Thankfully the conversation moved on; Harriet was going to her parents for Christmas, and Alice and Henry would be at the manor, with at least a dozen guests coming from London. Ellie was heading up north, and Ava and Jace were having their first Christmas with baby William.

“What about you, Olivia? Would you like to come to ours?” Alice asked.

Olivia shook her head. Christmas at Willoughby Manor would be lovely, with roaring fires and a table for twenty groaning with food, but she already had plans. “I’ll be in Witney, with Mum.” She always had Christmas with her mum—a present each in the morning, a roast dinner for two, and a glass of sherry while listening to the Queen’s speech.

“How is your mum getting on in her new flat?” Ava asked.

“Okay, I think.” Olivia visited her mother every Sunday afternoon, and so far Tina had seemed to like it well enough, but sometimes she worried that her mother’s retirement at age seventy-three had doused some spark inside her. “I’m hoping she gets more involved with all the things they have on. It’s quite a community—there’s bridge, tennis, even salsa dancing.”

“I can see Tina enjoying that,” Harriet said, and Olivia smiled. A few years ago, perhaps, she could have seen her mum throwing herself into those sorts of things, but she lived a much quieter life now—just as Olivia did.

By the time she left Willoughby Close, feeling slightly tiddly after two glasses of wine, Olivia’s good humour was mostly restored. Her friends were wonderful, and so what if they had husbands and houses and all the rest? Olivia had always maintained that if she’d really wanted to get married, she would have done.

She’d had a few boyfriends over the years, but no one she’d felt like going the distance with, and if marriage and babies had been that important to her, she suspected she would have put a ring on it regardless.

As it was, she’d always liked her own company, as well as her freedom, although running Tea on the Lea had kept her in one place, precluding holidays, for the last few years. She’d told herself that once she got the shop on steady financial footing, she’d close it for a week and go away somewhere tropical and relaxing, but she hadn’t managed that yet.

Olivia breathed in the frosty night air as she turned down the road towards Wychwood’s high street. The sky was full of stars, the air clear and cold. A huge Christmas tree had been erected in the middle of the village green, now a dark, hulking shape under the moonlight; the official turning on of its lights would be on Wednesday, and Olivia was planning to keep the shop open, with some extra Christmas goodies available, and invitations for her mince pies and mulled wine evening the following week to be handed out.

As she turned down the high street, she noticed the Christmas lights that had been strung between the ancient buildings, and the star of Bethlehem on top of the parish church, all waiting for the official ceremony on Wednesday.