Not only had she met the Queen, but the Queen had given her a genuine compliment on her horseback riding?

She’d definitely fallen down a rabbit hole. None of this felt real.

She stopped to look around.

“What a strange place this is,” she said.

Malcolm followed her glance, from Sandringham House to the stables to Sycamore Cottage to some of the other buildings in the distance.

“Quite,” he said.

She laughed out loud.

“Maddie isn’t going to believe this,” she said. “I never even thought I might meet the Queen while I was here—I thought there was no way someone like me would be allowed near her. I did sort of hope . . .” She stopped herself. She didn’t need to admit that.

Malcolm touched her elbow.

“No, you can’t stop like that. What did you ‘sort of hope’?”

She shouldn’t have started this, but now she’d have to finish.

“This is silly, so please don’t judge me for it. But I did ask Maddie if we’d get to see some tiaras. I’ve never seen one in real life before. A real one, I mean.” She sighed. “But Maddie said no. Apparently, they don’t wear them that often.”

Malcolm smiled at her and took her arm again.

“No judgment here. The jewels of the royal family are really something to see in person. Some of them come out for the holidays, but your daughter was right; not the tiaras.”

They turned back toward Sycamore Cottage. Vivian suddenly remembered what she’d been about to ask Malcolm when they’d been interrupted by the Queen.

“How much longer are you at Sandringham? What are your plans for Christmas? Is your family expecting you?”

He shrugged.

“The timing all depends on work, but I’ll spend Christmas at my sister’s.”

She had to just ask it. She was dying to know.

“Just you? Are you married?”

He looked taken aback for a moment but smiled at her.

“No, not anymore. I’ve been divorced for . . . almost six years now.” His eyes crinkled at her. “And you?”

She forgot that he might wonder that.

“Oh goodness, no. I’ve been divorced for almost thirty years now!”

They both laughed.

“What does your family usually do for Christmas?” he asked. “I assume you would be with your family if you weren’t here?”

She nodded.

“I would be—we all go over to my aunt’s house. My aunt and cousins do a lot of the cooking, but everyone is in charge of something. I’m sure I’ll be homesick on Christmas Day, but I’m actually pretty excited not to have the same food and watch the same sports as I have all of my life. It’ll be fun to experience something different.”

She was actually looking forward to trying all of the English Christmas foods she’d only read about in books. She really hoped Julia made mince pie—she had no idea what mince pie was even made of, but she wanted to try it.

“What will you and your daughter do for Christmas here?” he asked.

“For Christmas Eve, I think Julia is going to make a big meal for all of the staff at Sycamore Cottage, and though the Duke and Duchess have treated me and Maddie like guests, that includes us. I’m looking forward to that. I’m sure her cooking will be delicious. The Duke and Duchess will both be at Sandringham House that night, and again on Christmas morning and for lunch. So I think on Christmas Day, Maddie and I will just have a relaxing and low-key day, which is very different from our Christmases with our family at home, so that will be a nice change. We leave for London the next morning to spend a few days there before flying back to California.”

They walked up to Sycamore Cottage, and he released her arm right before they got to the front door.

“Thank you for this afternoon,” he said.

She smiled at him.

“Oh no, thank you! I had a wonderful time.”

He took a step back as James opened the front door.

“As did I. Have a good evening.”

When Vivian walked inside, it was to find her daughter looking at her with a huge grin on her face.

“Okay, Mom. I need more details about what’s going on between you and that very attractive man.”

Vivian smiled and shook her head.

“I can’t imagine what you mean.”

Maddie laughed out loud.

“Oh really? I saw you two walking up here, arm in arm. Come on. Don’t worry, the Duke is out somewhere, and the Duchess is upstairs. You won’t have an audience.”

Okay, fine, she had to tell her daughter something.

“I’ll admit that he is a very attractive man. But I promise, nothing is going on there. I have a feeling he doesn’t see that many black people during the course of his job, which is probably why he gave me the tour of Sandringham yesterday. When we were there, we saw the stables out of a window, and I said something about them, so today we went to the stables. But that’s all—I probably won’t even see him again before we leave.”

Though . . . she needed to find a way to ensure that part wasn’t true.

She grinned at Maddie.

“But that’s not important—listen to what happened when we were at the stables: I met the Queen!”

Maddie almost dropped her wineglass.

“WHAT? The Queen? The ACTUAL Queen? Tell me everything.”

“Not only did I meet her, she gave me a compliment! She saw me riding—”

“Wait, WHAT?” Maddie stared at her. Vivian steered her daughter into the sitting room so she could put that glass of wine down before she really dropped it. “You rode a horse? What is going on?”

Vivian laughed.

“Get me some of that wine, and I’ll tell you the whole story. Just wait until I tell Aunt Jo. She’s going to lose it.”

Vivian walked up the stairs an hour later. She wondered if she’d see Malcolm again. She hadn’t wanted to be direct about wanting to see him again when they said good-bye, so she’d said nothing.

Wait. Why hadn’t she wanted to be direct? What possible benefit was there for her in not being direct? Here she was, on vacation in England, and there was this attractive man—why shouldn’t she tell him what she wanted? All he could say was no. So what? Plenty of people had said no to her in her life. What would it matter if he did?

When Vivian walked into her room, her eyes landed on Malcolm’s letter of the morning on top of the bureau in the corner, and she smiled.

She suddenly knew what to do.

Chapter Five

When Malcolm walked into Sandringham House the next morning, the normally calm building was bustling in preparation for the upcoming royal family Christmas festivities. He dodged around the rest of the staff and the many, many Christmas decorations as he made his way up to his small office. This house had so many Christmas trees he’d lost count.

When he got to his office, he picked up his phone and called over to the prime minister’s office, to see if there was any kind of concrete plan. Fifteen minutes later, he hung up the phone with a long sigh. Why had he even bothered calling? No one over there seemed to know anything. At least he knew that if they got to Christmas Eve without any decision, he wouldn’t have to worry about this again until early January. There would be a real riot if the whole government had to cancel their holidays.