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His soot-covered fingers reached slowly, and she and Frederick both watched as he carried the sweet to his mouth, laughing when his eyebrows shot up.
She giggled. “Powerful, isn’t it?”
Frederick shook his head when she offered him the next.
“Oh, please, do enjoy a Christmas treat!”
“Thisis my Christmas treat,” he replied solemnly, gazing down at her. “I won’t take a single one knowing that they’re your favorite. They’re yours.”
Molly nearly argued back before she accepted that he meant his words. He moved quietly by her side, perhaps understanding that she felt too shy to be watched. Looping her arm through his, she slid a humbug into her mouth, her own eyes widening with delight at the intense peppermint flavor.
She sighed happily as she savored the sweet, and soon, a bell rang in the square.
“Carolers,” Frederick announced with delight.
For a time, the hawking grew quieter, the vendors making way for the large group of carolers who assembled in the middle of the square.
Her mouth alight with sweetness and peppermint, Molly closed her eyes and leaned her head on Frederick’s shoulder, awash in happiness as she listened to the beauty of “O Come all ye Faithful.”
By the time she opened her eyes, Thomas had raided the orange peel jar and clearly found it to his liking.
Thank you, she thought, looking up at the gray London sky. After sending up a prayer that her family in Stropshire were as safe and happy, she returned her attention to the carols.
After the carolers moved on and Thomas depleted half the candied peel, Frederick regaled them with stories of his visits to the Christmas market in Leipzig.
“TheLeipziger Weihnachtsmarktis open the entire month before Christmas, but I always went to market specially on Christmas Eve to hearStille Nachtperformed, as it isverbotento sing publicly before that day.”
Thomas, his mouth half-full of chewy orange peel, asked what food he ate.
Within a half-minute of his explanations aboutStollen,Gebrannte Mandeln, andKartoffelpuffer, his eyes had the faraway look of someone immersed in memories, and without seeming to notice, his voice quieted, and he slipped into German.
Molly shook her head at Thomas, discouraging him from interrupting, and though she couldn’t understand a word, she marveled at the deep timbre of Frederick’s voice and how it conveyed his love and enjoyment of Christmas in Leipzig.
Shaking his head as he came out of his reverie, he turned to her with a warm look. “Perhaps we can travel there for it one year.”
The idea of voyaging to foreign lands brought a measure of panic, just as once upon a time she’d been afraid of traveling to London.You’d be with Frederick, she reminded herself, and before long, she smiled and nodded.
“Did any of the delicacies I described appeal to you, Molly?”
Thomas snorted with laughter, drawing a quizzical glance from Frederick. Opening her mouth, Molly was grateful when she was saved from answering.
A drummer marched close by, playing a spritely beat, therat-a-tat-tatannouncing the imminent arrival of the puppet booth where Punch and Judy would soon appear. Not long after the drumming began, the Italian Punchman made his way to the side of the square where the booth was being set up.
“Shall we go closer?” Molly asked her companions. “I’d like to watch the show, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“If ye like,” Thomas agreed.
She stifled a smile. Confident that Thomas would deny wanting to see the play, she’d exaggerated her own interest to justify going closer.
A thick crowd accumulated around the booth, and as she suspected, Thomas was rapt during the puppet show. She noticed, however, that neither he nor Frederick laughed along with everyone else when red-nosed Punch punctuated a moment of marital strife with his wife Judy by striking her with his baton.
Afterwards, the man who’d beat the drum prior to the performance transformed into his role as bottler, circulating amongst the masses to collect coin. Frederick dropped a coin into his bottle before they ambled off back in the direction where they were due soon to meet Mrs. Taylor.
They made it a dozen paces before Thomas blocked Frederick, his hands—fisted around the half-eaten jars of sweets—on his hips. “Yer won't be `ittin' Miss Molly, will yer?” he demanded, his face set.
“Never, Thomas.”
Molly’s heart both melted and broke at the scene before her. She appreciated Thomas’s protectiveness on her behalf, but she lamented that the violence that so many found entertaining and fictional was so real to him.
