“What I’m picking up is frostbite and probably tuberculosis or some other horrible disease.”
Tipping her head back, Flora sighs at the sky, her arms out to her sides. “This cannot be the worst thing that’s ever happened to you,” she says before looking back at me. “I mean, that fringe alone should qualify before this little incident.”
It takes me a second to work out that she’s talking about my bangs, and when I do, I tug at my hair, scowling.
“Again, not really sure insults are the way to go here given this whole ‘strand us in the wilderness and nearly kill us’ thing you’re currently responsible for.”
Heaving yet another sigh, Flora spreads her jacket on the ground and sits on it. “We’re not going to die here,” she insists, crossing her legs. “At most, we’ll give them a bit of a fright, Mummy will see this is not at all the sort of place where I belong, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
She gives me a look out of the corner of her eye. “Isn’t that what you want?”
Oh man, she has me there. No more Flora? A room all to myself, or heck, even a room with just a normal roommate who isn’t always five seconds away from some imperious bullshit? That sounds amazing. No more Flora, and I could have the kind of experience at Gregorstoun that I’d been longing for. What I’d planned on when I left home.
But I don’t think it’s as simple as Flora is trying to make it out to be. In fact, I think this little stunt of hers will just make life harder for everyone at the school, so I don’t break. Instead, I sit next to her, on the farthest edge away from her.
“I’m actually kind of getting used to you,” I tell her. I’m striving for breeziness, but it’s somewhat hampered by all the shivering and the fact that my nose has decided to rebel against the cold by getting deeply stuffed up.
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” I hear Flora say, and I’m about to retort with a “Which part?” when she moves across the jacket, putting her arm around my shoulder and tugging me close.
CHAPTER 20
Her body is just as wet and cold as mine, but it’s still a little bit of a relief, the warmth of her against me, or maybe just the shield against the wind.
How does she still smell good even after hiking, falling in a river, and hiking some more?
Another princess privilege probably.
At least it’s not raining, but we’re still cold and wet and stranded. The hills and rocks that looked so nice earlier are seeming a little more threatening and foreign now that night is falling, and I really, really hope a stag is the only wildlife we’re going to experience out here. They don’t have wolves in Scotland anymore, do they?
“I am sorry you got mixed up in all this, Quint,” Flora says at last, and I look over at her, eyes wide.
“Are you actually apologizing for something?” I ask, and she sighs, her body still tight against mine.
“I simply thought you deserved some kind of explanation. It’s nothing personal.”
“Strangely uncomforting when I’m freezing my ass off in the middle of nowhere,” I mutter, and Flora shifts next to me. When I look over, she’s staring straight ahead.
Finally, she says, “It’s not ‘acting out,’ like you said earlier. Not exactly.”
I keep looking at her, even though the angle hurts my neck, and when she glances over at me, her face is so close I can see the light smattering of freckles across her nose.
“It was just very clear from very early on that I wasn’t going to be the kind of princess people wanted. You know, the . . . sweet one. With the bows and the bluebirds and all that. I got angry at people too easily, I got bored too quickly. And if I couldn’t be that kind of princess, I figured I might as well try to be another one altogether.”
She says that like it’s a normal thing to think. Like most people are aware of certain archetypes they have to be, and when they can’t fit into one, they choose another.
“That’s . . . insane,” I tell her, and she rests her cheek on her shoulder as she studies me, damp hair swinging. Her lower lip is already starting to jut out, a deep vee between her brows.
“You don’t have to pick some type to be,” I continue, shifting on the rock. It’s getting even colder, the wind downright whistling now like we’re heroines in a Brontë novel, stuck out on the moors or something. “You can just be you.”
Flora keeps staring at me, like she’s waiting for something, and I flick my hair out of my eyes. “What?”
“Oh, I was just waiting for the musical number I was sure followed a statement like that,” she says, and I look up at the sky, scooting a little farther away.
“Cool, be a jerk. Again. Some more.”
To my surprise, that makes Flora laugh, and when I glance back at her, she’s leaning on her hands, watching me. “God, you really believe all that, don’t you?” she asks. “All that ‘you can just be you.’ How extraordinary.”
“I feel like by ‘extraordinary,’ you mean ‘stupid,’ so I’m just going to ignore you now and try to go to sleep.”
There’s no way that’s going to happen up here with rocks and moors all around us, my body temperature dipping way below normal, but if I sleep, I can disappear for a little bit, can pretend I’m not living in this nightmare where a snotty princess has stranded me in the middle of nowhere all as some elaborate act of rebellion against her parents. Who are a queen and a prince, for god’s sake.
I lie there on that stupid, rocky ground, my pullover wrapped around me, and feel the anger bubble up in my chest again. I don’t know much about Flora’s parents, but she has two of them, right? Both alive, both rich, both who make sure she has the best of everything, no matter what she does. She doesn’t even want to be here at Gregorstoun, whereas I spent months reading about it and researching it, then applying for every scholarship that exists. I think of those nights sitting up at my computer, working on essay after essay, and suddenly, sleep is the last thing on my mind.
“You’re the worst, you know that?” I sit bolt upright, still clutching my jacket.
Flora had been sitting at the edge of the jacket, her arms wrapped around her knees, but now she looks over at me. “Pardon?”
God, that just makes me madder, that paaaahdon?
“You. Are. The. Worst,” I enunciate, pointing at her. “What’s so hard about your life? Oh, boo-hoo, you’re missing a fashion show. Oh no, your parents want you to have a good and interesting education. What a shame, you have two of them, and they both care about you.”
Flora turns more fully toward me, a weird look on her face.
“You . . . don’t have two parents?”
Well, this is not a conversation I wanted to have tonight.
“No,” I say, rolling back over.
It’s quiet, the only sound the wind continuing its whole Wuthering Thing, and then Flora asks, “Which one?”
I don’t know if she’s asking which parent I have or which parent I lost. I don’t actually care. I just say, “My mom died when I was little.”
More silence.
Then: “How little?”
Sighing, I roll over onto my back, wincing as a rock digs into my spine. “Two.”
Flora’s voice sounds different when she says, “That’s really quite little.”
“It was.”
I don’t tell her anything else. How much it sucks to have a mom I can’t even remember. How I love my dad more than I can say, how Anna is a great stepmom, but she came into our lives when I was already a teenager. How I think my relationship with Dad might be easier if he hadn’t had to be All the Things to me for so long. Those are the kinds of things I haven’t even been able to talk to my friends about, and Flora is very much not a friend. Maybe she’s not totally an enemy, either, but still, these are the kinds of things she doesn’t get from me. Private things, important things.
“I’m sorry,�
� she finally says, and when I look over at her, she’s lying down, too, facing me. And she does look sorry. Or I think she does. She looks different at least, and maybe that’s enough with Flora.
“Thanks,” I say, then awkwardly squirm around on the ground to face her. “I mean. I don’t remember her or anything.”
“Is that better or worse?”
It’s a totally unexpected question, and for a second, I don’t know how to answer her, since that’s a question I’ve asked myself a million times, ever since I was old enough to get what not having a mom meant.
“I don’t know,” I finally tell her. “It’s like . . . trying to miss something you never really had. Like if you’d never eaten ice cream, never could eat it, but everyone was like, ‘Don’t you miss ice cream?’ Only. You know. Bigger.”
“Because the ice cream is your mum,” she says with such solemnity that I actually laugh.
“I guess?”
Flora smiles, too, then, but it’s such a different smile. Usually, her smiles are all slowly curving lips, very cat that ate the canary, like she learned smiling from watching soap operas or something. This is the real deal, and it’s surprisingly goofy. It lights up her whole face, and I wonder why she doesn’t smile like that more often.
It’s a good look on her.
And then she props her head on her hand and says, “At the pub, before the whole unpleasantness, you mentioned liking girls and boys.”
Oh, wow, apparently we’re going to unpack everything personal about me tonight. Joy.
Clearing my throat, I roll over to study the sky overhead. It’s not all the way dark yet, but it’s getting there, and I know that when the sun is completely down, it’s going to be darker than I can possibly imagine.
“Yeah,” I say at last. “Equal opportunity dater.”
“Bisexual,” she replies, and my face flushes even as I laugh.
“To get technical, yes, bi. Anything else you want to know about me? Social security number? Embarrassing scars?”
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?”
Flora nods. “Yes, we were attacked by a stag, and that’s how we lost all our things. It was very traumatic. Wasn’t it, Quint?”
For all that I had said I wasn’t going along with Flora’s stupid plan, I find myself nodding. “A stag. Trauma,” I say, and Dr. McKee sighs.
“Miss Quint,” she says, fixing me with a look. “You wouldn’t be lying for the princess, would you?”
How does she know? Is she psychic, or am I just a terrible liar?
But then Dr. McKee begins shuffling papers on her desk and says, “Because Miss Baird’s friend, Miss McPherson, insists that Miss Baird told her two weeks ago that she did not plan on staying at Gregorstoun through the autumn and that she had a new plan to get herself sent home. Is that true?”
In the chair next to me, Flora doesn’t move, but I feel myself practically creaking as I stiffen up.
“I don’t. There wasn’t. I can’t . . . plan,” I manage to get out, and Dr. McKee frowns even deeper, the bridge of her nose wrinkling.
“Miss Quint,” she says, and then Flora sits up, clearing her throat.
“Actually, Caroline was telling the truth, Dr. McKee. It was irresponsible and reckless and selfish, and Millie had no idea what I was up to until it was too late. I asked her to lie for me, and threatened her with expulsion if she didn’t.”
That last part is not even remotely true, and I gape at Flora. Did our few hours all wet and cold break her?
Or is she actually kind of a decent person under all of that bitchiness?
Dr. McKee just stares at Flora, her hands still folded on her desk. When she finds her voice again, it’s to ask, “Do you hate it here so much, Miss Baird?”
Flora swallows, and fidgets a little in her chair before answering. “I thought I did,” she says. “But it’s . . . not so bad. Those girls who came to help us, Sakshi and Elisabeth. They were . . . nice.” She rolls her shoulders, uncomfortable. “And Millie—Miss Quint—has been nice to me even though I don’t really deserve it. So. I don’t know.”
She schools her face into that bored expression I’ve seen so many times. “Maybe there’s something to be said for this whole ‘sisterhood’ thing.”
“Might have been more effective without the air quotes, but thank you, Miss Baird,” Dr. McKee says.
Then she looks back and forth between us. She’s not all that old, Dr. McKee, I realize. Probably only in her thirties. Maybe she has a brother who went here, or a boyfriend or something. Maybe getting to come to Gregorstoun was her dream, too.
Her Royal Highness Page 12
