Downstairs, she could hear him greeting Charlie at the back door, ready to start their day in the kitchen. Usually, Anna would be up and dressed herself by now, gulping down a cup of tea and pulling on her shoes ready to hurry out for another day on the ward. But today was a rare day off, and she looked forward to spending it with her husband.

Her husband. Anna held up her left hand, admiring the faint glint of her wedding band in the dim dawn light. She was Mrs Edward Stanning. Sometimes she had to say the name out loud just to make herself believe it.

Marriage suited her, she decided. After three weeks, she still woke up every morning feeling absurdly happy and content. This was what her life was supposed to be like, she and Edward together at last. It was everything she had ever wanted.

And, Lord knows, she had waited long enough for it. All those years of worrying that Edward wouldn’t come home to her, of reading the casualty lists in the newspapers and fearing the worst. And then those dreadful, empty months after Papa and Mother had gone back to Germany, and Liesel was away and so taken up with Davy that Anna felt as if she didn’t have another soul in the world.

But now she had Edward home again, running the bakery, just as her father would have wanted. And if only Mother and Papa could come home again, her happiness would be utterly complete.

Anna pushed the thought away. She shouldn’t be greedy. At least she had Edward now, and that made her luckier than most. Only the day before, Nurse Pope had found out her fiancé, missing since Cambrai, had finally been declared killed in action. And now the Russians had laid down their arms, the newspapers reckoned the Germans would have even more forces to muster against their boys. Which meant the New Year would probably bring even more tragedy and lives lost.

She turned her face back into the pillow. She wouldn’t think about that, not today. It was going to be a special day. She was looking forward to being back in the kitchen with Edward, working alongside him the way they used to when Papa ran the bakery.

When she arrived there half an hour later, she found Edward and Charlie already hard at work.

‘There’s no need for you to help out, love,’ Edward said as she reached for her apron. ‘Charlie and I have already done most of it. Eh, Charlie?’

He nodded. ‘We have.’

‘You enjoy your day off. You deserve it, after all those hours you put in at the hospital,’ Edward said.

Anna looked at Charlie, watching her slyly from behind Edward’s shoulder. ‘But I want to help.’

‘Listen to her, Charlie. I wouldn’t say no if someone told me to go and put my feet up, would you?’ Edward grinned. ‘A glutton for punishment, that’s what you are.’