Her Royal Highness (Royals #2)(35)

“Why?” I ask, then shake my head. “Why am I even bothering asking that? You probably don’t even know why you do the banana-pants things you do.”

“Banana-pants?” Flora echoes. Bah-naaah-naaah pahnts.

“Crazy,” I explain. “Insane. So freaking nuts it’s hard to believe.”

“Yes, I was able to use context clues to piece that together. I’d just never heard that saying before now. Banana-pants.” White teeth flash in a broad grin. “God, that’s useful!”

“You know what would be useful right now?” I counter. “Tents. A compass. Food. Water. All the things your bah-naaah-naaah pahnts ass threw in the river. Do you have any idea how cold it’s going to get out here tonight?”

Flora rolls her eyes. “Honestly, Quint, give me some credit. This is a very carefully-thought-out plot. I lose our supplies in the river, and of course later say we were overtaken by the elements, that it was an accident, and one that never would’ve happened had the school been more careful. That’s something you’re going to agree with, by the way.”

“I definitely am not,” I reply, but Flora flicks that away with one move of her elegant hand.

“We’re not even going to spend the night out here,” Flora continues. “Because!” She reaches into her back pocket, pulling out her phone. “I am going to call for help and tell them what happened. Very tearfully of course.”

Just like that, her face changes, corners of her mouth turning down, lips wobbling, eyes suddenly becoming huge and rather sparkly with fake tears. “Never been so frightened in all my life,” she simpers. “One moment we were trying to cross the river, the next ev-everything was in the water, and we were so . . . so scared!”

I cross my arms over my chest, glaring at her. “I’m not doing that.”

As quickly as it had come on, the whole Victorian Miss act is over, and she’s regular Flora again, unruffled, slightly bored. Shrugging, she looks down at her phone.

“I’ll just say you’re processing the trauma in your own way.”

I’m about to make quite the comeback to that, but then she frowns, studying the phone in her hand.

“I don’t have a signal.”

It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Of course you don’t. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

Her head snaps up, and for the first time, something like Genuine Human Emotion appears on Flora’s face.

She’s freaked out.

Which is good—she should be—and also terrifying because I’m not sure what a freaked-out Flora even looks like, really.

She’s breathing a little faster now, her shoulders moving up and down, and I see her glance behind and below, like she’s hoping our packs will just magically not be in the river anymore.

“So this plan is ‘carefully thought out,’” I say, giving her the full finger-quotes thing, “and yet you didn’t remember that there’s no cell service?”

She scowls at that, then turns back to her phone. Maybe she thinks she can give it a royal command to suddenly work or something—who knows with her.

“I thought out the packs part, and I thought out the excuse part, but it’s possible the technical aspects . . . eluded me,” she says at last, and I have never wanted to throw a person off a mountain more than I want to throw her in this moment.

“The technical aspects?”

“Stop repeating everything I say!” Flora is glaring at me now, and I take a step back, hands raised.

“I know you’re not getting attitude with me,” I say. “I know that’s not a thing that’s happening, because that would be nonsensical, given that all of this is your fault.”

“‘Nonsensical,’” she snorts. “Honestly, Quint.” Then she glances around her, pulling her lower lip between her teeth.

“All right, this is not an emergency. We aren’t that far from the school, so we just have to . . . walk in that general direction until we get back to it. And we’ll probably run into some of our schoolmates, anyway, and we can give them the story about being stranded, so yes. Yes, I think this can all be salvaged—oh, dear.”

She’s looking over my shoulder, her face gone a little pale, and I freeze.

“What?” I ask, scared to look.

“Shhhh!” she instructs, waving a hand. “Just . . . keep your voice down. It’s fine.”

Her face and those wide eyes seem to say it’s very not fine, and I can feel every hair on my body standing on end. “Is it a bear?” I whisper, and she shakes her head.

“Bears have been extinct in Scotland for—”

“Hundreds of years, I know, and I do not want a history lesson right now!” I hiss, and finally, unable to take it anymore, I turn.

And Flora’s “oh, dear” makes a lot more sense.





CHAPTER 19





“Deer,” I say through numb lips. “That’s what you meant. Deer.”

Because that’s what’s behind me. A massive deer with a bunch of very pointy antlers, looking right at me.

Look, I am no stranger to wildlife. I am a Texas Girl, after all. I’ve had a rattlesnake slither across my path on a walk before, my grandfather once pointed out a coyote on the edge of his property, and I have seen more armadillos than any girl ever should.