“Have you been given your list?” Samantha asked after he had taken his seat.
“List? What list?”
“Ladies St. Alban, Wharton and Norcott have prepared a list of everything that must be accomplished today and each of us have received our own assignments.”
“Should I remind them that you are a guest in this house?”
Samantha laughed. “I do not mind and it is far better than sitting around while everyone is busy.”
He supposed she was correct.
“Did you notice the sunrise this morning?”
“I did,” he answered slowly.
“Were the oranges not spectacular?”
“They were,” he agreed then smiled. “Are you always this happy in the morning?”
“She is happy all the time, rarely does her light blue darken,” Antonia announced from her seat on the other side of Samantha.
“Light blue?” Cassian questioned. “As in her aura?”
“Yes, it means happiness and peaceful.”
Such a declaration was not at all surprising.
“However, I shall not tell you her second one because those are private. The auras that hold the secrets.” She grinned. “You would be surprised at how many people project a mood or personality that is not at all the truth because their aura speaks differently.”
They had discussed auras before and it was Antonia reading Chedworth’s that made her aware that he was distressed which led to his being in danger.
“What does my aura reveal?” he asked out of curiosity.
“Are you certain that you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain you want me to tell you where so many people could hear?”
On second thought, he did not. “No.”
Antonia just grinned at him.
“Between music and auras, a person cannot have any secrets between you two.”
“I cannot hear your music so only Antonia knows your secrets,” Samantha laughed.
Silence fell around them and Cassian glanced about, wondering why they were suddenly interested in what they were discussing.
“It happens,” Samantha’s mother announced from her seat further away. “I have encountered people that I cannot hear. It simply happens.”
With that explanation, everyone seemed to relax and he was rather thankful that Samantha could not or she may begin to suspect that he was falling in love with her.
No feast could be eaten to celebrate Christmas tomorrow because the kitchens were busy preparing the foodstuffs for the celebration of Haloa the following day, and the wedding feast to take place on the twenty-seventh.
The family was also strongly encouraged to be elsewhere so that the servants could clean, polish silver, launder linens and arrange flowers and as the housekeeper had stated frankly to the Countess of Wharton, “We do not need you all underfoot.”
She had shaken her head and walked away muttering, “It is easier when there are few. When they all arrive, there is not a place a person can go without tripping over a Drakos, Norcott, Cardwell or guest.”
