Chapter 4

Mum's are better than any CSI agent. They know what you did, how you did it and whom you did it with, and they can hear you trying to hide the evidence.

"Does one of you want to tell me what happened to all the donuts? Hmmm? I know there were half a dozen here this morning and now they're all gone." Paige asked Grace and her son Riley, her gaze spearing each one in turn sternly as she held open the empty box.

Despite being told earlier by Cassie that the donuts were off limits, it seemed the youngest members of the household thought differently.

Not surprisingly the six and three year olds just stared up at her innocently.

"There seems to be two mysterious people living in this house. Somebody and Nobody. Somebody did it and Nobody knows who. Is that how it is?" Paige asked.

"Yes." They both answered enthusiastically, wrongly thinking they were somehow off the hook. The fact that one of them had chocolate in the corner of her mouth and the other had a smear of sugar on his cheek told another story.

"Maybe it was Uncle Alex?" Grace proposed.

"Hmmm, I don't think so. I'm sure Uncle Alex is guilty of something, but eating all those donuts isn't one of them. Do you really want to get him into trouble if he's innocent?" The tilt of Paige's head and her quizzical brow had them shuffling uncomfortably on the spot.

"We did it." Grace confessed, Riley nodding his agreement as he stared pouting in disgrace at the floor.

"Yes, I know. I just wanted to hear you both say it. Now go and wash the evidence off your faces. You're confined in doors for the rest of the day as punishment." Not that that was terribly harsh, it was raining outside after all. But to two energetic children it was still worthy of a few disgruntled groans and miffed sighs as they trudged gloomily away.

Typical of children their age however, they didn't remain downcast for long. Within thirty minutes they had managed to spread out virtually every toy they owned through the length of the ground floor level of the Manor, with several trickling down the staircases.

"I was planning on making more donuts later." Megan told her when the children were gone.

Paige looked around the kitchen at the mountain of food Megan was preparing. "I don't think that's necessary. It looks like you've already made enough to feed an army."

"Aye," she laughed. "But this lot isn't fur us. Cassie told me about the party we're throwing fur Mrs P.'s centennial birthday in a couple of weeks. That's a butt load of food I have to prepare and not much time to do it in."

"How many people do you think will be coming?" Paige asked.

"Oh, I don't know. A hundred, a hundred and fifty, maybe more."

"Really? I didn't think Mrs P. knew that many people, she's a bit of a recluse here at the Manor most of the time."

"She's been living here for more than fifty years. She knows practically every family in Cadley. Then there's her family, plus all of our extended family."

Paige let the figures tally up in her brain for a second, her brow rising higher as the rounded off figure settled to become a sizeable number of people. "I think you'd better cater for about two hundred adults and about thirty to forty kids."

"Really? In that case I need someone to pick up more supplies."

"No problem. Ring the suppliers and one of us will pick up your order next week."

"Aye, okay. Just don't let Alex go. Last time he went he took the liqueur chocolate sauce that I needed for the poached pears. When it turned up in the pantry three days later there was only half a jar left."

"What, did he have a fetish for chocolate sauce?" Paige asked a second before her brain put together the answer. "Oh, I see. He had a fetish for eating chocolate sauce off Abby."

"Aye."

"Did you throw the rest of the jar out?"

"Not exactly. It got used up."

"Ew, you didn't use the rest of it in our food did you?" Paige cringed.

Megan laughed a little bashfully. "No. I was telling Sebastian what Alex did and he insisted I hand it over to him."

"And he threw it away?"

"He threw the jar away when it was empty."

"He ate it?" Paige screwed up her nose in disbelief.

"Aye. Off me." Megan answered cheekily.

"Um, Megan. How many bottles of that sauce did you buy?"

"Two."

"Is the second bottle still in the pantry?"

"Aye. Second shelf at the back. There's also a can of whipped cream in the fridge if you want it."

"Nah, just the chocolate. Narayan's not a big fan of cream," she answered as she pulled the jar from the cupboard and inspected the contents, artfully calculating how many body parts it would cover. "Can you make sure you put a few more jars of this on your next order?"

Megan laughed. "It's already on the top of the list."

x-x-x-x-x

The sound of rain falling through the trees was relaxing in its monotony. The light pitter-patter of water droplets onto leaves blended with the deeper sound of dripping water into the puddles beneath. Nadia enjoyed days like this. Normally she could stay out here for hours. But not today. Today she was eager to get to the Manor. With any luck Philippe was still there, although she wasn't holding her hopes on it. He probably had things to do, or he may have already left for the meeting in Oxford. It must be mid afternoon by now and she knew how much he hated to be late for anything, she thought.

They'd planned on arriving much earlier but it seemed Gwynn's 2IC, Gallan kept finding one reason or another to delay their departure.

Nadia stepped to the side of the portal next to Gwynn and waited semi-patiently as her sister, father and finally Gallan, stepped through. With a wave of Gwynn's hand, the portal snapped closed and disappeared as though it had never existed.

Stepping carefully along Savernake Forest's path, Nadia wondered at the beauty of the place. She'd always loved this woodland but she'd never really seen it properly until now, thanks to her new sight. This truly was an enchanted forest. With the Elder tree at its centre feeding the whole region with vitality, she doubted there was another place on Earth that looked or felt so alive.

That didn't mean that Havenswood Manor, which sat at the forest's border, felt any more like her home than her other home in the Ukraine did. Sure, she stayed at the Manor often enough to warrant having her own bedroom, but somehow she still felt like an outsider. The only time it really felt like her home was when Philippe was also staying there. They'd sit for hours talking, watching movies together and simply enjoying each others company.

It had only been just over a week since she'd last spoken to him or seen him, but she had to admit she missed the little guy. Ah, probably not so little any more, she reprimanded herself.

A pang of anxiety swept through her thoughts. What if now that he's finally outgrown his pint sized body, he's also outgrown their friendship. After all, hadn't they only become such good friends because he felt the need to help her beat her fatal attraction towards Morganna's grimoire. Since that was no longer an issue, what reason did he have to want to hang out with her, she realised. After her body had died, the book's evil grip on her was broken. She no longer felt even the slightest urge to go near that book ever again.

Not that she could even if she wanted to now anyway. Besides the ward on the storeroom which ensured the book could never leave that room, Teagan had sealed the lead lined box it resided in. Not even the strongest man on earth, a nuclear bomb or God himself could open that box without Teagan reversing the spell she cast on it.

A low branch flicked in her direction, spraying her with rain water and snapping her out of her thoughts. Wiping her face with her sleeve, she picked up her pace. As the shortest in the group, Nadia had to walk quickly to keep up with them. Gwynn ap Nudd topped the group at seven feet tall. Gallan was only a few inches shorter and her father, Gustav was a healthy six foot two. Even Elise was taller than Nadia's five foot six stature by a few inches.

Breaking through the forest onto the outskirts of the Manor's gardens and lawns, Nadia's anticipation at seeing Philippe again had her increasing her speed with her competitive younger sister. They practically ran through the vegetable and herb garden to get to the kitchen's back door first, the two of them bursting through simultaneously.

"Falbh dàirich fhèin. Tolla-thon!" Megan yelled in Gaelic at the ceiling.

"I gather you're not telling the Angels how much you love them." Elise queried warily, as she pushed the door open further and stepped into the kitchen.

"Oh, shit. Ye gave me a fright." Megan squeaked, a cloud of flour dusting the air as she jumped. Rushing around the kitchen bench, she gave Elise a half-hug, her flour coated hands dangling aimlessly in mid air.

Nadia looked about, every bench was covered with trays of pastries, pots and bowls, some dirty and some clean, but all showing evidence of a major bake-off.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." Elise told her. "Can we get a translation of whatever it was you were yelling at the Angels? I'm assuming it was the Angels you were yelling at and not us."

"Aye it was. And no, I'm not translating that." Megan said flatly, embarrassed that she'd been overheard.

"Would you like a word for word translation or just a general overview?" Nadia asked her sister, ignoring Megan's scowl and not bothering to hold back her chuckle.

"No, don't." Megan begged, her cheeks becoming more rosy beneath a smear of flour.

"The full translation, definitely." Elise answered.

"Okay, she said….."

"No!…Damn it." Megan cut herself off with another string of Gaelic, this time aimed at herself, her shoulders slumping in a huff. "Okay, ye might as well tell them what I said."

"I intended to anyway." Nadia smirked and turned her attention toward Elise. "She said, Go fuck yourself, arsehole."

"Wow, them's fight'n words, Megan. I didn't think you even knew such bad language. Can the Angels hear you when you talk to them like that?" Elise laughed.

Megan snorted out an uncomplimentary huff. "I wish. And FYI, I was being polite when I said that, ye know."

"I'm sure you were. Listening to that lot jabbering on 24/7, would be enough to drive anyone to distraction." Nadia told her sympathetically, leaning in to give Megan a hug.

"Aye. Ye're such a good, understanding friend." Megan told her, hugging her tight and deliberately leaving a pair of white hand prints on her sweater as payback for sharing her meltdown moment with everyone.

Gustav cleared his throat to cover his snicker. He considered telling his daughter about the hand prints on her back, but decided against it. After all, Nadia had enjoyed embarrassing her friend. Megan was entitled to a little harmless payback.

"Where's Alaric?" Gwynn asked.

"He, Sebastian, Alex and Narayan have already left fur Oxford, but Raif's in Alaric's study waiting for ye."

"Thanks." Without a second glance in their direction, the three men filed out of the kitchen and disappeared down the long corridor.

"What about Philippe?" Nadia asked hopefully.

"Pan,…ah, sorry…Philippe. I can't get over how hard it is to get used to calling him by his real name," Megan said, "Philippe left a few hours ago. Narayan was giving him a driving lesson."

"Oh. Okay. No doubt I will catch up with him soon." Nadia tried to sound unfazed by the news, deliberately putting a nonchalant inflection in her tone, but deep down her disappointment left her feeling a little flat.

"I'm sure you will. He's at the meeting this afternoon so there's a good chance he'll hang around at the club for awhile afterwards. You'll probably catch up with him there." Elise told her in an equally indifferent tone as she shot Megan a covert conspiratorial wink.

"If Raif's here, where's Kaitlyn and Finn. Did they come too?" Nadia asked.

"I think they're down in the lounge room." Megan told her.

In a house the size of Havenswood Manor, the lounge room wasn't exactly pokey. It had originally been built as a ballroom back in the days when no respectable castle sized home would be without one. Of course it was never used. In recent years however, it had become a giant lounge room/games room, and the most popular room in the house.

"I'll go down and say hi." Nadia said.

"I've got something to do upstairs, I'll catch up with you a bit later." Elise told them.

Parting ways at the far end of the hallway, Elise quickly climbed the stairs and Nadia took a sharp turn to follow yet another corridor towards the laughter and squeals of children playing.

Nadia walked along the hallway with confidence. She could have found her way through the house blindfolded, she knew it so well.

On opening the door the room suddenly went silent. At least it did until the three youngest members of the family realised who it was coming to see them and their high pitched squeals resumed at a deafening volume as they all ran toward her.

Matching their excitement, Nadia took a couple of steps towards them.

"Watch out for the…." Kaitlyn yelled.

The warning came too late.

Nadia tripped on a plastic toy. The high pitched squeak of the toy blended with Nadia's own high pitched shriek as she toppled forward, landing heavily on the polished boards, face first and let out a string of self deprecating curses.

"Are you okay?" Kaitlyn asked, rushing to her side.

Nadia reached for Kaitlyn's outstretched hand and pulled herself up. "Yeah." Nadia grumbled, rubbing her sore shoulder and knees and chin. "I think I need to come with a hazard label or something."

"Nahh, you'll be fine. People trip over me all the time when I'm invisible. You get over it," she smiled, trying to lift Nadia's self loathing mood. "You have to start thinking more positive."

"I am. I'm positive I hit the floor hard enough to squash a small child."

"Not even close. You didn't even scare the dog away." Kaitlyn told her sister, pointing to Tilly who sat only a few feet away staring at her curiously along with Grace, Riley and Finn, who all thought it was the greatest entertainment they'd had all day.

"What did I stand on?" She asked.

"It was a Minion doll, from the movie Despicable Me." Grace told her.

"Is there anything else on the floor I'm likely to step on that I can't see?" i.e. anything else plastic.

Kaitlyn and all the kids looked about at the floor strewn with toys.

"What can you see, point them out." Kaitlyn prompted.

Nadia pointed to half a dozen toys nearby.

"Ah, okay. Don't move until we clear the minefield around you."

Just as Nadia was winding up with another negative comment about herself, Raif stuck his head through the doorway.

"We're leaving now. I'll see you later at the club okay?" he told his wife, giving her a peck on the lips and quickly disappearing again.

"Bye." Kaitlyn said to the empty air in his wake.

"The guys are leaving already? What's the time?" Nadia asked.

"Yes, thank god. It's four o'clock, and you know what that means don't you?"

"That the guys are running late for their meeting?"

Kaitlyn rolled her eyes at her sister. "It means that we're running late. We only have three hours to get ready before we have to leave too."

"Three hours? That's heaps of time. We only need to throw on a pair of jeans and a top, slap on some makeup and shoes. That won't take three hours, it'll take ten minutes."

Kaitlyn rolled her eyes again but her grin broadened with a glint in her eye which had Nadia's pulse ticking over nervously. Grabbing Nadia by the hand she dragged her out of the room and up the stairs, kicking more 'invisible' plastic toys aside as they went.

"You kids be good. I'm coming back to check on you in a few minutes. Got it?" she yelled as they reached the staircase.

"Got it!" came the faint reply in triplicate and a gruff bark from Tilly.

"Why are we in Paige's room?" Nadia asked just as the door slammed shut behind them. Nadia's nervousness doubled when she saw that they weren't the only ones in the room. Paige was there,…so was Elise, and Cassie,…and Abby. "What are you all up to, is this some kind of intervention?"

The way they all laughed at her question wasn't reassuring at all.

"No. But tonight's the night your getting lucky. Strip."

"What? Lucky how?"

"Strip. We're giving you a makeover." Paige's tone left no room for argument. "We might be off the market but you're definitely not. We have to live vicariously through you. At least until you meet your Mr Right."

Paige was quite pleased with her plan. If she could turn match making into a career, she'd excel at it, she thought. As much as she wanted Nadia to feel she was 'On the Market', she was pretty certain that Philippe might not agree. Sadly, the two of them were blind when it came to matters of the heart. They need a little push.

Grudgingly, Nadia did as she was told, stripping down to her underwear.

"You're not wearing those granny pants. And that bra…Oh!"

"Why not? They're comfortable."

"The colours don't even go together."

"Sorry. I seem to be a bit colour blind these days. They look fine to me."

"I hate to break it to you sis, but you were always colour blind when he came to fashion. Nope, you're not wearing those. Take them off."

Nadia griped and grumbled but did as she was told and stripped down completely naked. Paige was going to get her way eventually anyway, she figured. It was better just to go along with her.

"Omigod!"

"What now?" Nadia huffed.

"That bush. Seriously? When was the last time you mowed your lawn?"

"Not that long ago," she answered defensively, doing her best to cover herself with her hands.

"Well you can't wear any skimpy undies with a forest hanging out the sides. We're going to have to get drastic."

"What are you going to do?" Nadia asked nervously.

"We're going to trim that hedge and wax the sideburns." She looked down lower. "Hmmm, and your legs."

"Anything else?" Nadia demanded haughtily as she shoved her fists on her hips, fully aware she was exposing herself again, but was too irritated by her sisters' well meaning interference to care.

"Hey, the way that honey pot looks right now, you're hardly going to be attracting any bees, are you?"

"I have no intention of letting any 'bees' near my honey pot, thank you very much. I'm saving it for Mr Right."

"And what happens if Mr Right is at the club tonight. Hmmm? Did you think of that?"

"I'm not having sex with a guy on the first date." Nadia countered.

"Maybe not. But what if he wants to go to second base? Or maybe he wants to do a little dirty dancing on the dance floor, what then? Are you going to stop him from running his hands up your bare legs, cupping your butt cheeks in his large hands as he pulls you against his hard body and grinds his huge, hard cock into your belly while your dancing. Even if he doesn't see you naked, you're still going to feel unsexy if you haven't manicured all your bits. Trust me." Abby told her.

Nadia huffed out a frustrated breath in surrender. "Fine. Do your worst."

"You didn't really think you had a choice did you?" Elise asked rhetorically.

"I guess not. I can't believe you're all ganging up on me though," she grumbled.

"It's for your own good." Cassie told her sympathetically.

"What are you going to do to me?"

"You'll see. Go jump in the shower and get squeaky clean and we'll have everything ready when you come out." Paige said excitedly.

Kaitlyn waited until she heard the shower turn on and the shower door close before voicing her thoughts. "Do you think she has any clue what we're doing all this for?"

"I've been keeping tabs on her thoughts and I can guarantee she has none. She's totally clueless, which is why we decided to do this in the first place, remember." Abby told them.

"What if it doesn't work? You said it yourself Abby, she's clueless." Cassie said.

"It will work. She just needs a little push in the right direction. We all know how Pan…ah, Philippe feels about Nadia. And, she's always talking about him, thinking about him, hanging out with him. I think he's only stayed in the friend zone because of his pint sized stature. Now that he's all grown up, I don't think it'll take much for her to realise that she's actually in love with him too." Paige told them.

"Philippe's never been interested in a woman sexually before. What makes you think that's changed just because he's in an adult body now?" Elise asked.

"Ohh, he's definitely getting the sexual vibe now." Cassie told them, remembering his arrival in the kitchen earlier that morning with his morning glory on full display through his track pants.

"But it doesn't mean that just because he's got a hot body now that Nadia will see him as her potential Mate." Elise proposed.

"Don't worry. I've got that covered. I spoke to Teagan earlier. She's arranged for a couple of the regular girls at the club to be extra attentive with Philippe tonight. I know Nadia, she won't like sharing Philippe's attention. By the end of the night she's going to be so jealous she'll not want to let him out of her sight." Paige told them.

"And how do you guarantee that Philippe will notice Nadia if he's surrounded by fawning women?" Cassie asked.

"By the time we've finished with her, she'll be the only woman in the room who Philippe notices tonight." She chuckled.

"Because she'll have every guy in the club drooling over her?" Cassie asked.

"Exactly." Paige grinned.

Nadia finished her shower and the girls got to work. Paige, with her previous profession as a Hairdresser, did her hair and makeup. Kaitlyn, who was a nurse, was allocated the job of waxing. Elise was on mani/pedi duty, while Abby and Cassie put together an outfit that was sure to make every man in the club trip over his tongue and revert to caveman mentality.

Keeping to their three hour time limit, they transformed Nadia into a sex goddess in heels, with just enough time spare to get themselves ready.

Nadia looked in the mirror, she barely recognised herself. The crimson coloured, figure hugging, low backed dress from Abby's wardrobe barely covered her backside, making her legs look far longer than usual and her breasts look even bigger. And the matching patent leather pumps on her feet gave her calves and thighs a very shapely, muscular appearance. Her hair was pulled back to give her neck a long slender appeal, and her makeup and nails had been applied to maximise the benefits of the nightclub's lighting.

"Wow!" was all Nadia could find the words to say.

"You still think you're not going to find Mr Right tonight?" Kaitlyn asked her with a sly wink.