Chapter 3 #3
“As in potentially most of it,” Mr. Patel said. “They’ll do what they can, of course. Move things up as much as possible. But they have staff safety to consider.”
“Of course they do,” Julia said immediately, while Vic’s brain was still trying to compute a Christmas dinner without actual food. “We don’t want anyone taking risks on our account.”
“No,” Vic said faintly. “No, of course. Safety first. Very logical. Very sensible. Very—” She swallowed. “What… what does that mean? In… practical terms?”
Mr. Patel consulted his tablet. “We have a reasonable stock on site,” he said. “Pantry staples, frozen items, some fresh produce already delivered. We’ll be fine for day-to-day meals. It’s the more… elaborate elements of the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day menus that may be affected.”
“Elaborate elements,” Vic echoed.
Julia’s hand slipped over hers under the table, squeezing. Vic squeezed back hard enough to make their knuckles creak.
“So,” Vic said, tonguing a crumb on her lip because if she didn’t focus on something small she might start screaming, “we might not get… the things.”
“Turkeys,” Hyzenthlay translated helpfully. “And puddings. And reindeer food.”
Vic’s head snapped towards her. “The reindeer have their own supply chain.”
“Of course they do,” Julia murmured.
“We don’t know anything for certain yet,” Mr. Patel said, ever calm. “The caterers are monitoring the situation and will update us in the morning. I wanted to make you aware so you could… plan accordingly.”
Plan accordingly.
Vic’s fingers tightened on the schedule.
Forty-three pages of plans, and the weather had just taken a large, soggy eraser to half of them.
“Thank you,” Julia said, with the regal composure she’d learned from Alex and weaponised to suit her own style. “We appreciate the warning.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Vic asked, her voice coming out higher than she’d intended. “I don’t know, send a royal helicopter for the pigs in blankets? Have Erin escort the parsnips under armed guard?”
“I think the Royal Air Force has other priorities, Ms. Grey-Hughes-Wilding,” Mr. Patel said gently. “But we’re exploring all reasonable options. I’ll keep you updated.”
He gave them all another small, polite smile and withdrew, closing the door softly behind him.
Silence fell, thick and heavy.
Outside, the snow was coming down harder now, white veils thrown across the grounds. Somewhere in the depths of the castle, a clock chimed the hour. Hyzenthlay’s biscuit tower finally collapsed, crumbs scattering.
Vic stared at the door for a long moment, the words caterers delayed echoing in her head like a klaxon.
Then she turned slowly to Julia.
“Okay,” she said. “Don’t panic.”
“You’re the only one panicking,” Julia said calmly. “I’m drinking my tea.”
“I’m not panicking,” Vic lied. “I’m… pre-panicking.”
“That’s not a thing,” Julia said.
“It is and I’m doing it very well,” Vic said.
She pushed up out of her chair and began pacing in a tight line in front of the fireplace.
“Okay. Okay. Worst case scenario, we’ve still got…
what? Frozen peas? Flour? We can bake. How hard can Christmas dinner be, really?
I’ll do it myself. I’ll just… watch some tutorials.
The internet exists. I can learn. Turkeys, potatoes, gravy, a full nineteenth-century banquet, how difficult can it be? ”
“Very,” Julia said. “Also, the Wi-Fi goes funny in this wing when it snows.”
Hyzenthlay was watching her with unabashed fascination, as if attending a live performance of Mum Loses Her Mind: A Christmas Special.
“Mum,” she said solemnly, “are we going to starve?”
Vic stopped dead. “What? No! Absolutely not. There will be food. There will be so much food. No one is starving on my watch, I promise you.”
“But will there be pigs in blankets?” Hyzenthlay pressed. “And roast potatoes? And the pudding with fire?”
“Yes,” Vic said, with more conviction than she felt. “There will be pigs in blankets and roast potatoes and pudding with fire and… and… I don’t know, toast shaped like snowmen if I have to carve them myself with a penknife.”
Julia laughed, the sound soft and warm and exactly what Vic needed and didn’t want to admit she needed.
“Hey,” she said, rising and crossing to her, catching Vic’s restless hands in hers. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing,” Vic said. “Rapidly. In a very efficient way.”
Julia squeezed. “Look at me, not the window.”
Reluctantly, Vic dragged her gaze away from the snow and met Julia’s eyes.
They were steady. Kind. A little amused, because it was Julia and she could find humour even in a slowly unfolding logistical crisis, but not mocking.
“This is not a disaster,” Julia said. “It’s a… complication.”
“Complications are pre-disasters,” Vic argued.
“This is Scotland,” Julia said. “They’ve been doing Christmas in the snow longer than you’ve been alive. We have an entire army of staff who’ve handled worse. And your schedule is very good. You built in buffers. Remember?”
Vic thought about the contingency sections she’d painstakingly added. Weather disruptions. Power outages. Spontaneous royal tantrums, adult and child alike. She had mitigation strategies for all of them.
She just… hadn’t really believed they’d need them.
“Yeah,” she said slowly. “I did.”
“And you’re not doing this alone,” Julia said. “You have me. You have Mr. Patel. You’ll have Alex, who has somehow made ruling a country look like a group project. You have Erin, who can probably wrestle a turkey out of a snowdrift if it comes to it.”
A reluctant smile tugged at Vic’s mouth. “She would, wouldn’t she?”
“She absolutely would,” Julia said.
Hyzenthlay slid off her chair and padded over, slipping a hand into Vic’s. “And you have me,” she said. “I’m very good at making things up when things go wrong.”
Vic’s throat tightened.
“Yes,” she said hoarsely. “Yes, you are.”
She looked down at her daughter, then back at Julia, and something in the panicked whirl of her thoughts settled.
So the caterers might be delayed. So the snow was heavier than forecast. So the reindeer might end up stuck halfway up the A9 and the pigs in blankets might never see the inside of the Balmoral ovens.
The core of what she wanted for this Christmas—for them to all be together, as a messy, ridiculous, complicated, beloved family—was still possible.
She could work with that.
She straightened, drawing herself up to her full, not-very-impressive height.
“Okay,” she said again, but this time it sounded different in her own ears. “We adapt. We improvise. We… cook.”
Julia’s eyes widened slightly. “You cook?”
“I am fully capable of following a recipe,” Vic said, slightly affronted. “Probably.”
Hyzenthlay bounced on her toes. “Can I help?”
“You can stir things that are safe and count marshmallows,” Vic said.
“Right. New objective: prepare for the possibility that we are doing Christmas dinner in-house. Step one: find apron. Step two: locate kitchen staff and apologise in advance. Step three: call Alex and update her before someone else does and she worries.”
Julia squeezed her hand once more before letting go. “I’ll come with you,” she said. “You are not negotiating with Mrs. MacLeod solo.”
“That sounds like you don’t have faith in my conflict resolution skills,” Vic said.
“I’ve seen your conflict resolution skills,” Julia said. “You tried to bribe the triplets with chocolate to get them to stop climbing the bookcase.”
“And it worked,” Vic pointed out.
“For three minutes,” Julia said dryly.
Vic huffed. “Fine. Team effort.” She grabbed the schedule off the table, tucking it under her arm. It felt less like a flawless blueprint now and more like what it probably should have been all along: a guide. A plan. Not gospel.
The universe might have just kicked Operation: Perfect Royal Christmas in the shins, but the operation was not dead yet.
As they headed for the door, she flicked her phone awake again. A new flurry of messages blinked on the screen—Patel with updated forecasts, a note from the head of security, and a fresh email from the caterers with that horrible phrase again: may be delayed due to snow.
She swallowed, squared her shoulders, and stepped into the corridor.
“Okay,” she muttered under her breath. “Snow: one. Vic: still in the game.”
She was halfway down the hall when a new thought hit her.
Alex and Erin were somewhere downstairs, probably wrestling three damp, overexcited children out of boots and into something approaching dry clothing. They were exhausted. They’d come here, like everyone else, hoping for a break. For a chance to reconnect.
Vic had promised herself she’d give them that. That was part of what this whole ridiculous, over-planned, over-ambitious operation was about.
Feeding them. Delighting the kids. Managing the chaos so Alex could be just Alex for a while, not the Queen juggling ten crises.
She looked at the words on her phone screen again. May be delayed due to snow.
Then she looked at the 43-page plan tucked under her arm.
“Not on my watch,” she said quietly.
Even if she had to personally dig a path through the snow to the nearest turkey, Christmas was going to happen.
She just hoped the reindeer got the memo.