Free By Winter's Light: A Cynster Novel (Cynster Special Book 2) by Stephanie Laurens

“That’s perfect.”
    Glancing at the others and seeing approval in all their faces, Claire resisted the urge to raise her eyes to the skies and instead settled the holly on the bed of fir boughs the girls had laid over the stone mantel.
    “We just need a few more sprigs to finish it off.” Annabelle went to the huge log-basket they’d filled with their holly sprigs. Juliet followed and the pair began to sort and select branchlets to augment the longer branch.
    “We’ll get the candles and the pinecones,” Louisa said. She and Therese headed to where those items had been stacked on one of the tables.
    With Claire, Daniel glanced around the hall at the four footmen co-opted to hang branches of fir over the four archways leading into the hall. Balancing on stepladders and stools, the men were lacing string between nails that had clearly been inserted long ago for just that purpose, creating a web to hold the branches in place. Louisa and the girls had been very clear in their instructions. The green branches were to be secured above and on both sides of the archways, and then later the girls planned to insert sprigs of holly in amongst the fir.
    Daniel assumed that, at some point, they also intended to hang their mistletoe under the arches. He had no idea what they’d done with the leafy stuff, but he suspected it currently resided at the bottom of the log-basket, concealed beneath the holly. Upon finishing his survey of the hall, he glanced at Claire. “I think that leaves us to arrange the fir on the last mantelpiece.”
    Eyes dancing, she arched her brows. “And I suspect we should get started before Louisa or Helena think of something else for us to do.”
    Daniel grinned and moved with her to the last unadorned fireplace, pausing along the way to fill his arms with a load of the feathery fir they’d left stacked in one corner of the room.
    Standing at one of the long tables, helping Louisa prepare and insert candles into a set of beaten silver candleholders, Therese glanced at Daniel and Claire, then, dropping her gaze to her busy hands, leaned closer to Louisa and whispered, “What about the mistletoe?”
    Louisa glanced up as Annabelle and Juliet, satisfied with their creation in holly, joined them. Once the other girls had started sorting the pinecones by size, Louisa quietly said, “I think we should hang the mistletoe later.” She flicked a glance over her shoulder at her grandmother and the two others in the armchairs on the dais. “I’ve always thought it’s something that works best as a surprise. We could slip down while everyone is getting ready for dinner. That’ll be the perfect time. There’s really no point in putting it up earlier—I’ve always heard that the magic of mistletoe starts at sundown on Christmas Eve.”
    Annabelle nodded. “And hereabouts at least, it’s said to remain effective only until sunrise on St. Stephen’s Day.” After a moment, she added, “There’ll be about half an hour when no one will be here—not any of the staff either.”
    “Can we leave the mistletoe where it is, do you think?” Therese eyed the log-basket.
    “As long as we leave a nice layer of holly on top, no one will notice,” Louisa said. “We can make it look like the basket’s a part of our decorations.”
    “I’ll mention that to the footmen,” Annabelle said.
    Juliet glanced at the pair of footmen working at the nearest archway. “We should take note of where they store those stepladders.”
    “They’ll be left somewhere nearby,” Annabelle murmured. “They’re normally kept in the storerooms near the stable, but no one will want to go out there to fetch them if something falls down, so they’ll leave them in some nook. I’ll find some reason to ask exactly where.”
    “Good—so we have the when and how decided, although we’ll need to be organized and quick when we come down.” Louisa met the other girls’ eyes and smiled. “So for now, we can simply enjoy ourselves