Royals

  The car keeps heading north, and while I try to read my book, I can’t stop staring out the window as the landscape changes. For the first part of the drive, it is all fairly normal. Highways, road signs, fast food places. But eventually the rolling hills get higher, craggier. There’s even some snow on the peaks of the higher mountains, and before long, I’ve practically got my nose pressed to the glass. Now this is the Scotland I’ve been waiting for. Before, when we’d visited, we’d only been in the cities, really. Edinburgh, Glasgow . . . I’d never seen the actual Highlands.

  Before long, the car is slowing down, bumping over a long gravel driveway, and as we round the corner, a house comes into view.

  The car rolls to a stop, and I take in the building in front of me. I know Alex said it’s private property, but I still wasn’t expecting something this . . . homey.

  That doesn’t mean it’s a normal house, of course. It’s huge, red brick and gravel drive and all that, but it’s not as imposing as Sherbourne Castle or Holyrood, not even as intimidating as the big hotel we all stayed in back in Edinburgh. And it feels a lot more isolated than either of those places, too, all tucked up here in the Highlands.

  For the first time since I got here, I feel like I can breathe a little, and I take a deep breath. Yes, this is exactly what I need. What we all need. A chance to get to know each other in less intimidating surroundings, and without distractions.

  Then I step out of the car and see that other Land Rovers have pulled up, and Royal Wreckers are spilling out onto the gravel drive.

  Okay, so a few distractions, then.

  I haven’t seen the Royal Wreckers since the bookstore and the club, and now there’s much slapping of shoulders as Seb and his boys make their way to the house.

  Miles hangs back a little, glancing over at me.

  I stare back, wondering if we’re supposed to fake things here, too. I know we have the ball later this week—as much as I’m trying not to think about that—but surely that doesn’t mean we have to, like, hold hands and stuff now?

  To my relief, Miles follows the others inside, and I’m just about to head that way, too, when another car pulls up, this one nicer and sleeker than the Land Rovers that dropped off the boys. I know it’s not Mom and Dad—they’re spending a few more days in Edinburgh before coming up for the ball—but I’m still not prepared for the girls who pour themselves out of the back seat.

  They are, without a doubt, the prettiest people I have ever seen in my life.

  One is tall with dark hair that swings in a shiny sheet over her shoulders as she hefts a gorgeous leather bag, pushing her sunglasses up on top of her head. She’s just wearing jeans, boots, and a sweater—sorry, a jumper—but she could seriously be on a runway somewhere, all long legs and easy elegance.

  The other girl?

  Princess Flora.

  I’ve seen her before, of course, online and in magazines, but that still doesn’t prepare me for how lovely she is in the flesh. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given how flummoxed I was with Seb, but still, I had no idea she was this pretty. She’s shorter than the girl she’s with, and curvier, her dark gold hair just brushing her shoulders, and when she sees Alex, she drops her bag there in the gravel and gives a very unprincess-like shriek.

  “Ali!” she yells, launching herself at her brother, who laughs and squeezes her back, swinging her around.

  Ellie is standing next to me, her arms crossed. Her sunglasses are too big for me to really read her expression, but her body language is . . . stiff? Uncomfortable?

  And when Alex releases Flora, I see why.

  The princess’s eyes just barely skim over me and my sister, and then she turns to call over her shoulder, “Tam! Let’s get in before the rain starts.”

  The sky is perfectly clear, almost painfully blue, only a few white puffy clouds drifting by.

  As Flora and “Tam”—who I realize with a jolt must be the Lady Tamsin the queen is so keen to throw at Seb—swan past us and into the house, I look over at El, my eyes wide.

  “Oh my god, we just got the cut direct.”

  “Daisy,” Ellie says, but I gesture to where the girls disappeared into the house.

  “Haven’t you read enough Jane Austen to see what just happened?” I ask. “Does she always treat you like that?”

  “Flora can be prickly,” Alex says, coming forward to slip an arm around Ellie’s waist. “But she’ll get there.”

  Even though she’s still wearing her sunglasses, I feel like El is looking at me for a second before Alex guides her toward the stone steps into the house.

  I stand there while the drivers start pulling our luggage out of the car. Seb a human trash fire, the queen a literal ice queen maneuvering her kids into political marriages, and Flora a total bitch. What else hasn’t Ellie told me about this family?

  * * *

  • • •

  Thirty minutes later, I’m tucked up in a room that’s not unlike my room at Sherbourne—super fancy, full of old stuff, and also freezing cold. Oh, and fully tartaned up. My bedspread is plaid, the canopy is plaid, even the carpet seems to have a faded plaid pattern, and if I manage to sleep in here every night and not get a migraine, I’ll consider it a win.

  In a few minutes, I’m supposed to go downstairs for tea, but before I do that, there’s something else I need to do.

  Flopping on the bed, I pull my laptop out, firing up Skype.

  After a few moments, Isabel’s face appears on the screen, and I think I actually sigh with relief.

  “There you are!”

  It’s not that I’d been worried that Isa might be mad at me about all that had happened while she was here, but there was a part of me that wondered if she might not want a little break from all things Scotland (and by extension, me). She’d seemed pretty eager to get home last week.

  But no, she’s smiling there in her room, sitting on the floor by her bed. I can see the edge of her sheets, bright pink with little yellow flowers all over them. She bought them in the kids’ section at Target because “everything for adults is so boring.”

  “Where else would I be?” she asks, bringing up a can of Diet Coke to take a sip.

  “I don’t know. Away from all things royal? I know the trip wasn’t exactly what you’d thought it would be.”

  She sighs, pushing her heavy dark hair back from her face. “Like, I thought it would be really fun and exciting, but instead it was just kind of a pain? The guards and the photographers, and obviously Sebastian.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Yeah, I picked up on that one.”

  Shrugging, Isa leans back against the side of her bed. “He was weird. I felt like he was acting like the person he thought he was supposed to be, not who he actually was, you know?”

  I do. Ellie has started doing the same thing sometimes. I remember how she talked to people at the race, the fake-bright smile, the way she would tilt her head down whenever she was listening to someone, making this intense face I’d seen Alex do a bunch.

  So I nod to Isa and say, “They’re all weird.”

  “Even Miles?” she replies, a dimple appearing in one cheek as she smirks at me.

  “Of course you saw that stuff,” I say on a sigh, and she reaches out and actually flicks the computer screen, like she’s hitting me in the head.

  “I cannot believe you didn’t tell me!” she says, and for a moment, I hesitate. Do I tell Isa it’s not real? That it’s actually because of everything that happened the night she went to Seb’s club with him?

  I’d like to say it, but I don’t want Isabel to worry, and the truth is, I’m a little embarrassed. I’ve only been here a few weeks, and I’m already faking a relationship in order to please “the palace.” That’s . . . not a great look.

  I shrug. “It’s nothing major, just a summer thing.” And then, because I need a change of subject s
tat, I ask, “Anything with Ben?”

  “Ugh, I don’t want to talk about him,” she groans, and while we’re definitely going to have to get more into all that at some point, for now, there’s another reason I called her.

  “Okay, so if you’re not averse to looking at those royal blogs, do you think you could maybe do me a favor?”

  “Oooh, reconnaissance?” Isabel asks, dark eyes going wide. “Into it.”

  I lower my voice. “Princess Flora is here,” I tell her, “and she’s . . . not exactly mine or Ellie’s biggest fan. I don’t want to be busted searching for anything on her, so could you—”

  “Find out what she’s like and report back via secure emails?” Isabel finishes, and I laugh.

  “Settle down, Jason Bourne,” I reply. “Just . . . see what you can find out, and email it to me. I want your take on it, not just a bunch of links.”

  Isa gives me a little salute. “On it,” she announces. “By the time I’m done, you’ll be more than prepared for her visit.”

  I laugh, and we sign off, letting me go back to unpacking. And sure enough, within half an hour, Isa has sent me a rundown of all things Flora.

  Really, it’s not that different from what I’d expected. Like Seb, she can be a bit wild, but unlike Seb, her foibles have ended up in the tabloids. She also just got kicked out of school, so maybe that explains the attitude. There’s also a pretty hefty list of former boyfriends.

  Then I get to the last line of Isa’s reconnaissance:

  And just so you know, Dais, one of those exes? Miles.

  She’s harder to track down than her famous brothers, but Princess Flora of Scotland, currently attending an elite all-girls school on the Isle of Skye, is no less talked about. According to sources, Flora is the real wild child of the family, a title she laughs off when I sit down with her in a coffee shop not far from the flat she keeps in Edinburgh. She’s home for a break before heading back to her (unnamed at the request of the palace) school and looking forward to a summer spent “with friends, probably. Somewhere quiet.” She tells me she’s gotten very used to the solitude there on Skye and that “it’s definitely been a tonic for the soul.”

  Yes, the girl we’re used to seeing in front rows in Milan, New York, and Paris (and clubs in Monaco, Marrakesh, and Zurich) is becoming something of a homebody. “I’ve even taken up knitting!” she laughs, rolling those extraordinary light brown—dare we say gilded?—eyes she inherited from her famous grandfather.

  One subject Flora is not keen to speak on, however, is the engagement of her eldest brother, Alexander, to Miss Eleanor Winters of Florida.

  “There’s just not much to say,” she tells me when pressed. “I’ve only met Eleanor a handful of times. I’m sure she’ll be a beautiful bride.”

  Kind words, but it makes one wonder if the rumours that Flora is less than pleased with her brother’s American (and commoner) bride-to-be are true.

  In any case, it’s a kinder, gentler Princess Flora who departs from the café, bodyguards in tow, a gentle summer drizzle raining down on her—what else?—Baird family tartan brolly.

  *Editor’s Note—Two weeks after this interview was conducted, Princess Flora abruptly withdrew from her boarding school on Skye at the insistence of school officials. Neither the school nor the palace have commented, save that this is a “private matter” and that gossip involving the princess, the headmaster’s son, and a fire at a local whiskey distillery is “scurrilous and baseless.”

  (Prattle, “Princess Flora: An Intimate Chat,” May Issue)

  Chapter 26

  The morning of the ball is the first truly gross day we’ve had, weather-wise, since I arrived in Scotland. The sky churns with clouds, rain sheets down the windows, and it seems like there’s a rumble of thunder about every three seconds.

  Honestly, it seems kind of portentous.

  We’re all sitting in the dining room, having breakfast, and while Ellie said this is the smaller, informal dining room, it’s still massive, and the table seats at least fifty people. It’s heavy oak, scarred in places, and I can imagine Highland chiefs sitting here, stabbing their knives into the table to make a point. Dead stags stare down at us with glass eyes, and the eggs on my plate seem kind of unappealing.

  Maybe because they’re next to a lump of what appears to be coal.

  I poke at it, trying not to wrinkle my nose.

  “Black pudding.”

  Glancing up, I see Miles has taken a seat across the table from me, and as he spreads a napkin in his lap, I think about him and Flora again. I haven’t asked him about any of that—that’s a thing real girlfriends get to do, not fake ones—but I have to admit, I’m still . . . okay, maybe curious is a strong word, but I’d genuinely like to know what went on there.

  Instead, I ask about the pudding.

  “Do I even want to know what’s in it?”

  “You really don’t,” he replies, and I sigh, pushing it all the way to the edge of my plate.

  “Aw, come on, Monters,” Gilly says, cutting into his own black pudding. “Don’t scare her off the stuff. It’s good for you.” He winks. “Puts hair on your chest.”

  “Exactly what I’ve always wanted,” I answer, and Gilly laughs. He’s sitting beside Sherbet. Spiffy and Dons haven’t appeared yet, and Alex and Ellie are sitting at the head of the table, heads close together as they talk and ignore the rest of us.

  “So,” Gilly says once he’s cleared his plate of black pudding. “Flora.”

  Across the table, Miles suddenly gets very interested in his toast. “Flora,” Sherbet confirms.

  “Should liven things up at least,” Gilly says. “She usually does.”

  Sherbet snorts. “The last time Flora livened up a gathering, a suit of armor ended up in the fountain.”

  Gilly heaves a sigh, his gaze far away. “That was one of my ancestors’. Thought Mum and Dad were going to cry.”

  Miles is still very industriously eating his breakfast, and I tear a bit of crust off my toast, looking at him.

  “So the ball,” I say, and he sighs, not looking up from his mushrooms. Honestly, mushrooms for breakfast—who does that?

  “The ball,” he confirms, and I look over at Gilly and Sherbet, who are still chatting to each other. I wonder if they know about me and Miles, that it’s not real, or if we’re even supposed to pretend for them.

  Playing it safe, I ask, “Are you going to wear a kilt?”

  Miles finally looks up then, putting his fork down. “I am, yeah.”

  I nod, chewing my bit of toast. “Can I make fun of you for that?”

  “Could I stop you?” he asks, but he doesn’t sound pissed off or irritated. He’s just . . . relaxed. Normal. Then he clears his throat, putting his fork down and linking his fingers together on the tablecloth.

  “I had the chance to speak to your parents for a little while when they came in last night,” he starts, and my shoulders go up a little bit, all the vague sort of camaraderie I’d been feeling disappearing.

  Mom and Dad had gotten in late yesterday, just in time for the ball, but I was already in my room when they’d arrived. They’d both come in to say hi, of course, but I hadn’t known they’d spent any time with Miles.

  “They’re . . . really lovely,” Miles goes on, and now he’s looking at his plate again, fidgeting in his chair. “And funny,” he adds. “And . . .”

  “Not people who would call the paparazzi on their daughter?” I finish for him, and finally he looks up.

  “Not at all,” Miles confirms, which sort of surprises me. I thought for sure he’d give me some long-winded defense, making sure to point out how tacky we all are. So what was a landed gentleman such as himself supposed to think?

  Instead, he just looks into my eyes and says, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Colossally wrong, really.”

  I blink at him, feeling
like I did that night in the club when I was suddenly confronted with Hot Miles. This is Contrite Miles, which is every bit as discombobulating, and it takes me a second before I shake my head and mutter, “It’s okay.”

  Sighing, Miles picks up his fork and resumes pushing eggs around his plate. “It’s not, really. It was one of Seb’s valets, a bloke who’s worked at the palace for years. They sacked him, obviously.

  “Anyway, truly, I’m sorry,” Miles says again. “I was an unmitigated ass about the entire thing, especially when the call was coming from inside the house, as it were.”

  “To be fair, you’re an unmitigated ass about a lot of things,” I say, and Miles smiles at that, acknowledging it with a tilt of his head, which makes me laugh.

  Aaaaand then I look up to see Ellie watching me, her brows drawn together, her big-sister sensors clearly on high alert, and I get up from the table, tucking my head so my hair swings over my face. And when she calls my name, quietly but urgently, I feign a sudden case of deafness.

  * * *

  • • •

  I spend the rest of the day mostly holed up in my room, trying not to think too much about the night to come. The queen’s coming in this afternoon, and I was definitely trying to stay out of her way after our last meeting. I’d done what she’d asked, sure, but it seemed smartest to keep my head down.

  The rain clears up by that afternoon, and when Glynnis comes in to help me get ready, I’m staring out the window, liking the way the light moves over the hills, how it is never the same from minute to minute, wishing I was good at painting or even photography so I could catch it somehow. Maybe that’s something I could try out next? The pictures on my phone aren’t doing it justice, so I finally decide to enjoy the view for what it is.

  “Wool-gathering?” Glynnis asks, smiling at me as she hangs the garment bag on the door of my wardrobe.

  “In the figurative or literal sense?” I ask, and when she frowns at me, I wave a hand.