The intermittent sleep and the dreams made her angrier and angrier. As soon as the sun rose, she marched down to the first floor, so livid that she forgot to knock when she reached Dan’s room.

“How many of your men do you think I’ve slept with?” Jess demanded as she shoved open the door and stormed inside, only to find him naked from the waist up, shaving over an old porcelain wash basin, a relic of the chateau’s once gracious past.

He paused, razor in hand to stare at her. “What?”

“Can’t give me the exact number?” she continued. “Let’s try a range. Stop me when I’m close. One to five? No? Five to ten? More? Forty to fifty? Jesus!” She advanced into the room. “None!” she continued. “I have slept with exactly none of your men. Zero, null, nada, zilch. And now I don’t know why I bothered with abstinence. I like sex. I could have been having sex. But no, I told myself not to behave the way everyone thinks I will. So I’ve spent twelve bloody frustrating months celibate and now I discover that, according to your men, I’ve slept with at least half of them!”

Dan’s mouth twitched, and then he convulsed into helpless laughter.

Jess stared at him with disbelief. And everything she’d feared suddenly seemed unbearably true. That he was in on it too. “What is so funny?”

He was laughing so hard now that he collapsed into a chair, unable to speak. Jess was unable to speak too, could only feel the God-awful punch of knowledge that Dan might not have been the friend she thought he was.

When he finally managed to take hold of himself, he said, “It’s just that you’re the only woman I know who would tell me how much she likes having sex and how frustrated she is and not even realize that it isn’t the kind of conversation I could ever have imagined having with any woman just two years ago.”

As he spoke, Jess’s words replayed in her mind. “Oh God!” she sighed. “I came in here to convince you of my unimpeachable reputation and I’ve just convinced you of the exact opposite, haven’t I?”

“You haven’t convinced me of anything because I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. His face became grave. “Tell me.”

She shook her head, determined to leave before she embarrassed herself any further. “It doesn’t matter. Temporary insanity.”

He stood up, took her gently by the shoulders and led her back to his chair. “I want to know.”

This time, when she spoke, all her anger was gone and she could hear that her voice sounded so tired and so resigned, and so—sad. “I overheard Sparrow and Jennings talking. Sparrow was asking Jennings why he didn’t have his J Club badge, which is apparently an honorary award bestowed on everyone in your battalion to have slept with me. And I just…” She paused to hide the cracking in her voice, which she knew wasn’t just because of Jennings and Sparrow; it was because of the tank and Catherine and every dead and damaged body she’d seen over the past year. “I thought they’d moved beyond the fact I was a woman. But I don’t think they’ll ever move past that. I’m a woman first and everything else comes a long way after.”