Chapter 25
“No one is going to expect me to shoot things, right?” I ask for what is probably the third time.
El, sitting across from me in the back of the car, sighs and crosses her legs at the ankle. Ever since the car pulled away from Holyrood Palace, carrying us north up into the Highlands, Ellie has been giving me The Sigh, and also The Side-Eye, and just a hint of The Chin Tilt.
All of which is ridiculous given that I am pretending to date a boy for her, so you’d think she could be a little less irritated with me. Especially since I was right—those pictures of Miles carrying me off on his horse like we were in a Regency romance had gone over really, really well. I’d seen at least five different angles of that shot, and even I had to admit they were swoony. The fakest thing ever to fake, but still.
“No shooting, Daisy,” Alex assures me now, giving El’s knee a pat. “Season doesn’t start until August, and not even I can break that rule.”
“What would happen if you did?” I ask, leaning forward a little. “Could they arrest you? Is there some kind of royal immunity? If—”
“Daisy!” El snaps suddenly, turning her head to glare at me. “It’s a four-hour drive, and if you ask inane questions the entire way, I’m going to lose my mind.”
Lifting my hands, I settle back into my seat. “Sorry,” I mutter, and Alex frowns slightly, looking back and forth between me and my sister. He must have had these kinds of little blowups with Seb and Flora growing up, and I almost ask him that before I remember that I’m not supposed to ask questions. All El wanted was for me to show an interest in all of this, and now that I am, she wants me to be quiet.
Typical.
Also, to be honest, I’d thought that engaging in a little friendly chatter would help dispel some of the tension that had been brewing. I’d thought going along with “the palace’s” plan would make Ellie happy, but clearly it wasn’t enough, and I have to fight the urge to start an argument with her over it. It’s just . . . I gave up the Winchester Mystery House for her, I gave up Key Con, I gave up my personal dignity after the Horse Incident, and she’s still acting like it’s all my fault somehow.
But fighting in front of Alex would be bad, so I decide to take the high road.
My shoulder bag is sitting on the seat next to me, and I pull it closer, still enjoying how soft the leather is underneath my fingers. This had been one of Glynnis’s things, that I needed to stop carrying my ratty backpack and have something nicer, just in case there were photographers. I’d wanted to object on principle, but then she gave me this lovely bag, all supple and expensive, lined with a gorgeous green-and-purple tartan, a thistle emblem embroidered on the front, and oh man, I’d been a goner.
I take The Portrait of a Lady out of my bag, and Alex smiles, nodding at the paperback in my hands. “Henry James? I approve.”
It’s for summer reading, and I would much prefer to be reading something with dragons, but I give Alex a smile in return, wiggling the book in his general direction.
“You know we Winters fam, always seeking to better ourselves.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ellie is sitting up in her seat now, hair falling over her shoulders, which are so tense you could probably crack rocks on them.
“I was making a joke,” I fire back at El, and I can sense Alex steeling himself for sisterly drama. But he’s a born diplomat, which I guess is a useful skill for him, because he just clears his throat and says, “Has Eleanor told you anything about where we’re going, Daisy?”
“North,” I reply, waving a hand. “Hinterlands. Mountains. Kilts. Special cows.”
El is still looking out the window, but one corner of her mouth lifts, and Alex chuckles. “Those are the highlights, yes. But the actual house we’re going to is rather special to our family, mostly because it’s ours.”
I lower my book, raising my eyebrows at him. “Unlike Holyroodhouse, right?”
Alex nods. “Exactly. Things like Holyrood and Edinburgh Castle belong to the people of Scotland. We live in them, of course, but we’re only stewards. Baird House is private property. My great-grandfather Alexander bought it back in the thirties so that he’d have a retreat for his family—somewhere they could go and feel like regular people.”
“The Petit Trianon,” I blurt out, and now it’s Alex’s turn to raise his eyebrows.
Ellie glances over at me, and I shrug. “I went through a Marie Antoinette phase,” I explain. “Not the ‘let them eat cake’ part—which she didn’t even say, by the way—but just . . . you know, the history of it all. The Petit Trianon was this little house Marie used near Versailles, and she could pretend to be a regular person there. Milk goats, feed sheep, do whatever it was she thought peasants did.”
Alex chokes on a laugh, turning it into the fakest cough I have ever heard. “Well, yes, but I promise you, we don’t go up there to pretend to be peasants.”
“Do you wear kilts?” I counter, and Alex nods.
“Wouldn’t be allowed into the Highlands if we didn’t.”
“Then I guess that’s good enough,” I say with a shrug, and Alex smiles at me. It’s a real smile, the kind I don’t get from him or El that often, and it’s nice. Another reminder that without all this weird royalty stuff, Alex is a good guy who makes my sister happy and seems to like me.
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 stat, 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.