Anna paused for a moment, her hands stilling as she packed his belongings into a box. ‘I suppose they must have their reasons,’ she said slowly.

Edward sat up straighter. ‘What?’ he demanded. ‘You do know something, don’t you? Come on, tell me!’

Anna hesitated. ‘It’s just something I saw in your notes,’ she said.

Edward stiffened. ‘What? What did you see?’

Anna raised her gaze to meet his. ‘Dr Carlyle says you’ve been having nightmares.’

His face lost all expression for a moment, but a tiny muscle flickered in his jaw.

‘I don’t know what she’s talking about,’ Edward dismissed. ‘Everyone in this place has them. It’s the ones who don’t wake up screaming that you have to watch out for!’

‘Yes, but it’s not just screaming, is it? It says in your notes that you sometimes sleep walk, that you’ve been violent—’

‘What rot!’ Edward snapped. ‘It was one night, if you must know. And I wasn’t violent, as she calls it. An orderly tried to get hold of me and I lashed out in my sleep. As soon as I woke up and realised I’d clipped him, I was mortified. That hardly makes me a madman, does it?’

‘Well, no, but …’

‘Oh, so you do think I am mad, do you?’ Edward’s eyes flashed angrily.

‘Of course not,’ Anna said.

He went very still, his whole body tense. Then the fight seemed to go out of him and his shoulders slumped.

‘I’m sorry. Ignore me, I’m just feeling wretched. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. I’m just so disappointed, that’s all.’

Anna watched him. He started to gnaw on his thumbnail, a sure sign he was sinking into a black mood. ‘Try to look on the bright side,’ she urged. ‘It might not be for very long.’

‘I hope not! The last thing I want is to be locked up with all the lunatics.’ He looked at her, and Anna saw the fear and shame in his eyes. ‘I’m not like them, really I’m not,’ he said quietly.

He looked so scared, it was all Anna could do not to hug him. Shell shock provoked strong feelings among the men on Monaghan ward. Some rejected the very idea, claiming it was nothing more than cowardice. Others, who had witnessed it at close hand, knew better.

And some, like Edward, were terrified at the thought of being rendered weak and unmanly by their own minds.

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Do you?’ He smiled warily. ‘Do you really?’

‘Of course.’

‘And you still want to marry me?’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘I don’t know … I can understand why you wouldn’t want to, if – if what they say is true.’ His gaze shifted towards the double doors and Anna knew he was worried about what awaited him on Wilson ward. Those empty, shambling shells of men, screaming in the night and jumping at shadows.

She knew that wasn’t her Edward, no matter how bad his nightmares were. Yes, he might be traumatised by four years of war, but it was nothing that love and patience couldn’t cure.