“I
know the Christmas pageant in the village means a lot to Aunt Ramona. I just don’t see why I should have to be in it,” Jake grumbled, only half in jest, as they wandered out of yet another shop. “Honestly—did you see the fake beard I have to wear?”

His
three companions laughed, for they had.

It was dreadful.

“But you have to be our St. Joseph, Jake. You’re the tallest,” said Isabelle.

Jake looked askance at her.

Of course, his golden-haired cousin was quite content with her (very fitting) pageant role as the angel who would go and call the shepherds.

“Ah, well.” H
e let out a longsuffering sigh, but deep down, he supposed he didn’t
really
mind being made a fool of for his elderly aunt’s sake at Christmas. It was just that, as a tough ex-street kid, he had a certain reputation to keep up. Especially now that it turned out he was an earl. “All I know is I’m going to feel completely stupid in that getup, standing out there in front. Everybody staring at me. Why can’t I just hide in the back with Archie as one of the Three Wise Men?”

“
You? A wise man? Sorry, Jake, you’re not that good an actor,” Dani O’Dell (their pageant Mary) teased. “I know!” The freckled redhead turned to him with a mischievous grin. “You could be the donkey!”

“Ha,
ha.
” Though he gave her a sardonic look, even Jake could not help laughing any more than he could hide the holiday twinkle in his eyes.

It was
all a little bewildering, in truth. He had never felt this ridiculously happy two days before Christmas.

For the first time ever, the holidays had put a kind of
spell on him beyond anything that even a good witch as powerful as Aunt Ramona could’ve conjured. There was magic in the air.

Christmas magic.

He could feel it in the afternoon’s light snowfall wafting over London. It dusted the cobbled streets around them like sugar and trimmed the bonnets and top hats of passing ladies and gents with its delicate, frozen lace.

This year
he thought it very beautiful, but last year at this time he would have hated it, mainly because he would’ve been sleeping out in the cold most nights. Last year, instead of smiling at his fellow man with general goodwill, he would have been eyeing up the passersby with the goal of picking their pockets, watching for packages and coin purses he could steal.

Everything was different now
, including Christmas.

The odd
, merry mood had taken hold of him a few days ago, stamping his face with a slightly dazed smile, as if he had eaten a whole roly-poly pudding by himself.

He
felt so strange.

I
n the past, all the Christmases he could remember had been ordeals of torture, more or less. It was a day that made most of the kids back at the orphanage wish they were dead.

Ah, but this year, fo
r the first time, Jake had something of a family. Not parents, they were dead, but two cousins and a few random adults who did not bother him too badly. (Very well, he quite adored them—not that he would ever admit to any such mushy sentiments out loud.)

H
e also had Dani O’Dell, his little Irish sidekick from the rookery. The carrot-head had taken charge of their Christmas shopping excursion, as she was wont to do in most matters.

“Indefatigable,” Archie remarked
, sauntering along, hands in pockets, as he watched the redhead march ahead of them, her mittened hands balled up at her sides.

Jake nodded vaguely, though he only understood about half the words that ever
came out of the boy genius’s mouth.

Dani
stopped at the corner and glanced around, choosing which row of shops they’d tackle next. “Hurry up, you lot!” She beckoned to them when there was a break in the steady flow of carriages and stagecoaches, hansom cabs and delivery wagons rumbling by in both directions.

A
ll the world was hurrying to finish up their yuletide preparations.

As for Jake and the others, t
heir mission this day was almost complete.

P
ossibly the best thing about his new life as the rightful Earl of Griffon was that he now had the means to make Christmas a little less miserable for the orphans and assorted street urchins he had left behind in his old life.

If
Father Christmas or St. Nick or Santa Claus or whatever the useless lout wanted to call himself could not be bothered to visit the orphans—which he never did—well then, Jake had decided, he would jolly well do it himself.

At all the
different toymakers and linen drapers and food stalls they had visited today on their quest to gather presents, they had ordered everything sent to Beacon House, awaiting Christmas Eve delivery.

The trick was how to make the gifts appear magically, so the orphans would think that Santa had done it. They were still working on that. Maybe one of Great-Great Aunt Ramona’s magic spells would do the trick…

Jake wished he could see their faces when they woke up on Christmas morning to find that Santa had finally remembered them, especially the little ones, like Petey, a six-year-old who used to follow him around everywhere and tried to be just like him.
Poor kid.

“Isabelle.
” When they joined Dani on the corner, she gave the older girl a probing stare. “How are you holding up? Do you need a break?”

“Hul
lo? What about us?” Jake asked, nodding at Archie.

The other boy nodded eagerly. “W
e could use a break, too. Christmas shopping is
exhausting
.”

“We
’re hungry,” Jake agreed.

Dani looked at him. “What a shock.”

Isabelle laughed. “I’m doing fine, thanks. Better than expected, actually.”

They all
knew that being in the crowded city was difficult on Isabelle as an empath, picking up on the emotions of everyone around her.

Sh
e shrugged, reading the doubt on their faces—or, more likely, sensing it in their hearts. “Maybe I’m getting stronger or finally learning how to shield myself. But I think somehow it’s just easier to be out and about this time of year.” She glanced around at the busy street. “Most people just seem to be in a…kinder mood.”

The four of them exchanged
wry, knowing smiles, then paused to appreciate the holiday spirit that warmed the frosty air.

Carolers
nearby sang “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.” All the wrought-iron lampposts wore garlands of evergreen boughs tied with red ribbons. Sleigh bells jangled on the harnesses of the carriage horses trotting past.

But
as to the question of whether to take a break from shopping, the mouth-watering smell of sweet cinnamon somethings baking somewhere nearby decided the matter for them.

“Maybe a snack
is
in order.” Isabelle inhaled the enticing odor with a dreamy smile. “Is that gingerbread?”

Jake flashed a grin. “Let’s go find out!”

They ran. Well, the boys did.

Isabelle was much
too well bred to go pounding down an elegant London street like a wild heathen, thanks to strict training from her governess, Miss Helena.

Dani managed (just barely) to re
strain herself to a sedate walk alongside the older girl, determined to be as ladylike as the older girl someday.

In any case
, the boys were the first to reach what turned out to be not one, but two pastry shops crammed into one tall, narrow brick building.

On the left, a few steps led upward
into a glittering, pastel jewel box of a bakery, whose sign read in flowing calligraphy:
Chez Marie Pâtisserie Parissiene
.

On the right, a few steps led downward into a snug, rustic, cozy space rather like a hunting lodge,
its doorway proudly hung with the Union Jack and announcing in plain block letters:
Bob’s British Bakery.

The boys had difficulty choosing which way to go first.

If they had waited for Isabelle, the empath soon could have told them that the two renowned pastry chefs—Marie and Bob—had once been partners, but now were sworn foes. They did everything in their power to antagonize each other.

Especially Bob, who had got his heart broken.

But, being boys, Jake and Archie were oblivious to romantic matters for the most part. They went whooping down the stairs, past the pinecone garland and the life-sized toy soldier just inside the door.

“Welcome, gents
,” the mustachioed owner drawled. Bob himself was leaning idly against the counter talking about the latest sporting news with a few of his male customers: the London prizefights and the winter foxhunts going on out in the countryside.

The boys
nodded back to him, then suddenly stopped in their tracks. “Ho! Look at that!”

They
immediately rushed over to gawk at the gingerbread display: a towering castle with candy banners flying from the turrets. All around it, little gingerbread knights and soldiers were arranged as though tending to their duties.

There were even
gingerbread horses with white-frosted manes, and gingerbread cannons loaded with peppermint cannonballs.

Meanwhile, the girls had been unable to resist the glowing chandeliers and silk-hung walls of the French-style pâtisserie upstairs.
As they entered, Isabelle told Dani that “pâtisserie” was simply the French word for a pastry shop; Dani thought it a fun word to say and kept repeating it.

As it turned out, t
he owner, Mademoiselle Marie, had no intention of being outdone by her ex-beau, Bob, during this most important shopping season. She
also
had made a dazzling gingerbread display to lure in customers. But—she being French—hers was of course the height of elegance and whimsy, and in every way superior. One only had to ask her to confirm that this was so.

Marie
had made a gingerbread Versailles with candy swans in the fountain and meringue shepherdesses tending marshmallow sheep. Wee cookie courtiers in service to the Sun King strolled through the candy formal gardens; gentlemanly ginger-men, fashionably frosted; noble cavaliers, prepared to fight for the honor of their crispy kingdom.

While the boys bought chocolate-
dipped pretzel lances below, the girls gazed in rapturous wonder at Marie’s marvel of baking artistry.

“Wh
at a lot of frou-frou,” Archie said, glancing around, brow furrowed, when the boys joined them upstairs a few minutes later.

“Yes…i
sn’t it wonderful?” Isabelle said breathlessly.

“Where have you
two been?” Dani asked.

The boys
told them about Bob’s British Bakery downstairs, and the girls hurried down to the lower level to explore it, too.

The boys followed, and while Jake went to show the girls the castle, Archie was drawn to an old photograph on the wall of a cavalry regiment. Apparently Bob used to be a soldier.

“Looks like they’re having a contest of some kind.” Jake nodded at the sign beside the gingerbread castle inviting customers to vote on which display they thought was better.

“
Aha, clever way of getting more shoppers in the door,” Archie said as he rejoined them.

“I don’t think that’s entirely the reason
these two have made a contest of it,” Isabelle said under her breath.

They all glanced curiously at her
, but she was too discreet to gossip about the ongoing lovers’ quarrel she sensed between the two bakers.

Jake shrugged
off her mysterious remark with a decisive nod. “We should vote, too.”

“Let’s!
” Dani said. “I need to look at both of them again.”

Bob glanced over
in amusement as the kids barreled back up the stairs into Marie’s dainty boutique to consider their choices.

Having already
determined he liked the castle better, for it reminded him of the one he had inherited from his father, Jake wandered off hungrily to look around Marie’s fanciful shop and choose another snack.

He had never tried French pastries before, but looking around, it
was impossible not to be impressed. He had to admit those French knew their food, despite the centuries-old love-hate relationship between England and France. Thankfully, there had not been bloodshed for many years between the two countries, but most good loyal Englishmen, like most French folk, could give you a list off the top of their heads why their country was better than the one across the channel. And yet, at the same time, they secretly admired certain traits about each other.

Clothes
, for example.

Every London lady simply had to
fill her wardrobe with fine French gowns, while men’s English tailoring ruled the streets of Paris.

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