Welcome to my World (WAYHAUGHT)

Chapter 21

"Joshua, really," Nicole replied, her expression remaining neutral, realising she should never have mentioned the name to Waverly.

"Meets with someone at his club. Says it's all hush hush."

"Where will we get the furniture for Cassillis?"

"Oh, yes. Well, I was thinking maybe we move in, renovate, I start the café in the coach house."

"You really want to run a café, don't you."

"So do. I want to make jam and our own wine."

"We're talking Scotland. Not entirely sure we'd get a crop of grapes that far north. Or strawberries for that matter."

"No, silly. We could have our own label. Chateau Cassillis. I don't know. And, weddings and events."

"What about here?"

"Here?"

"The magazine. Your father's business."

"I'd do that too. You would have to help me. I know, you could give guided tours. Haunted house evenings."

"Sounds ideal. We could hold an engagement party at Chalfield, or my parent's house."

"Both. Charlotte is dying to have dinner with us, now we're back together."

"Any plans for this evening?"

"Marmaduke and I are eloping. You?"

Nicole grinned. "He's mine. In a custody battle he'd be given to me."

"We can go halves," Waverly teased.

"Not Marmie. You can't do this to me. Okay, you can keep him."

Waverly's phone buzzed with a message from her office. "Sorry, meeting brought forward. Honestly, they really could start without me. I should be home seven latest."

"Which home?" Nicole asked, as Waverly kissed her goodbye.

"Mine. Father's. Yours. The moon. I'll let you know. Stop looking so cute. I'll call, I promise."

Nicole finished her lunch, even more curious as to who Waverly's father was in contact with. Maybe that's why he's been off with me, she wondered, although he's always been a little disapproving of our relationship, never saying anything directly. The first time she met Waverly's father was at Chalfield, at a family Christmas gathering, Nicole invited to stay the weekend, separate rooms, not that it stopped Waverly from sneaking into hers once she knew everyone had gone to bed. Not that it stopped Wynonna passing a less-than subtle comment the next day.

Waverly's mother was delightful, much like her own mother, making a fuss of Nicole, offering more trifle which she accepted even though she was on a strict diet and in training for races with her rowing team. It took Waverly stepping in to stop her mother offering Nicole a third bowl of dessert, explaining she would sink the boat if she had any more, much to Wynonna's amusement.

As an only child the noise and merriment of Waverly's home drew her even more to the family, Nicole's own house quieter, her father not one for spontaneous laughter. She often wondered what her mother saw in her father, her mother being the more sociable of the two, the one Nicole took after. She assumed it was the naval uniform until her mother let slip her father was a very good dancer and she needed a partner to attend a ball, friends of her mother's parents suggesting Nicole's father as someone who might accompany her.

Nicole was not one for dancing, preferring sport over ballet, as Waverly had witnessed at Cassillis, Nicole's awkward movements with Ros amusing to watch, her gangly legs getting in the way of each other. A waitress approached, Nicole asking for the bill, the young woman returning with a slip of paper and a brown envelope. "Someone at the door asked me to hand this to you," she said, the smile disappearing from her face as Nicole grabbed it rudely from her.