Royal Holiday

by Guillory, Jasmine

  He leaned closer to her so no one else would be able to hear him.

  “Vivian, I apologize. I should have checked with you before making your travel arrangements. I can easily change them again, if you don’t want to stay. I don’t want you to feel as if you have to.”

  He was glad he’d had years of work in government; he knew his face didn’t reflect just how much he cared about her answer.

  She looked up at him and was silent for a moment.

  “No, don’t. In the end, I guess I’m glad Maddie intervened. She was right.” She pointed a finger at him. “You are not allowed to tell her that.”

  He laughed, and she finally—finally—smiled at him.

  “I promise.” He put his glass down. “But I truly am sorry; I’m not used to spontaneity, and I suppose it went to my head. Can you forgive me?”

  She touched his hand.

  “I appreciate the apology. And if I didn’t think I could forgive you, I wouldn’t stay, now would I?” She lifted her glass to him. “To spontaneity.”

  He laughed and looked in her eyes as their glasses clinked.

  As Vivian drank her champagne, she couldn’t help but see Maddie’s smug smile from across the table. The next time Malcolm looked away, Vivian glared at her, but Maddie just gave her an innocent smile back.

  She wasn’t actually that mad at Maddie for forcing her hand about staying in England. Now that that decision was irrevocably made, she was at peace with it. Maybe even a little excited about it. No, that part she was okay with; it was the constant smirks from Maddie’s side of the table that made Vivian want to send her to her room like she could when Maddie was little. This attitude must be revenge for when Vivian had known—long before Maddie had told her—about Maddie’s relationship with Theo. Could she help it if she knew her daughter that well?

  “Time for crackers!” Malcolm interrupted her silent fuming at her daughter and handed her the gold-wrapped cylinder from in front of her plate.

  She took it from him and looked down at it. How, exactly, was she supposed to do this? Was this a thing she should unwrap? Or was there some other trick to it?

  Crack!

  Vivian jumped at the noise to her right. She turned, and the chauffeur and his girlfriend were giggling over their open crackers. But she still hadn’t seen how they did it.

  “We do it like this,” Malcolm said. He picked up both of their crackers, and held them out to her. “Now, hold on.” She took the other end of each cracker, and he smiled at her. “Now, I’ll count to three, then we both pull. One, two, THREE.”

  They pulled on cue, and the crackers let off enormous bangs. Vivian gasped and then laughed. She looked over at Malcolm, who had a very satisfied expression on his face, and they both laughed even harder.

  “Wait, that’s not it,” he said. “We have to wear our crowns.” He picked up the flimsy colored-paper crowns that had fallen from inside the crackers onto the table and unfolded them. “Hmm, I think . . . the purple one for you, the pink one for me.” He set the paper crown on top of her head and adjusted it carefully. “There. Beautiful.”

  She watched him as he put on his own ridiculous paper crown.

  “This is very silly,” she said. “I like it a lot.”

  He smiled at her.

  “I like it a lot, too.”

  By the time they were done with the first course—pheasant cooked under a brick, which was surprisingly delicious—the entire table had on paper crowns. Julia kept bringing out more incredible food, and their compliments to her got more and more elaborate, as she poured them more and more wine. There was a mountain of tiny roast potatoes in their skins, crisp and tender Yorkshire puddings, beef Wellington, and oh, thank goodness, mince pies . . . though they didn’t look like any kind of pie she’d ever seen. For one, they were miniature—at home, people would probably call these cookies. They were delicious, though.

  Finally, after an enormous and showstopping bûche de Noël, the whole party headed back into the sitting room for port.

  Just as Vivian was about to walk out of the dining room, Malcolm stopped her.

  “Wait, you dropped an earring,” he said.

  She automatically reached up to her earlobes, and sure enough, one of her long, sparkly earrings was missing.

  “Oh no!” She’d definitely had them both on earlier. They must be somewhere in either the dining room or the sitting room. She turned to go back to the table to look under her chair when Malcolm stopped her.

  “Is this it?” He opened his hand, and her earring was in his palm.

  “Yes! That’s it, thank you.” She reached for it, but instead he held it up to her ear and gently slipped the post in. His fingers stroked the outside of her ear, and she shivered.

  “Oh. Thank you,” she said again. He cupped the side of her face and turned it toward his. “Don’t you think we should . . . ?” She looked into his eyes and suddenly couldn’t remember what she thought they should be doing other than exactly this.

  He pointed up above their heads.

  “Mistletoe. It’s a tradition. I don’t know if you do this in America, but in Britain, we have no choice but to kiss now.”

  She smiled and moved closer to him.

  “Well, I am in Britain, and I did say I wanted to learn about all of your Christmas traditions. Teach me this one.”

  He bent down to her.

  “With pleasure.”

  He kissed her softly once, twice, then put his arm around her waist and pulled her even closer, and kissed her a third time. The third kiss started out softly, too, but when she wrapped her arms around his neck and licked his bottom lip, it quickly turned passionate. They kissed and kissed, their hands touching each other’s faces, their lips and tongues dancing, their bodies snug against each other’s, until they heard a discreet cough and broke apart.

  Julia stood next to them, a platter of chocolates in her hands, not quite holding back a big grin.

  “I see you found the mistletoe,” she said. “Truffle?”

  Vivian supposed she should be embarrassed, but instead she just felt proud. Getting caught making out under mistletoe, at her age! She grinned at Julia.

  “Thank you, I’d love one.” She reached out and picked one up with her fingers. “Malcolm?”

  He, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to make eye contact with Julia. She didn’t know why. The whole mistletoe thing had been his idea in the first place!

  “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 sh
e’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.”

  Maddie tightened the hand not holding her phone into a fist. Vivian sat down next to her and rubbed the back of her daughter’s neck. She hadn’t seen Maddie look this anxious about a client in a long time. She understood why—this was the most photographed client Maddie had ever had, and maybe would ever have. She crossed her fingers that the Duchess would look flawless.

  Julia brought her a cup of tea, and Vivian thanked her. As much as she enjoyed the tea-making ritual, she was really going to miss having someone else make tea for her after she left Sycamore Cottage.

  “Julia, I hope at some point you’re going to get some time off,” Vivian said. “Not that I don’t love your scones, but I feel so bad sitting here with you making my breakfast on Christmas Day!”

  Julia laughed.

  “Don’t you worry. The Duke and Duchess are going on vacation next week, and so am I. I’ll be on a beach with my sister, and I promise, I won’t raise a finger to do any of the cooking.”

  Vivian cut open a scone, and spread a layer of jam, then cream on it.

  “Oh, thank God, now I don’t have to feel guilty. Where—?”

  “They’re in!” Maddie stood up, her phone still in her hand. “They’re walking. The pictures are coming in.”

  Julia and Vivian crowded around her to look at her phone as she scrolled through tweets from reporters and photographers.

  “Oh, Maddie, she looks perfect,” Vivian said. The Duchess was wearing a boat-necked navy blue dress that flared at the waist, a navy blue hat to match, with a small feather off the top, a maroon coat, loosely belted over the dress, and knee-high boots in the color Maddie had informed her more than once was called “oxblood.”

  “Of course she looks perfect,” Maddie said. Oh good, Maddie was grinning at her phone. “I was the most worried about that hat—the feather seemed flimsy to me, and I didn’t know how windy it would be today—but she insisted on it, and it seems okay. Thank God.”

  Maddie collapsed back into her seat, and Vivian rubbed her back.

  “Good job, girl.”

  Maddie looked up from her phone and smiled at her.

  “Thanks, Momma. And thanks for coming to spend Christmas with me here, so far away from home.”

  Vivian clinked her teacup against Maddie’s coffee cup.

  “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

  Julia took a bottle of champagne out of the fridge.

  “I think it’s time for mimosas, don’t you two?”

  Maddie drained her coffee cup and got up for more.

  “Absolutely. And Julia, never tell my boyfriend I said this, but you make the best coffee I’ve ever had.”

  Julia took a big package of that ham-like English bacon out of the fridge.

  “I never will, I promise. But honestly, anyone who makes coffee anywhere near as good as mine seems like a pretty good catch.”

  Maddie grinned.

  “That he is.” She looked down at her phone and laughed. “Speak of the devil, he just texted me about the Duchess’s outfit.”

  Vivian smiled. She was so happy Maddie had found Theo.

  Maddie kept scrolling through photos and—Vivian was pretty sure—texting with Theo as Julia made an enormous breakfast for the three of them. After they ate a mountain of bacon, a pile of the most perfect scrambled eggs Vivian had ever had, delicious sautéed mushrooms (which Vivian had never thought of as a breakfast food, but ate every scrap of), crispy fried potatoes, and a stack of toast to go along with all of it, Maddie stood up and yawned.

  “You won’t be mad if I take a nap, will you, Mom? I was up at the crack of dawn, and I’m exhausted.” She pointed at Julia. “It’s all your fault—I wasn’t tired until just now, but after that breakfast I almost fell asleep at the table.”

  Vivian leaned over and gave her girl a big hug. Maddie rested her head on Vivian’s shoulder, and Vivian stroked her hair the way she had when Maddie was little.

  “Go take your nap. This is our relaxing Christmas, remember? And your work here in England is finally done; that means you get to rest.”

  Maddie sighed and smiled.

  “That soun
ds fantastic, actually.”

  When Maddie stood up, Vivian sat up with a jerk.

  “I just realized something! What are we going to say to the rest of the family about me staying in London? You know them, Maddie—I don’t want to hear their mouths about this. I can’t even tell Jo—you know she won’t be able to keep it from everyone else.”

  Maddie grinned.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I already thought of that—we’ll just lie to them and say we’re both staying until the first. Blame it on me; tell them I told you the wrong dates. I’ll just hide out at Theo’s house until you get home so I don’t run into anyone.”

  Vivian shook her head slowly.

  “That’s . . . brilliant, actually.”

  Maddie curtsied.

  “I have a lot of experience in trying to keep secrets, you know.”

  Vivian laughed and swatted her out of the room.

  Vivian tried to help Julia with the dishes, and when Julia laughed at her and shooed her out of the kitchen, she took her tea and book to her favorite chair in the sitting room.

  Would she hear from Malcolm today? Would she hear from him at all before she saw him on the twenty-eighth? He’d asked for her phone number before he’d left the previous night, and she’d given it to him, but there had been people around and they kept getting interrupted, so she’d forgotten to ask him for his.

  But it already felt strange to know she wouldn’t see him for three days, and might not even have any contact with him at all.

  She laughed at herself. Five days in a row with a man and it was like she was addicted to him. What had gotten into her? She was acting very silly, but somehow, she didn’t mind at all. She smiled and opened her book.

  Malcolm enjoyed his drive back to London from Sandringham a lot more than he’d enjoyed his drive there. It was Christmas Day, the sun was shining, everyone in the government was on holiday until early January and couldn’t bother him, and soon he’d be spending five straight days with Vivian in London.

  He smiled when he thought about the night before. With the exception of his misstep with Vivian’s travel arrangements, that had been the most fun Christmas Eve he’d had in a long time. He hoped Vivian really did forgive him for doing that, and hadn’t just decided to stay with him in London because her daughter had intervened. He was pretty sure from what he knew of her that she wasn’t the type to just go along with something she didn’t want to do, but just in case, he needed to make some excellent plans for the two of them, to ensure she had a great time. He already had a few ideas—he’d make some calls the day after Boxing Day. He smiled to himself; this was where his job came in handy.