Royals (Royals #1)(46)

Miles’s brow crumples in confusion, but luckily the car has pulled into Holyroodhouse now.

I don’t even wait for the driver to open the door for me; I step out into the rainy night and don’t look back.



* * *



? ? ?

I wake up to a thump right by my head. Cracking my eyes open, I see an iPad lying on the pillow next to me, and I scrub at my face, trying to pull myself out of a dream I can barely remember, except that I think Miles might have been in it, and that is just—

“What the hell happened last night?”

That’s Ellie, and a supremely pissed-off Ellie if that tone is anything to go by. I’ve gotten kind of used to that weird museum-guide voice she does around here, so a return-to-form Ellie is both alarming and kind of welcome.

And then her question sinks in.

I sit up in bed. It’s bright outside, the light streaming in through the gaps in the heavy velvet drapes, and I wince when Ellie marches over to the window and yanks the curtains open. The clock by my bed says it’s just seven, but Ellie is fully dressed in a conservative black sheath covered with a red cardigan, her blond hair in a chignon at the nape of her neck. She even has jewelry on, a pretty little brooch in the shape of a thistle, and a thin silver bangle. Do bluebirds help her get ready in the morning?

Oh, right, last night.

I pick up the iPad and see the headline on the Sun’s webpage.

“CRAZY FOR DAISY!” it screams, and there’s a blurry shot of me outside Seb’s club, his hand on my shoulder. Miles and Isabel are nowhere to be seen, and this really looks like . . .

“Okay, this is stupid,” I say, looking up at Ellie. She’s standing at the foot of my bed, jaw clenched, arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Isabel was with Seb last night, and I went out to get her!”

Walking over to the bed, Ellie takes the iPad from me. “That’s not what the internet is saying,” she says, and she opens another page, then another, scrolling through a series of links.

“SEB AND DAISY!”

“PRINCE SEBASTIAN: CAUGHT AT LAST?”

“OOH-ER! A ROYAL NIGHT OUT!”

“PRINCESS DAISY?”

I almost want to laugh. It’s just . . . dumb. Seb and I had hardly even spoken last night. How can this one picture make people think we’re a thing?

I’m still shaking my head in amused disbelief when I look up at El.

That’s when I notice she’s downright pale, and genuinely upset.

Confused, I push my hair out of my eyes. “El, you know—” I start, but she just waves me off.

“All I know is that this is the top story on every news site in Scotland right now, maybe in the whole UK.” And then her eyes meet mine. “And the queen got here this morning.”

Well, now I’m not laughing. “The queen?” I nearly squeak.

Ellie nods and then, in a gesture I haven’t seen from her in years, nervously twists the bangle around her wrist. “She wants to see you.”





Chapter 24


“Don’t you think that’s a bit overkill?” Dad murmurs as we walk down the hall to the parlor where we’ll meet the queen.

Mom is on my other side, and she glances across me toward Dad. “Oh, Liam, stop,” she says, also nearly whispering. “She looks lovely.”

“She looks like something they’d sell in the gift shop,” Dad replies, and I frown as I look down at my tartan skirt. It was the most Scottish-y thing I had in my new, Glynnis-approved wardrobe, a plaid skirt in shades of bright red, black, purple, and green. I’d paired it with a sensible black blouse, black tights, and a pair of red ballet flats.

But yes, maybe the matching tartan vest was too much.

Or was it the hat?

Reaching up, I snatch the plaid tam-o’-shanter from my head and hand it to Mom, who shoves it in her handbag.

“I panicked, all right?” I hiss. “I avoided the dungeon over the thing at the race, but this? This could be dungeon material.”

“Daisy,” Mom chides in the same tone she usually uses for Dad, but Dad just pats my shoulder.

“We’ll come visit, love, I promise.”

Elbowing him in the ribs, I try to fight off an attack of the nervous giggles as Mom tuts and fiddles with one of her earrings.

The hallway we’re heading down is dim, little lamps with apricot-colored silk shades casting pools of light on the ancient carpet, and it’s in a part of the palace I haven’t visited yet. These are the queen’s personal quarters, and they’re softer, more feminine than the rest of the palace. She’s been queen since she was eighteen, and suddenly I wonder if she redecorated the whole place when she came to power. That’s what I would’ve done. Of course I wouldn’t have gone with all this peach and blue. I would’ve gone . . . purple, maybe. Neon green. To keep people on their toes.

Or maybe I’m focusing on interior design to keep from freaking the freak out.

The one thing I was determined to do this summer was keep my head down and stay out of Ellie’s . . . everything. And now I am just all up in a royal mess, and I didn’t even do anything fun, which is deeply unfair. If I’d been the one fighting with Seb at his club? Fine, I’d take my lumps—I did the thing. But I was just being a good and loyal friend, and now I’m about to be—