The boy lifted a shoulder. “They went out one night, just before an air raid, and never came back. Bombs, I suppose,” he replied in a soft, almost childish voice. He rubbed his jaw where a sprinkling of soft, dark hair had begun to show. “They told us—” His eyes bulged at his slip. “Me. They told me they’d be back soon and never returned.”

But Mrs. Weatherford never was one for part of a story. “Us?” she pressed. “Come now, Jimmy. You know we mean you no harm.”

He toed the floor with his scuffed shoe. “My sister, Sarah, and me.” He flicked a bashful glance at Grace. “She likes your stories too. I worry bringing her out, with her being so young. But I share what you read when I go home.”

“Come to our home for Christmas,” Mrs. Weatherford said. “Bring your sister. I have some clothes you can have.”

The latter part of her statement was said flippantly, but Grace knew it to be poignant. Those weren’t simply “some clothes”; they had been Colin’s.

The boy glanced about with obvious unease. “I’ll think on it.”

“Please do,” Mrs. Weatherford said, and gave the address. “We’ll have a lovely Christmas pudding and maybe some treacle tart.”

Jimmy swallowed, as though he could already taste the sweetness. He nodded, murmured his thanks and quickly dashed from the store.

“You must join us too, Mr. Evans,” Mrs. Weatherford called. “Better to be with us on Christmas than to be alone.”

Mr. Evans stuck his head out from a shelf he’d sequestered himself behind. “Are you being meddlesome, woman?”

“Are you being a curmudgeon?” She pursed her lips and studied him expectantly.

He scoffed in reply.

“Arrive at two then?” she asked in a light tone, her eyes sparkling in a way Grace loved to see.

Mr. Evans disappeared behind a shelf. “Fine. Two.”

Several days later, Grace was off from the bookshop and curled up on the sofa as she read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. She’d read several of his works, but had specifically saved that one for Christmas.

The townhouse parlor had been decorated, but not in the usual fashion. The ornaments on the tree had lost their sparkle since the lights were required to be off during blackouts, and rather than boughs of fresh evergreen, they had to make do with painted newspaper garland. The festive cards had also been affected by the paper ration and wilted on the mantel, smaller than before and too thin to be properly propped upright.

It wasn’t the kind of Christmas she’d had as a girl with her mother, but then no one had that kind of celebration anymore. Most people weren’t even in London for the holiday. Not with the war on.

Anyone with relatives in the country found excuses to go see them. Well, anyone but her.