Her Royal Highness (Royals #2)(42)

Reaching around her, I pick up the towel, placing it back in her hands. Then, standing behind her, I go to guide her arms in the right movements.

“Corners together,” I say again, bringing her hands together with my own.

Only then do I realize just how close I’m standing to her, how her golden hair is falling over her shoulder and practically into my mouth.

How the way we’re standing feels awfully . . . close.

Clearing my throat, I back away so suddenly that Flora actually drops the towel. “Anyway, you’ll figure it out,” I mutter, going back to my own pile.

Flora is watching me, though, her cheeks slightly pink.

It’s just because it’s warm down here, the industrial washing machines and dryers making everything hotter and steamier than a basement room in a Scottish manor house has any right to be.

We finish folding towels in near silence, and I’m just reaching for a basket of sheets when I notice something shoved under the farthest basket, just at the corner of the table. It’s a magazine, an older one that’s sort of wrinkled and faded from the damp here in the laundry room, and I guess whoever had laundry punishment last was reading it. I tug it over to me more out of curiosity than anything else, and it’s only when I’ve got it right in front of me that I see Flora’s on the cover.

There’s big yellow text over her head screaming FLIGHTY FLORA STRIKES AGAIN! and in the picture, she’s got big sunglasses on as she makes her way down a cobblestone street, one arm wrapped tightly around her middle, the other held out against the photographers.

Yikes.

I go to shove the magazine back under the basket, hoping Flora is absorbed enough in trying not to mangle more laundry that she doesn’t notice me, but of course she does, and before I have a chance to hide the magazine again, she’s beside me, taking it out of my hands.

“Ah,” she says. “I see someone’s been reading up on me. How flattering.”

“That’s not mine,” I reply, tucking my hair behind my ears. “I just found—”

“Oh, I didn’t think it was yours.” Flora is still holding the magazine, studying her picture, her shoulders back and chin slightly lifted. It’s a pose I’m getting used to seeing from her. “Just one of our other classmates, I suppose. Still, it’s a good picture. My hair was smashing that summer.”

I stare at her. That’s all she sees in that picture? She’s practically being hunted down a street, the headline is calling her a hot mess, more or less, and she’s like, “My hair is good”?

Flora moves back down the table to her own laundry pile, the magazine left between us. It almost feels like a poisonous snake lying there, and I watch it warily.

Then I look back to Flora, who’s refolding the towels she’d already done, her movements stiff. “What was that about?” I finally ask. “You ‘striking again’?”

Sniffing, Flora tosses her newly folded towel into an empty basket, promptly undoing the work she’d done. “To tell the truth, I don’t even remember. I made a lot of mistakes that summer.”

She flashes me a smile. “Thank goodness I have so many publications keeping a record for me.”

Flora goes to move past me, carrying a basket to the door, and as she does, she lets one hand dangle free, pushing the magazine to the floor, where it lands in a puddle of damp from the wet sheets.

“Oh, dear,” she says breezily, heading for the door. “How clumsy of me.”





CHAPTER 23





“Laundry duty?”

I laugh, getting settled on my bed as I angle my laptop to see Lee better. “Okay, you say that like it’s the worst punishment anyone could ever get.”

On the screen, Lee flicks his hair out of his eyes. “It’s just bizarre,” he says. “Can you imagine getting in trouble at Pecos and them making you, like, wash gym uniforms? Haven’t they heard of detention in Scotland?”

“It’s actually not so bad,” I tell him, and am surprised to realize that’s the truth. I haven’t exactly loved doing everyone’s laundry the past couple of weeks, but spending time with Flora has been surprisingly unterrible. Whatever thawed between us up there in the hills has stayed unfrozen, and while I still think of Flora as basically a Posh Agent of Chaos, it’s been kind of nice getting to hang out, just the two of us.

“Um, what is that face about?”

I blink at the screen. “What?”

“You just made a face,” Lee says, grinning. “A dreamy face. Have you landed a Highlander, Mill?”

“Shut up,” I say, rolling my eyes, but Lee only laughs again, shaking his head.

“No, I know the face of Millie Quint with a Crush, and that was it. I have seen it, I know your secret heart.”

“It is not, and no you don’t,” I reply, but my heart is beating a little faster, and now I’m not just blushing, I’m beet-red. I can see it in the little rectangle at the bottom of my screen.

The door flies open, and Flora bounds in, her golden ponytail bouncing.

“Oh, thank god!” she enthuses, dropping down on her bed with a distinct lack of royal grace, and on my laptop, Lee squawks, “Who is that? Is that your roommate? I wanna see her—”