Page 26 of Her Royal Highness
The boy hanging out the window hugs her, while the dark-haired boys in the back cheer, “Flo!”
“Listen, mates,” Seb tells them, striding forward, his hands in his pockets. “You go on to the pub, grab that booth I like. I’ll drive this lot.”
He jerks his thumb at all of us, and I lean forward to ask Saks, “Are we going to get in trouble for this? Leaving school grounds?”
Perry answers me. “As long as we’re not skipping class, and we don’t go any farther than the village, it’s fine for anyone in Year 13. Part of the whole Gregorstoun experience. Learning to make responsible choices.”
I’m not sure cramming into the back seat of Seb’s tiny sports car counts as “responsible,” but that’s what I find myself doing, wedged in with Perry and Saks as Flora takes the passenger seat.
I have a vague memory of passing through the village on my way to the school, but to be honest, that day my mind was mostly full of the bee-buzz of panic and nerves, so I’d barely registered it. Driving down now, shoved in the back of Seb’s tiny car, I have a little more time to admire it.
The school sits uphill from the rest of Dungregor, the village itself nestled in a valley, which makes all the little shops and buildings lining the main road particularly charming and cozy. Like a little jewel box of a town, tucked away from the rest of the world.
It’s late afternoon, and the light is a soft golden color, sliding over the steep hills. There’s a little bit of snow just at the top of the highest peaks, and I remember that it won’t be too long before I’m in those hills, on the Challenge.
Seb sighs. “Christ, this place is grim,” he mutters. “I always forget.”
In the passenger seat, Flora twists to look at him. “Missing it already, Sebby?” she asks sweetly, and he snorts.
“The only thing I miss about Gregorstoun is that I wasn’t under Mummy’s nose when I was up here.”
That makes Flora smirk, and she turns to face the road again.“Well, if you hadn’t been such a prat, you wouldn’t have been summoned home.”
Sakshi is pressed up tight against my left, her knees practically to her ears because this car was not built for Glamazons, and she nudges me with her elbow, giving me a significant look.
But since I have no idea what that look means, its significance is totally lost on me, and Sakshi gives me that vaguely pitying smile I’ve seen every time I reinforce her idea of me as the Clueless Colonist.
Patting my knee, she mouths,We’ll talk later.
Really looking forward to that.
I try to go back to looking at the village, but now Perry is piping up from Sakshi’s other side. “I went to St. Edmund’s for a bit,” he offers. “But Mum thought they were too soft on me, so I got sent to Gregorstoun a few years back.”
Seb meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, one side of his mouth kicking up in a smile. He and Flora really don’t look that much alike, but that smile? That is for sure a Flora smile, one I’ve seen curl and twist on her face multiple times in the past few weeks.
“Gregorstoun must have been a whole new world for you, then, mate,” Seb drawls, and Perry’s cheeks flame red as he gives an awkward chuckle.
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” he says, Perry’s attempt at Laddish Camaraderie, I guess.
Flora turns to her brother to ask him something, and as she does, Perry leans across Sakshi’s acres of leg to hiss, “Bloody hell, I’mstraight, and that’s twice he made me blush. He must be a menace to girls.”
I roll my lips together to keep from laughing, more at Perry’s vaguely scandalized expression than the idea of Seb as a menace, but Sakshi just looks confused.
“Wait, you’re straight?” she asks, and Perry sits up, his eyes darting to the front seat.
Flora and Seb are still talking, surrounded in that bubble I’ve seen Flora create before where she can pretend we lesser mortals don’t exist.
“Yeah,” Perry says in a low voice. “Wait, you didn’t think I was? Saks, we’ve known each other since we werefive. How could you not know that?”
Sakshi gives an elegant shrug. “It’s hard to tell with you lot, to be honest.”
“My lot?” Perry repeats, aghast, and Sakshi waves her hand.
“You know. Pale weedy aristocrats.”
“Weedy?” Perry is about to literally choke on his outrage now, but the car is mercifully pulling into a spot just in front of the biggest of the white buildings we’ve passed, a place withTHE RAMSAY ARMSpainted in bold brown letters on one side.
Seb opens his door and steps out, then turns to fold the front seat forward, offering me his hand with a “Milady.”
