‘I’m not sure your young man feels the same.’ Corporal Mason nodded over towards Edward. ‘D’you reckon I should apologise to him, too?’

Anna glanced back at Edward. ‘I’d leave him be if I were you,’ she said. ‘He’ll soon calm down.’

‘I hope so.’ Corporal Mason grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t fancy being on the end of that right hook of his. Finish me right off, I reckon!’

It wasn’t until she was serving the teas before she went off duty that Anna found herself face-to-face with Edward again.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly as she put his teacup down on the locker beside him.

Anna looked at him but said nothing.

‘It was stupid of me to get so jealous,’ Edward went on. ‘But I couldn’t help it. When I saw him pawing you like that …’

‘I told you, he didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘All the same, it’s not easy for me to sit here and watch some other man kissing the girl I love. I mean, how would you feel if you caught me kissing one of the other nurses?’

‘I don’t suppose I’d like it,’ Anna admitted slowly.

‘So I’d better not kiss Staff Nurse Hanley, then?’

Anna looked up into Edward’s face, and the next minute they both burst out laughing.

‘Definitely not!’ Anna said.

Edward reached for her hand again. ‘Do you forgive me?’ he said softly.

‘I suppose so. But don’t go trying to murder any more of the patients!’ Anna warned him.

‘I promise.’ He ran his thumb over the engagement ring on her left hand. ‘I can’t wait until you’re properly mine, Anna Beck. Then I’ll have no reason to be jealous again.’

Anna thought about her latest letter from Tom, lying on the bedside table at the nurses’ home.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, you won’t.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

At the end of November, Miss Parker, ward sister on Wilson, was due to take a week’s holiday. Matron had arranged for one of the other ward sisters, Miss Collins, to take over from her, but on the morning Miss Parker was due to leave, Miss Collins was admitted to the sick bay with suspected laryngitis.

‘She can barely speak, poor thing,’ Florence Parker said when she called Grace into her office that morning. She looked odd out of her stiff grey uniform, dressed in an old-fashioned fitted coat that nearly reached her ankles. An elaborate feathered hat sat on the desk between them, beside a pair of grey kid gloves. In the corner of the room was a leather suitcase. Miss Parker must have been on her way to catch her train when she was summoned back, Grace thought.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Sister,’ Grace said. ‘I suppose you will have to postpone your holiday until she recovers?’

‘Och, no, I’m still going home to Edinburgh.’ Florence Parker shook her head. She was a slightly built, energetic woman, whose keen blue eyes radiated a fierce intelligence. ‘Matron has promised to find another ward sister by this afternoon. Until then, she has agreed I am to put you in charge, Nurse Duffield.’