Her Royal Highness (Royals #2)(31)

Ilse is glancing around the lake now, tugging at the straps of her life jacket. “Caro—” she starts, but Flora and Caroline are still locked in their standoff.

“So you refuse to apologize?” Flora asks, and a muscle ticks in Caroline’s jaw.

“Get bent, Flora,” she practically spits out, and without missing a beat or dropping her smile, Flora lifts her foot from our boat and presses it down hard on the edge of Caroline and Ilse’s.

Everything happens at once. The boat tips, the girls scream, our boat tips, and finally my fingers curl around the edge of Flora’s shirt, yanking her back from the edge even as our own boat rocks hard from side to side.

Somehow, magically, we stay afloat.

Caroline and Ilse are not so lucky.

The force of Flora’s nudge probably wasn’t hard enough to tip them over, but their subsequent panic did the job, and both of them bob in the lake, shrieking, their boat upside down next to them.

Grinning, her cheeks pink, Flora shoves her sunglasses on top of her head. “Seb taught me that trick!” she tells me. “I can’t believe it actually wor—”

A loud crack snaps through the air, and Flora and I both instinctively duck before looking back to the shore to see Mr. McGregor standing there, one of the antique pistols over his head, a thin trail of smoke spiraling out from it.

From the look on his face, I’m guessing the race is over.





CHAPTER 16



Flora and I are declared the losers of the boat race for “unsportsmanlike conduct,” which, honestly, seems pretty fair. We get off pretty easily as far as I’m concerned. No stocks, no dungeon, not even detention. Our punishment is to start arranging the gear for the Challenge, and since organizing camping stuff is one of my favorite things to do, I don’t mind.

We’re alone, her and me, in our room, with a bunch of tents and various pieces of equipment spread out in front of us. Our job is to start putting them in bunches of separate packs.

“Have you ever done anything like this before?” I ask Flora. It’s night in our room, and since there isn’t any overhead lighting, things are dim. Cozy, almost.

“What, gone camping?” she replies, picking up the compass and frowning at it.

“Camping, hiking, gone outside generally . . .”

That earns me a scowl, and she tosses the compass back to the floor, where it rattles against a bag of tent stakes. “I’ve gone shooting.”

“Do you see any guns here?” I sweep my hand over the supplies.

Sighing, Flora gets up from the floor, dusting her hands on the back of her skirt. “I don’t see what the big deal is. It isn’t as though we’re going to be in the wilderness all that long. They wouldn’t let us. The lawsuits if something happened to someone?” Snorting, she folds her arms over her chest. “This is all meant as a bit of show, a little ‘oh, look what an interesting and progressive school we are!’ they can put on the brochures alongside ‘chosen educational institution of royalty.’”

I look up at her. She’s standing by our door, her chin lifted, but there’s more than just her usual snobbishness at play here.

“That really bugs you, doesn’t it?” I ask. “Being part of the promo materials.”

“What?” She glances down at me, pursing her lips slightly.

“It’s just that’s the second time you’ve mentioned them using your family as an advertising thing,” I say, going back to counting out tent stakes. “So it’s clear that bugs, and I get it.”

Flora is still standing there with her arms crossed, but she’s watching me with a weird look now. “Nothing bugs me,” she finally says before turning back to her pile of gear, and I raise my eyebrows at her.

“Nothing?”

“Well, nothing save you at this moment, I suppose.”

Ah, okay, we’re back to the Flora I know and loathe. Shaking my head with a muttered “Whatever,” I go back to arranging my own things into piles. A tent, six stakes, two compasses, two thermoses—

“And even if I were ‘bugged,’ which I am not,” Flora suddenly says, “it isn’t as though there’s anything I could do about it. This is just . . . part of it.”

“What?” I ask. “Being a prop?”

Flora still isn’t looking at me, but her movements are jerky as she folds her own supplies. “Hardly a prop,” she says. “It’s simply that it’s irritating and slightly tacky to have people wanting you to be a walking advertisement simply because of your family. I happen to think I’m an interesting person with or without a crown on my head.”

Ah, so that’s it. It’s vanity. That’s actually a relief, because for a second there, I had been dangerously close to feeling a little sorry for Flora.

The horror.

“What are some interesting things about you that have nothing to do with being a princess?” I ask, and she looks up from her stuff, eyes slightly narrowed.

“Are you baiting me?”

It’s all I can do not to toss a tent stake at her. “No, I’m serious. Look, since we’re roommates and about to be partners on this whole Challenge deal, we might as well try to get to know each other better. So please, enlighten me on the Things That Make You Interesting that aren’t royal-related.”