Adelaide didn’t hear what he said in reply, focusing on Peter instead and bending to try to help him up. She couldn’t stand to see him lying on the floor like that. He yelped, the sort of a noise a dog made if it were kicked, and she knew that with every movement he must want to scream out in pain.

“Here, let me help.” Elise was beside her now, assisting Peter to his feet. Or foot in this case.

“I need to go,” he whimpered. “Please.”

Elise let out a loud sigh, clearly frustrated, but Adelaide could only cry. Her cheeks were flushed and her hands were starting to tremble, but she felt the most overwhelming desire to do something. She’d been helpless last night when it came to nursing wounds, but caring for Peter was something she could do—so long as Elise dealt with his wound, because she couldn’t so much as look at it.

“Let’s make up a bed for him on the sofa,” Elise said, as the stairs creaked and Harry followed her orders and went up to rest. “Then I’m going to see what food I can get, and you can stay and look after him.”

Addy moved slowly as Peter shuffled between them across the living room. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?” she whispered. “If he wants to surrender, if he truly thinks it’s the right thing to do—”

“You stay with him, I’m going to get the food,” Elise said, as if she hadn’t even heard her. “Are we clear?”

But when Addy glanced at Peter, she knew that he’d heard her, and she also knew that she was the only one truly listening to him.

Adelaide gritted her teeth as she grasped the wheelbarrow handles. She hadn’t banked on how impossible it would be to actually push a grown man on her own. Sweat formed on her brow and every footstep made her want to collapse, but she hoped that with every movement, once they got a head of steam up, it would get easier. Twenty painful steps later, though, she decided there was no truth to her theory.

If she’d been able to talk instead of grunting from exertion, she would have kept making conversation with Peter, but he was crying out in pain himself with every bump. And as they passed the barn where he’d almost been shot dead, she knew there was little she could say to him.

Where were the bodies?

She stopped, staring at the space where they’d once been. There was still blood splattered all over the side of the timber barn, reddish-brown stains that were starting to fade already as they dried, but there were no fallen soldiers.

“That’s the place, isn’t it?” Peter rasped.

“Yes.” There was nothing she could say to soften the blow, so she didn’t try.