Her Royal Highness (Royals #2)(43)

“Okay, gotta go, love you, love you, bye!” I trill at the screen before slamming the laptop shut.

I haven’t told Lee about Flora, or rather, I haven’t told him my roommate is also a princess, and something tells me that as soon as he lays eyes on Flora, he’ll know.

Not that there’s anything to know because there’s not; I do not have a crush.

“Who were you talking to?” she asks me now, propping her chin in one hand, a heavy envelope caught between her fingers.

“My dad,” I lie, then gesture at the letter.

“What is that?” I ask her, watching as she slides a finger along the closure, the thick paper making a satisfying ripping sound.

“This, dearest Quint, is freedom,” she says, and I try to ignore that “dearest,” and the funny things it does to my chest. It’s just Flora Speak. Everyone is darling, sweetheart, my love. Sometimes I think it’s because she can’t remember most people’s names.

“Look,” she says, tossing the heavy card inside my way.

It’s embossed with so many seals and crests, and the calligraphy is so intricate, I can barely read it, so I hold the card out, squinting at it. “Is this in English?” I ask, and Flora reaches out, swatting at me before taking the card back.

“Don’t play the rube with me,” she says, but she’s smiling. “It’s an invitation to a house party next weekend up on Skye, hosted by the Lord of the Isles.”

I sit back on my bed, toeing off my shoes. “The who?”

“Lord of the Isles,” Flora repeats, and I wiggle my toes at her.

“You can keep saying that all you want, I still won’t understand who you’re talking about.”

Sitting up, Flora tucks her legs underneath her. She’s got a hole in the knee of her stocking, a shockingly human thing on a goddess, and I suddenly have this weird urge to reach out with my foot and poke it.

That is an urge I very much do not give in to.

Instead, I make myself focus on her face as she says, “You really don’t know much about Scotland for someone who willingly chose to live here,” and I scoot up farther on my own bed, away from that hole in her stocking, that little circle of pale skin that I can’t seem to stop staring at.

“I know enough,” I say, a little defensive. “Mary, Queen of Scots. Braveheart. All that.”

“Oh, forgive me, you’re an expert in all things Scottish.” She plays up her accent as that sentence ends, the vowels rolling and growling in her mouth, and I giggle.

“Okay, don’t ever talk like that again.”

She grins at me, then sits back on her heels, the invitation still in hand. “Fine, allow me to enlighten you. So years and years ago, way before your Mary and your Braveheart, the Isles were their own kingdom more or less, mostly because they were bloody hard to get to from Edinburgh. So they had a Lord of the Isles, who was basically in charge of Skye, the Hebrides, and you know . . . isles.”

“Right,” I say, even though I’m not sure I 100% know.

“Annnywaaaay,” Flora drawls, flopping back on her bed, legs crossed at the ankle, “in the sixties, they had this big uprising there because of oil or some such, and there was a vote to let them bring back their own lord, so now they have one, and that’s who’s throwing the party. Lord Henry Beauchamp. Apparently they had to hire professional genealogists to find out who was actually in line to be Lord of the Isles, it had been so long since they’d had one. Turned out to be some bloke living on a sheep ranch in Australia.”

Outside, it’s started raining again, a soft shushing sound cocooning us in our dim and cozy room. “So he’s like a mini king,” I say, “but of islands, not Scotland.”

Flora makes a scoffing noise, fanning her face with the invitation. The gilt seals catch the lamplight, winking at me. “Don’t let Mummy hear you say that. It’s more like he’s a sort of fancier-than-usual aristocrat. They can’t raise their own army out there, or completely secede from the country. But they have a few laws that are different from ours, and now they get to keep most of their oil money. Also, they’re more fun.”

I have calculus homework I should definitely be looking at, but it’s nice, sitting here in the gloom with Flora, and I have to admit, learning about this stuff isn’t completely terrible.

“More fun than you?” I ask. “Because that sounds dangerous and possibly illegal.”

Flora winks at me with a sly grin.

“They’re just not as strict,” she says. “Like I said, Lord Henry was from the other side of the planet, and his wife, Lady Ellis, was some sort of fabulous party girl in Swinging London. It was all very scandalous from what Mummy has said. Their children and grandchildren make me and Seb look like model citizens.”

I smile at that, finally reaching over for my calculus notebook. “Well, that sounds like your kind of thing for sure, then. Can you get away from here for a whole weekend?”

“They’ll have to let me go,” Flora says with that breezy confidence that’s as much a part of her as her hair color or her long legs. “It’s basically a diplomatic thing. Terrible insult if the royal family doesn’t send a representative when she’s so close.”

“Is that what you are?” I ask, notebook already forgotten on my stomach. How does Flora always manage to distract me? “A diplomat?”