Third In Line

Chapter Forty - Palace Playtime

Emma's high heels were too big for her, but Alex didn't seem to care. The same way she didn't care about the last five or six pairs that she had tried to walk in. Their goal was no longer about style, if it ever had been, but more about looking the part. They had been messing around with their Aunt's makeup for hours, aiming to look like fashionable young ladies of high society but ending up looking more like clowns than anything else. Now they required the clown stilts to go with it.

"Mum and Emma share shoes all the time, so what's the big deal if we try on a few?" Alex had reasoned.

As a result, their Aunt's walk in closet had become a warzone with shoes, clothes and hats littered everywhere. Emma would be furious if she found out, but Ellie and Alex had every intention of cleaning up after themselves... They just wanted to have their fun first.

"She must have a real pair of stilts in here somewhere, how else can she fit into all those big maxi dresses?" Ellie asked despairingly.

"I bet she stands on top of Uncle Harry's shoulders, either that or she's a witch."

"She did play a witch in that Harry Potter spinoff."

"Andrew Garfield was so good in that."

"So good!"

Their Aunt's closet was like a treasure trove, filled with all sorts of silks and satins, jewellery that was of course locked away, bajillions of shoes of all shapes and sizes, just... everything. It was clearly the closet of an Oscar winning actress turned Princess, who had travelled the world hundreds of times for both business and pleasure. The further they dug the more they discovered how much of a hoarder their Aunt really was. It looked like her whole life was in her closet, safely stored away.

"Look! Photo albums..." Ellie blew dust from the cover and wiped away the rest with her hand "From 2014."

Alex sat down beside her on the floor, various pieces from their Aunt's closet scattered around them. "That's when she first met Harry! Give it!"

Her sister snatched it from her hands and flipped it open, as if she thought that Ellie wouldn't do that herself.

The early stages of the album were family photos, but the family in them was not Ellie's. it was Emma and her parents, her brother and sister, all sitting together in the family holiday home in Washington State.

"That place was so cool. The houses they have in America are huge." Alex reflected wistfully.

"Says the girl who lives in a palace." Ellie laughed.

"You know what I mean."

"I know. Remember when Cooper pretended to be a bear and even Dad was scared?" Ellie held her hands above her sister like claws and roared like a bear, albeit a rather childish one.

"That was epic, I wish I remembered it better though."

"We'll probably go there again this year."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because you want to. And Mum and Dad never refuse sweet little Alexandra!"

"Shutup, that's nowhere near true!"

Alex was always modest when it came to how pushy she was. "You know it is."

The deeper into the photo album they went, the more gold they uncovered. Photos from behind the scenes of her films, cuddling with her cast mates or impromptu 'selfies' as she was getting her hair and makeup done. Party pics with her friends from her old TV show 'Ravens' including Sophia, Hilarie and all the big stars. Every photo in there was probably worth thousands to all the paparazzi that followed them constantly, banging their cameras against the windows trying to get a candid image of them. They seemed pretty reckless, enough to be scared of what they might do to get a 'selfie' with the one and only Emma Burton.