Royal Holiday - Jasmine Guillory Page 0,4
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.
Twenty minutes later, she made her way down two flights of stairs. When she got to the ground floor, she hesitated for a second and then turned left, toward the back of the house. She wasn’t positive that was where the kitchen was, but it made the most sense. She’d sort of expected to see someone on her journey across the ground floor—any of the men in suits, for example—but though she heard faint music and some voices in the distance, she saw no one.
Finally, after she walked through a formal living room with furniture that looked so elaborate she was afraid to touch it, and a huge dining room with a wooden table that gleamed, she followed a narrow hallway that she was sure must lead to the kitchen. The sound of voices and of running water from that direction made her even more certain. She took a deep breath and stepped into the room with a smile on her face.
“Good morning, I’m Vivian Forest,” she said to the young woman with red hair standing at the stove. Well, she was probably somewhere in her thirties, but Vivian would always call anyone in the vicinity of her daughter’s age “young,” no matter how old they both got. “If it’s not too much trouble, can I have . . . ?”
Her voice trailed off as she looked around the room. It wasn’t the huge wood beam ceiling that stopped her, or the enormous bright red stove, or the dried herbs and garlic and onion braids hanging over the big wooden table. No, it was the man standing by the back door.
His hair was short, with a touch of gray at the temples. He was wearing a shirt and tie and suit pants, but with a very cozy-looking cardigan on top instead of a jacket. He had a plaid scarf wrapped around his neck and was somehow pulling it off better than any nonmodel she’d ever seen. His skin was warm brown. And he was smiling at her like they’d been friends for years. She couldn’t help but return a smile just as big.
“Ms. Forest, good morning!” Vivian’s attention snapped back to the woman standing at the stove. “I just made a new pot of coffee. Would you like a cup? Or tea? I’m happy to make you whatever breakfast you want. We weren’t sure what you and the other Ms. Forest would like, so I have a lot of options, but I made some fresh scones this morning if that interests you? The other Ms. Forest mentioned you enjoy them at breakfast although we usually eat them at tea-time.”
Vivian couldn’t decide what appealed to her more, hot coffee and fresh scones, or that man in the corner who looked like a tall mug of hot chocolate.
Why choose?
“I’d love both the coffee and a scone. Thank you so much.”
Would Hot Chocolate leave? Or come farther into the room? Or just stay silent until she went away? Vivian tried to keep her mind on the woman pouring her coffee.
“I’m Julia Pepper. I’m the cook here at Sycamore Cottage. It’s nice to meet you.” She set the cup in a saucer and then on a tray. “I can bring the coffee and some scones into the sitting room where you ate last night, if that’s convenient for you?”
Vivian would rather stay in this warm, comfortable-looking kitchen and chat with Julia and Mr. Chocolate over there, but she didn’t want to disturb the running of the household.
“Oh yes, of