As Cate started to cry, Elise stood and gestured for Adelaide to comfort her. She needed to think, and as she paced the small room, all she could think about was how much the past twenty-four hours had changed everything for her. Up until then, all she’d had to focus on was keeping her and her sister fed and safe, keeping them out of harm’s way. And now she was faced with hiding two British soldiers in her home, along with a British nurse, with no hope of ever getting them home if Cate was right about the British army fleeing France. In the end, harm seemed to have found them anyway.

Which gave her two options: she could either open her heart and home and try to find this missing soldier with Cate, regardless of the risks, or she could refuse and prioritize her own little family. Which would mean turning Cate away and closing their door to her, or telling her to stay, but on their terms.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

Elise had never seen her brother so serious. His face, with the corner of his mouth usually upturned in a smile and eyes shining, held none of his usual humor, and as easy as it would have been to tease him for it, instead she took his hand into hers.

“I’m going to be fine,” she said. “We’re all going to be fine.”

He was silent, eyes searching her face. “It’s always been the two of us against the world,” he said. “I can’t imagine life going on here with me gone.”

She wanted to tell him not to go, that they’d find a way for him to stay, but she knew that wasn’t true. He had to go. Their father wouldn’t hear of him staying, and their country needed him.

“You’ll look after Mama and Addy, won’t you?” he said. “Keep her well out of harm’s way, you know what she’s like.”

They both laughed, but it was Louis who spoke again before she had the chance.

“Do you remember that day she came home with Oscar?” he asked.

“How could I forget?”

“Mama was furious when she brought him into the kitchen, all wet and bedraggled, and declaring those fleas falling off him were the plumpest she’d ever seen.”

Elise laughed. “I remember Mama running around the kitchen swatting at the floor, she was beside herself!”

Louis’s smile faded again then, and she squeezed his fingers as the memories faded, too.

“I worry that she’d bring anything home with a broken wing or a grazed knee,” he said.

Elise stared into his eyes. “Or an injured German. Is that what you mean?”

He swallowed. He didn’t need to nod, because she knew. “That girl is as sweet and kind as they come, but she’s also as naïve as a child sometimes.”