She was smaller in person, but even prettier than she looked on the cover of People magazine. Vivian hoped Maddie would get to find out exactly what her skin care regimen was, because the woman was glowing.

Vivian reached out her hand.

“Thank you so much, and thank you for your hospitality. Both the flight and the drive were very easy. And I can’t speak for my daughter, but hot buttered rum sounds like a dream come true.”

Maddie laughed.

“And so do sandwiches and scones.”

The Duchess ignored Vivian’s hand and pulled her into a hug instead.

“Wonderful! Let me take you upstairs, show you to your rooms, and let you get freshened up, then you can come down to the sitting room for a little feast. Don’t worry; I’m sure you’re exhausted. I don’t want to keep you up too late. I know how those flights from California to England can be!”

The Duchess led them up two flights of stairs, chattering the entire time. Vivian hadn’t expected her to be so normal. She’d worried that everything here would be super formal, and she’d have to be on her best behavior for her whole vacation, but the past five minutes had reassured her.

The Duchess threw open the doors of two rooms.

“Here are your rooms, and the bathroom is right across the hall.” Vivian looked inside; their bags were already in their respective rooms.

And each room really had a fireplace, with a blazing fire. Bedrooms with fireplaces—she was never going to get over this.

“The house can get really drafty; that’s why I had them make up the fires in there for you. I would have put space heaters in all of the rooms, but I made that mistake early on and blew out the electricity for about half of the palace, and everyone is still talking about it, so I’ve had to go back to things like fires and lots of throw rugs and hot tea. Just preparing you now so you won’t wake up overnight shivering.”

Sure enough, the next morning, Vivian woke up, huddled deep down under the many blankets piled on the bed. The night before, in the warm and toasty room, she’d thought there were way too many blankets on the bed—she’d counted at least five, one of which was a heavy wool blanket folded at the foot. But at some point overnight, the fire had gone out, and she’d managed to pull every single blanket over herself.

She had no idea what time it was, but light from the window was coming into the room, so it must be morning. She forced herself out of bed, even though she knew she could happily sleep for at least a few more hours—she hadn’t fallen asleep until pretty late the night before, either because of jet lag, or excitement, she wasn’t sure which. But she was only going to be in England for a handful of days; she didn’t want to waste any of the daylight. Especially since they didn’t appear to have a ton of it.

She checked her phone to see if anyone at home had texted, but no, it was the middle of the night there, wasn’t it? She sent a quick text to her sister Jo to see how she was feeling. Jo’s cancer had been in remission this time for six months, and while she was a lot better, she was still pretty weak. Vivian had felt really guilty about leaving her, but Jo had laughed at her and told her there was no way she should miss this trip.

Vivian walked across the hall to the bathroom and wondered what she was going to do all day. Maddie would be working, and Vivian wasn’t quite sure how much she was allowed to just wander around a royal estate on her own. Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure about how a lot of things would operate for the next few days—for instance, how was she going to manage to get coffee this morning? This wasn’t some bed-and-breakfast where there would be coffee and tea and muffins down in the living room. And her lack of sleep the night before meant she needed that coffee.

No matter what, she’d better go downstairs showered, with her hair in place, and with a bra on. There might be a prince in the kitchen, for God’s sake.

When she walked back into her room after her shower (first scanning the hallway to make sure no royalty was around to see her in a towel), she noticed a piece of paper on the floor by the door.

Morning, Mom! I’ll be closeted away (no pun intended) all morning making clothes decisions and doing fittings, but I’ve been instructed to tell you to head into the kitchen whenever you wake up and decide you want breakfast.—Maddie

Okay, so she was supposed to just head into the kitchen, presumably to find whoever made the amazing sandwiches they’d gobbled down the night before, and ask for coffee?

The whole idea of someone else at her beck and call made her so uncomfortable. Of course, yes, it would be great to wake up as a princess and have someone there to make her bed every day and build her bedroom fire and cook her meals and whatever else a household staff did for you, but since she wasn’t a princess, she had no idea how to do this. She wasn’t walking into a restaurant; she was walking downstairs in a house and asking people who were used to working for royalty to work for her, a black woman from Oakland who had celebrated her fiftieth birthday almost five years ago. Were they irritated about having to wait hand and foot on her and Maddie?

She pulled herself up straight. Hell with it. If they were, oh well. She was here, wasn’t she? It’s not like she was going to ask for a four-course meal, but coffee was a reasonable request. This was a trip of new experiences, wasn’t it? It was time to put her bra on and do this.

She heard a crackle on the other side of the room and looked up from the note. She shook her head and laughed. There was a brand-new fire in the fireplace. Someone must have come in and made it up while she was in the shower. If the staff was irritated about waiting on her, they hadn’t shown it.