Her Royal Highness (Royals #2)(39)

She shrugs, still on her side facing me. “If we’re stuck out here, I figure we might as well try to get to know each other. And me, too. With the liking girls and boys. Well, not boys, actually. I mean”—she blows out a long breath—“I gave them a try, but it didn’t take.”

Okay, that has my attention.

Once again, I roll over to face her. “Didn’t take?” I echo.

Flora traces a pattern on her jacket with one fingernail. “They’re just very . . . boy, you know?”

I kind of do, and I nod.

“Do people know?” I ask her, and then, since that seems fairly personal, offer up, “My dad and stepmom do. Most of my friends, too. I thought it might be weird or hard to talk to them about it, but everyone was surprisingly cool.”

“My family is not quite as cool,” Flora says. “My brothers know, and they’re fine with it. Papa would rather not acknowledge that any of his children are sexual creatures, and Mummy is pretending it’s simply a phase and I’ll eventually do my family duty. Marry some chinless duke with three hundred acres.”

She flops over onto her back, one arm stretched out at her side, the other resting on her chest. “Have three or four royal bairns. Give them obnoxious names.”

“Venetia?” I suggest. “Florisius?”

Laughing, Flora repeats, “Florisius,” then looks over at me.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, and she turns her head to look at the sky.

“You shared something personal with me even though I haven’t been very nice to you,” she says. “It simply seemed like good sportsmanship to share in kind.”

Good sportsmanship. How very . . . Flora.

“Well, I appreciate it,” I say and then, surprising myself, I add, “Seriously, I do.”

She tilts her head in acknowledgment, but I still point at her and say, “Although the sharing of personal secrets doesn’t make up for this crap.”

“Fair enough, Quint,” she says, and I settle back on the jacket, wondering if I’ll actually be able to sleep.

And then Flora sits up, pointing. “Are those flashlights or ghosts?”

I bolt upright, spotting the two circles of light bobbing along not too far away, and then I hear the sweetest sound I can possibly imagine—Sakshi’s voice saying, “I told you we should’ve set up camp earlier.”

Looking over at Flora, I grin. “It’s rescue.”





Some scaaaaaaaandaaaaaal to report, my darlings!! Shocking no one, The Princess and the Camping Trip (what a crappy fairy tale that would make) nearly ended in disaster. Apparently Flora and her partner got LOST WITHOUT SUPPLIES! They were found by classmates, and from what I’m hearing, the queen herself might be making a little trip up there—AGAIN!!—to see what’s going on. First a pub brawl, now a camping disaster . . . Dare I say it? I think Flora’s stay at Gregorstoun might be even more fun than Seb’s.


(“When Princesses Camp,” from Crown Town)





CHAPTER 21





“And so as ye can imagine, no one in the McGregor family has e’er eaten a trout again.”

“Totally,” I murmur in reply to Mr. McGregor’s story, even though I only heard about half of it. I’m sitting in the back of a Land Rover with Flora, the two of us—well, three, counting Mr. McGregor—making our way back to Gregorstoun in the darkness. Thanks to Saks and Elisabeth actually having their packs, they’d been able to send up flares, hence the ride from Mr. McGregor back to the school.

“All I’m saying is that you lassies are lucky ’twas a stag and not a trout,” he continues before shaking his head sadly. “Poor Brian.”

Now I kind of wish I’d listened more, but we’re already pulling up to the front drive of the school, all the lights on, making the house glow in the darkness.

I’d sigh with relief at seeing it if Dr. McKee weren’t standing on the front steps, her arms folded over her chest.

“Bollocks,” Flora mutters on one side of me, and I nod.

“The bollocks-iest.”

I’m tired and wet and cold and not really in the mood to try to explain this whole escapade to Dr. McKee.

But when we pile out of the car, she simply says, “We’ll discuss this tomorrow,” and then turns to walk back into the school.

I look at Flora, who just heaves a sigh before saying, “Well, we’ll worry about that later, shall we? I’m off for a shower. I may never get the smell of river water out of my hair.”



But the summons to Dr. McKee’s office doesn’t come the next morning. Or the morning after that. It’s not until everyone is back from the Challenge and I’ve finally started to relax, thinking I might not get called on the carpet for this after all, that Dr. Flyte stops me from coming into my history class and tells me Dr. McKee wants to see me.

And so once again, I find myself sitting next to Flora in front of the headmistress.

This time, we actually get to meet in her office instead of the chapel, and even though Flora was sure her mom would turn up again, there’s no royal entourage.

Just us.

And Dr. McKee.

Sitting behind her desk, she watches us with a slight frown. “Ladies,” she begins, then breaks off again, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I’m not even sure how to approach all of this since the stories I’ve gotten from Miss Worthington and Miss Graham were somewhat confusing and involved a stag?”