen months or so, your sales have been consistently falling. But I know what you’re capable of. Why the change?’

Rosie shrugged, her cheeks flushing. Why the change? She really didn’t know. She had noticed her interest in the job waning over the last year, finding herself looking at job adverts online as if she were shoe shopping, looking up at planes in the sky and wishing she were on them, feeling a sense of restlessness that had settled in the pit of her stomach. None of this was she willing to divulge to him, though.

‘It’s just a slow month, boss. It might pick up in the next few days, with people wanting to get away for some winter sun.’ She smiled encouragingly, but he didn’t look placated.

‘Well, it had better pick up soon,’ he said, waving her away from his desk, indicating their meeting was over. ‘For your sake, and mine.’

As she stood up, she gestured at the cookie box and he followed her gaze.

‘Oh, yeah, thanks.’ Lifting the lid of the box, he grabbed five of the cookies and placed them on his mouse mat, piled one on top of the other.

‘Help yourself,’ Rosie muttered sarcastically under her breath as she grabbed the box before he could take more and walked out of his office back to her desk, deliberately leaving the door open wide.

Her head was beginning to pound, as if the room had suddenly lost cabin pressure. She slumped into her chair just as Audrey’s guests rose to leave.

‘You’re going to love every second of your cruise, Mr and Mrs Arthur, I guarantee it. What a way to spend Christmas!’

They leant down to shake her hand and left in a buzz of titters and excitement, their hands clasping their tickets, brochure and currency.

As soon as the door closed, Audrey pushed back from her desk and made her way around towards Rosie, her wheelchair making its familiar little squeak as it always did when she angled left. She gave a big push with her arms and flew forwards with speed towards the cookie box now situated on Rosie’s desk. Opening it, her eyes widened at the sweet sight, and she grabbed a cookie and took a large bite.

‘Sod it, I need sugar!’ she said, her eyes closed in delight.

Within seconds, she had polished off an entire cookie and helped herself to another two.

‘If Jonah’s wife wasn’t married, I’d marry her just so that she could bake me cookies every day. These are amazing.’

Audrey licked her lips and Rosie couldn’t help but look at her. She was so pretty ; her features were delicate and she dressed with the ease of someone who had a natural sense of style. Despite them both having to wear the company uniform, Audrey had a knack for making any outfit look brilliant. She was wearing navy blue trousers instead of the tight pencil skirt that Rosie wore and her feet were adorned in blue velvet brogues with thick gold buckles that sat neatly together on the metal foot stand of her wheelchair. Her cream blouse was tied in a knot at her tiny waist and she had restitched the thread with a vibrant orange. Around her neck she wore a navy-and-gold patterned scarf that had been tied into a large, loose pussy bow. Her nails were painted electric orange and her wrists were weighed down by numerous bangles of various colours.

‘As if you ever need to worry about how you look in a dress,’ Rosie said, taking a sip of her now-cold coffee and wincing in disgust. ‘You could wear a bin bag and still look amazing.’

Audrey shrugged. ‘Shut up, you.’

They both continued eating in comfortable silence before a ringing could be heard from Benjamin’s office. He picked it up, beginning a conversation.

Audrey continued, ‘So, what did Bastard Ben want with you?’

‘Oh, you know, the usual. Empty threats, disappointed glares – he’s just nervous I’m going to make him look bad.’

‘He does quite well by himself,’ Audrey said. ‘He’s already in trouble with HR for messaging Emma from accounts.’

Rosie loved a bit of office gossip and Audrey was amazing at extracting it from various sources.

‘Really? Emma, who recently married Henry from reservations?’

Audrey nodded. She was opening her mouth to continue when the shop door flew open and an icy gust of wind blew in, scattering the papers from Rosie’s desk, whipping her hair into a frenzy and almost sending the cookies flying, but Audrey had protectively grabbed at the lid to hold it down. Audrey took her snacks very seriously. The door closed again and Rosie looked up to see who had come in, pushing back strands of hair from her face and straightening in her chair in an effort to look professional, not the windswept, cookie-crumb-coated woman in her late twenties that she actually was.

But when the dust had settled, she found herself looking up at a familiar face. A face that was neither smiling nor looking at her. Rosie followed the older woman’s glare and they fell on the box of cookies. Her gaze slowly moved back to Rosie’s face and it was at this point Rosie recognised her. It was Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe from Jonah’s Café. Empty-handed. With not a cookie crumb in sight.

‘Can I help you this morning?’

Audrey had pushed herself forwards to greet the new client, but Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe had clearly recognised Rosie and headed straight for the chair set out in front of her desk.

‘No, thank you, my dear. It’s this lady who I believe can help me today.’ She smiled at Audrey but bypassed her chair completely and took a seat opposite Rosie. ‘I would like your assistance, please,’ she said, smiling, as she removed her gloves and began rifling through her large designer bag.

She pulled out a Filofax as fat as a loaf of bread and removed two elastic bands from it, holding bundles of envelopes, Post-it notes and papers together. As the last band was removed, the Filofax burst open in her hands like a magic trick.

‘So, here is my dilemma,’ she continued, searching through the endless scraps of paper until she found the one she wanted: a piece of A4 paper folded into quarters. She flattened it on the desk in front of her and Rosie noticed a list of what appeared to be names scrawled in swirly cursive handwriting. ‘I urgently need to book a package deal for ten people, plus a tour guide for a holiday beginning Friday, 19 December, for five days.’

Rosie looked at her, surprised. ‘Madam, we book holidays here, but do not offer tour guides or accompanying staff for any of our trips. I’m not sure you have the right place, here.’

Rosie looked down at the list and felt a bit disheartened. Booking for that number of people would definitely take her over the required quota for the month. Even if it did mean conversing with the likes of this cookie addict.

‘Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe, if you please,’ she said, looking unfazed at Rosie’s response. ‘Herein is my problem. I am the manager of a prestigious award-winning care home. I assume you’ve heard of it, Heirs and Graces?’

She paused while Rosie shook her head to show the opposite.

She rolled her eyes and continued, ‘Well, as part of their world-class service and hospitality care package, the residents are taken abroad, once a year, by a tour operator and guide, and this year, the chosen location is Venice. However, the travel company we have always used has gone bust and we are now left with ten disappointed residents only days before they are due to fly. And this is where you come in.’ With a large, painted fingernail, she pointed at the piece of paper and slid it across the desk towards Rosie.

‘Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe, I would obviously love to help you with this difficult situation—’

‘Good,’ Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe said, smiling and looking satisfied.

‘—however, as already mentioned, we are not a company that offers escorts, guides or accompanying staff for our customers’ trips. If your residents require assistance, then I’m afraid you would have to organise that yourself, or you would need to chaperone them.’

A silence fell. Rosie looked at Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe as the woman glared back at her, appearing to size her up. Her face was passive and Rosie suddenly imagined her leaping across the desk, grabbing the box of cookies and making a run for it as fast as her boots would allow. She surreptitiously used the edge of her elbow to shift the box away from her.

‘I’m sure there’s something you can do. I am willing to compensate you handsomely,’ she said, her smile returning.

She was one stubborn middle-aged woman.

‘I’m afraid there isn’t. We aren’t covered by our company insurance to travel with our customers and head office simply wouldn’t allow it. I can, by all means, book the trip for you today, but I cannot organise any assistance.’ Rosie smiled, standing firm. Yes, she may need this sale, but she wasn’t willing to risk her job, or her sanity, by agreeing to travel with a bunch of crazy old OAPs.

Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe turned to look at Audrey, who was now back behind her desk, clearly hoping for a different answer from her. But she shook her head sadly, agreeing with Rosie.

‘Right, fine,’ Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe said, whipping back around to Rosie. ‘As manager of Heirs and Graces, it will fall on me to accompany them then. I would like you to please book for the following dates, and this was the original hotel, who have agreed to honour the booking, providing I book today.’ She found another folded piece of paper and handed it to Rosie, with flight times and address details scrawled on there. ‘Shall we get started, then?’

An exhausting hour and a half later, Rosie tied up the last few ends of the holiday package and handed over both an itinerary and a receipt to Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe. They had both drunk a strong cup of coffee, made by Audrey, but the cookie box had remained sealed – Rosie unwilling to offer any to her customer.

The cost of the holiday had been astronomically high, mostly due to the last-minute flights and the time of year. Rosie was already feeling the relief of knowing that she had not only reached her quota, but also far exceeded it, which would guarantee her a nice little Christmas bonus.

‘So, all that is required from you now is confirmation of who might need travel assistance at the airport, but other than that, you are all set!’ she said happily.

Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe smiled back, the itinerary placed on her lap. ‘Thank you,’ she said, beginning to gather her things. ‘Despite my initial impression of you, you have actually proved to be quite competent.’ She stood up. ‘This morning must just have been a bad moment for you, but I forgive your rudeness, you have been most helpful.’

She smiled at Rosie, who sat frozen in her chair, absorbing the insults.

‘I don’t believe it was me that was rude,’ Rosie said, trying to remain calm and keep the professional smile on her face. ‘I think it was simply a misunderstanding on your part.’

‘My dear girl,’ Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe said, a patronising smile on her face, ‘you’re young, you’ll learn in due course.’ She pulled on her gloves and headed towards the door. ‘With age comes wisdom, you see. Your behaviour at the café was not only immature and embarrassing for yourself, but you made the café owner quite uncomfortable, too. Over a trifling matter of some cookies.’ She indicated the white catering box on Rosie’s desk and shrugged as if she felt Rosie a lost cause. ‘But as I say, you have redeemed yourself this afternoon.’

Rosie, feeling lost for words and with anger boiling inside of her, chose her words carefully.

‘How kind of you to point out my errors,’ she said, reaching across her desk and opening the cookie box, which had one solitary cookie remaining. ‘I will endeavour to improve on my manners immediately.’

At which point she took a huge bite out of the last cookie in her hand, allowing the crumbs to fall onto her blouse and desk with abandon. She let out a contented groan, closing her eyes in pleasure, and when she opened them, Mrs Winthorpe-Smythe’s face was thunderous. The woman ripped open the door and walked into the rain and cold.

As the door closed behind her, Rosie collapsed back into her chair and began laughing, with Audrey staring at her in total confusion.

‘So then what happened?’ asked Bee.

‘So then I ate two more cookies and I am now riding a massive sugar high,’ Rosie said, nodding for her wine glass to be topped up by Nav, which he duly did.

‘She sounds like a total witch,’ Bee said, making the symbol of lower-case ‘b’ with her fingers and nodding in the direction of the twins who were playing on the floor beside them.

‘Oh, an absolute witch,’ Rosie said, nodding and smiling at Arya and Aisha, who were both looking up at her with their gorgeous chocolate-brown eyes.

‘But on a positive, you’ve hit your quota, so now we can all relax and sort out what you’re wearing to your work’s Christmas party tomorrow,’ Bee said, placing a hand on Nav’s leg as he perched on the arm of their huge sofa beside his wife.

‘Auntie Rosie sleep with me.’

Sam, or Samaj as he was formally named, toddled over to Rosie and place. . .