Her Royal Highness (Royals #2) - Rachel Hawkins Page 0,46

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