Page 73 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

Saint Nicholas’s Toy Shop had never been so crowded.

Despite the chilly winter weather beyond the icy windows, the shop itself roared with warmth and echoed with cheerful laughter.

Children ran everywhere, and parents chased them.

Toys were stuffed in the window displays, drawing even more of a crush through the doors.

One child in particular ran right up to Nico and held up his hands. “Up.” A serious demand with a serious expression.

Nico laughed and threw the tiniest member of the Grant family into the air. Ajax whooped, and as soon as Nico settled the little boy on his hip, he pushed away.

“Down now.” Another stern demand that Nico obeyed. “I am allowed two toys.” He held up two fingers.

“Have you made up your mind yet?”

Ajax shook his head. “What are the best ones?”

“Hmm.” Nico tapped his chin. “Let me introduce you to Miss Polly. She knows which toys are best. I think they’re all perfect.

” He guided Ajax to the counter at the back of the room and handed him off to Polly.

She’d been the oldest inhabitant of the Bristol Foundling Hospital, and now she was his employee, living with a seamstress here in London who sewed the doll clothes he carried in his shop.

He looked about for Temple or Sybil or their parents, but found, instead, his wife.

Jane stood near the front window, helping a little girl reach a doll on a high shelf.

A shaft of light drifted through the window, making Jane’s honeyed hair glow.

She didn’t need the sun for help with that, though.

She glowed all the time. Her smile, her eyes, her laughter—every bit of her was magical.

Even her warnings, her lectures, her disapproving stares.

He might even like those best. Challenges, they were, to make her happy.

Once the girl had the doll in hand, she rushed off to her parents, and Jane rested a hand on her rounded belly and looked across the crush gathered in their shop.

She discovered him watching her and grinned.

She parted the crowd swiftly yet patiently and soon made it to his side where she straightened his red cravat and pushed a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead back into line.

“You look so very pleased with yourself, husband,” she said. “What are you thinking?”

He leaned low and whispered in her ear, “I’m wondering what color your stockings are, my dear. And when I’ll have a chance to take them off you.”

“Nicholas.” She raised a stern brow as if she meant to lecture him. But then she bounced up on toe to whisper in his ear. “Red. And how about right now?”

A bolt of lust shot right to his gut. Hard as iron in half a breath. Her breath, hot against his cheek. “B-but Mrs. Tottle just arrived.”

“Mrs. Jameson now. And she’ll be fine for a couple hours without my company.

She and Mr. Jameson have brought the Bristol children with them to each pick out a gift.

That will keep them busy enough for now.

” They would also get special gifts on Christmas morning, laid right on their pillows while they slept the night before.

He wouldn’t do it this year. With the baby so close to coming, he did not risk leaving Jane alone for any length of time.

The eldest Kringle had agreed to act in his stead, and he’d leave London tomorrow with a secret sack of small silver magicked toys, one for every foundling currently in residence.

Warm residence, too. The Kringles had taken care of that until his shop became the most fashionable of its kind in London. Now he and Jane kept the hospital afloat, too.

He pushed a curl off Jane’s temple, felt that warm happiness he always felt when near her spread from his cheeks to parts lower in his body. “And the Grants are here.”

“And they will remain so until you greet them.”

“The Kringles—”

“Are enjoying a pint down the street with my brother. Their company will keep.”

“Shouldn’t we behave?”

She shook her head and gripped his lapel, pulled him toward the stairs that led to the small flat above the shop they kept for themselves. “I’d rather be naughty, Saint Nicholas.”

That was too much. Nico hooked his arm through his wife’s and almost dragged her up the stairs. Their little bedchamber was warm from the forge below, and they didn’t bother with their clothes. They kissed and touched and loved with Jane’s skirts thrown up and Nico’s trousers pulled down.

And outside the snow fell quietly on the windowpanes and on the sign over the front door. It gently swung in the wind, its gold letters bright against the winter white night: Saint Nicholas’s Toy Shop: Purveyor Sir Nicholas Bowen, First Toy Maker to the Queen.