“Ahem. Thank you.” He took a truffle and moved out of the doorway. “After you.”

Julia walked into the sitting room with the truffles, and Vivian and Malcolm followed.

“Would you like some port?” he asked her when they got back into the sitting room. “I see James pouring over there.”

When she nodded, he left to get their drinks. Maddie immediately appeared at her side.

“Where did you two disappear to, hmm?” Maddie asked, that smirk still on her face.

“My earring fell out of my ear in the dining room. I had to find it,” she said. Maddie’s annoying grin got even bigger.

“Ah yes, you ‘had to get your earring.’ I know that one, too.”

Vivian shook her head and tried to keep a straight face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Maddie giggled.

“Sorry, Mom, I’m just delighted by this.” Her face turned serious. “But honestly, one of the reasons I wanted you to come on this trip was to get a break from everything at home, work and the family and everything else, and I wanted you to treat yourself a little, which we both know you never do.” She glanced in Malcolm’s direction. “And that over there is a real treat.”

Vivian tried so hard not to grin, but she couldn’t help it.

“Isn’t he, though?”

They both dissolved into giggles.

Chapter Eight

Vivian woke up late on Christmas morning for the first time in years and smiled at the ceiling. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken up on Christmas morning without having to jump out of bed and rush around—when Maddie was little, it was to get up with her, open presents, have breakfast, and head over to her mom’s house. In recent years, as Vivian and her sisters had taken over a significant portion of the holiday cooking, it had been to finish up the many dishes she was cooking for Christmas dinner, and get them packed in the car, then go to her aunt’s, where the whole family would be for hours.

She felt a small pang thinking about that—the family would be there all day today, and she wouldn’t be with the rest of her family for the first time in her life. But it helped to remember that all she had to do today was to eventually get up from this cushy bed whenever she felt like it, put on some comfortable clothes, amble downstairs for some of Julia’s delicious tea and scones, and know that no one she saw all day would comment on if she’d gained weight since Thanksgiving, or if that dress was too young for her, or if she really needed to do something different with her hair.

Maddie must have been up hours ago. Vivian grinned to herself. How the tables were turned. Maddie had to get up early on Christmas morning to help the Duchess get dressed so she would look flawless for the much-photographed walk to church, and Vivian could just recover from her night of many glasses of wine right here in bed.

That had been a good Christmas Eve party, hadn’t it? The cocktails, the champagne, Julia’s amazing food . . . and then, of course, Malcolm’s mistletoe kisses.

Despite everything on her con list, she couldn’t imagine waking up this morning and knowing she’d never see Malcolm again.

She turned over in bed and smiled at her pillow. What was it going to be like, to see him again? Just the two of them, in London, not Sandringham? What would they do? Would they even like each other if they were in a different context?

Would they stay in his apartment?

Of course, that was the real question in her mind. He’d mentioned it as an aside, but unless he brought it up again, how was she supposed to jump back and say, Oh, hey, Malcolm, remember when you said that thing about not wanting to presume I’d stay with you . . . ? Can you just presume?

She laughed at herself. Why had she been so comfortable being direct with him about so many other things—his feelings about the monarchy, whether he was married or not, Christmas Eve dinner—but she was strangely shy about this? She guessed it was just hard to push past how she was raised—it had been drilled into her head that nice girls didn’t talk about sex, didn’t want sex, didn’t even like sex. As much as she’d rejected those ideas once she’d gotten older, and had tried very hard not to pass those messages along to her daughter, it was hard to fight something she’d internalized so many years ago.

She needed breakfast. She put on her leggings that felt like sweatpants, and the sweater dress that was the coziest thing she owned, and went down to the kitchen. Maddie was already there, a cup of coffee in front of her, her shoulders hunched, and her phone in her hand.

“Merry Christmas,” Vivian said as she walked in.

“Happy Christmas!” Julia was standing at the stove, stirring something that smelled delicious. “Scones are on the table.”

Maddie stood up and gave Vivian a hug.

“Merry Christmas, Mom.” She refilled her coffee cup, went right back to her phone, and let out a sigh.

“What’s so important on your phone?” Vivian asked her. “It’s the middle of the night at home, isn’t it?”

Maddie nodded, but didn’t look away from her phone.

“I’m waiting for the pictures to come in of the royal family’s walk to church. It should be any second now. The Duchess looked great when she left the house, of course, but I want to make sure the coat and the dress all worked in the wind, and the hat stayed on, and the shoes didn’t make her trip, and . . . everything. I just want her to look perfect.”