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.