Third In Line

Chapter Twenty Six - Supermarket Photocall

"I'm so sorry" Josie mumbled in an almost inaudibly soft voice, her eyes dancing between Ellie and her mother. Ellie's nerves jumped up a gear once she realised her nifty magazine shield was no longer useful, but she was too unsettled to see that, of the two of them, Josie was now the embarrassed girl that didn't know what to do with herself.

"Should I curtsey?" Josie asked, but neither Kate or Ellie could surely say who she was asking. "I should curtsey" the girl quickly answered her own question and proceeded to slowly dip into an awkward and frantic curtsey. It was all too obvious to Ellie, who had been curtseying for as long as she could remember, that Josie was immensely inexperienced in such a formal greeting.

Josie's feet were all over the place, and her knees were visibly shaking. In fact all that was stopping her from falling on her bum was Ellie's own hand. Ellie noticed her losing her balance and instinctively reached for Josie's hand and pulled her back onto steady footing. It wasn't something she'd imagined doing just moments before when she was crippled with fear, but now, perhaps with her mother beside her, she was a little more confident. More able to show her protective instincts that she had been nurturing ever since Alex was born.

Josie's skin was boiling, her hands clammy and moist, almost enough for Ellie to lose her grip if it wasn't for years of training in maintaining grace and balance. The girl made sure she was steady, looking eager to put her attempted curtsey behind her, but definitely appearing a lot less confident than before. Josie seemed to be sinking into a shell, much different from the bubbly and excited girl that had confidently approached her.

Ellie was feeling different too, like she wasn't hiding herself anymore. Just being herself and not protecting her identity, even if she was still a little shy. There was something about a girl who was shy and scared that made Ellie a bit more encouraged to talk, to poke and prod until eventually that person started to open up. Whether it was a normal trait that everyone shared, or if it was just something that was specific to herself, she knew that Josie shared the same trait too. Otherwise she wouldn't have joined her at the magazine stand in the first place.

I guess she wasn't expecting me to be one of the royals she reads about. Of course she wasn't. Silly.

"You okay?" Ellie asked her, unsure of what else to talk about apart from Josie's sweaty hands.

"Yes... Your Highness... Ma'am" Josie replied, letting out a deep breath and smiling nervously. "I'm just kind of... startled"

"You don't need to be, dear" her mother piped in all smiley and warm. "We're just shopping like everyone else"

"I really didn't expect to see people like you shopping here... I mean, you're royalty!" Josie blurted out, exasperated as she pointed at the rows of magazines alongside her and Ellie.

Ellie looked once again at the rows of magazines alongside, pretty sure that she caught her mother turning her head to look as well. Each magazine had a cover photo that was glitzy and glamorous, with bright lights and striking colours that made her family look more like gods than real people. The photos were nothing like the candid snaps that her parents had of them on their IPhones, but at least in those ones they actually looked human.

Her mother smiled but shook her head. "We're really not as glamorous as those pictures suggest. Ellie here always..."

"Mum!" Ellie prodded Kate's leg harshly, interrupting her mother before she said too much. One look at her mother's mischievous smirk and she knew it would have been something embarrassing.

"I wasn't going to say anything!" her mother replied, ruffling her hair and then resting her hand on Ellie's shoulder.

Josie seemed to be calming down as she watched the banter between Ellie and her mother, but her discrete snort of laughter quickly put the two royals' focus back on herself. "You two really aren't what I thought you'd be like" Josie uttered nervously.