Meeting all the members of the family.

By evening, Antoniette had already gotten a hang of the duties and responsibilities of being a maid of the house so she followed Louisa and shared some of her duties since she was not yet assigned with any task yet. They both began to place the food on the table when dinner had arrived and all the members had gathered to eat. It was then she saw that man she had been thinking about all day for the second time seated at the head of the table.

He was dressed in a loose white shirt and black trousers looking bored and disinterested as the servants passed him to drop the dishes. He was about to raise his fork when an old lady by his side said to him. "Aidan, you must have heard of the news of Lady Victoria arriving to town in a few days. I am sure all of us, most especially you are happy to see the future lady of the Knight house is coming."

"Yes, Mother. My sister and I are most delighted about the news having spent almost six months convincing her to take a break from that charity work she has been doing all this while at the border hospital. I am sure she has been waiting for a special person to personally invite her back as she rejected all our letters of invitation before." Evelyn smiled and dug her knife into the tender meat and cut a piece of it before placing my it into her mouth.

"Such a lovely girl and a generous philanthropist." The old lady said. "Imagine all the years she spent as a single lady in hopes that she would be your lawful wedded wife, my son."

"So you say, Mother." Aidan's deep and rich voice boomed across the table as his eyes kept lingering across a particular person across the room. From the corner of his eyes, he could see the displeased face of his mother so he added after he sipped a cup of wine to cleanse the spicy taste on his tongue. "This month, I have had a lot of things to take care of yet you made me sent a silly letter to a woman who ran away immediately she heard that the Knight family was suffering a crisis."

"Aidan!" The old woman raised her voice in rebuke when she heard his words and looked around the room to spot the servants on standby whispering among themselves. "How can you say such a thing?! With such words, do you still want the servants to respect her as you wife when she comes to the mansion?"

"From the looks of it, I doubt Cousin here still considers her as his fiancee." A very handsome young man who sat next to the two young ladies interjected as he revealed a small rakish smile towards one of the female servants on standby before his eyes finally settled on Antoniette who he had never seen before.

"Finley, this matter has nothing to do with you so do not concern yourself with it." The old lady's voice seemed to have been even more frostier when she heard him speak and continued to talk like she hadn't heard him at all in the first place. "Aidan, you must be more receptive when Victoria returns or she might feel heartbroken and leave again. That will not be favourable to you and you know it."

Aidan caught the underlying threat in her tone but showed no reaction for it as the maid he had been looking at suddenly dropped a plate of fish in front of him. Her close proximity enabled him to inhale her flowery and intoxicating scent and for the first time, he couldn't help but look up to glance at her but he couldn't see her face like he wanted. He only managed to see the black jet hair flowing down her back as she arranged all the utensils by his side and was about to leave when her hand retreated and unintentionally brushed his own.

Antoniette almost jerked back when she felt an electric current slip through her fingers that had brushed that person's own. She immediately turned to apologise but the sounds of the ladies arguing with Finley drowned her intentions when she stared at his deep blue eyes. She had never been so fascinated and enchanted by someone's eyes before and this person before her was none other than her boss. All this warnings in her head seemed to go off but she paid no attention to them as she continued to engage him in a silent stare.

"Uhm, excuse me." Antoniette immediately snapped back into reality when she heard a female call her to attention and turned to see that it was Eloise who had been staring at them for some time. "Can you come help me collect the salt cellar? I can't seem to reach it."

"Yes, my lady." Antoniette was about to move away from his side to follow her orders when a hand suddenly caught her wrist and stopped her in the tracks. At this moment, the whole room seemed to be drowned in an awkward silence as they watched the scene and poor Antoniette wished to be in any other part of the house except here.

"You know I don't like it when you call my servants away from me, Eloise. Get the salt cellar yourself." Aidan chastised his younger sister before he tilted his head slightly to look at the woman by his side. "You are to serve me throughout the dinner so do not go anywhere."

Antoniette cast a brief glance to Louisa who stood at the corner along with the other maids wearing a worried look but still had the sense to nod slightly as a confirmation. With that, Antoniette took several steps behind him and curtsied in response as she felt several eyes looking at her for the first time and it made her so uneasy as she said timidly. "Yes, Master."