Cate nodded. “It’s better than nothing, and he’s not going to heal if I don’t stitch him up.” On second thoughts, she added, “Could you boil it all up for me first? The needle and the thread both?”

Elise’s smile was warm, and Cate felt the kindness in it. “Of course I can.”

Cate had stripped down to her undergarments and redressed in an upstairs bedroom, and Elise had taken her dirty clothes, so she had no idea where to retrieve her belongings from. With both Elise and Adelaide gone now to do her bidding, she was left alone with the two men, but it didn’t concern her. She’d spent her childhood joined at the hip with her older brothers, her protectors who’d never let anyone hurt her, and then had been surrounded by men as a nurse, so she was fine. But not knowing Harry’s story bothered her, all the same. Where had he come from, and how had he managed to find his way to Elise and Adelaide? Had he just arrived or was he a deserter? The thought was unsettling and she eyed him cautiously as she shuffled closer to Jack.

“What actually happened to him?” Harry asked as she bent low over her patient, gently trying to untie the knot she’d made earlier around his abdomen.

“He’s never told me,” she admitted, thinking of all the stolen moments she’d shared with Jack, sitting by his bed. Only he’d never let himself be drawn on what had happened, always changing the subject, asking about her, making her laugh even when she was so tired she’d wanted to collapse into sleep until her next shift started. But something about Jack had always drawn her back in. “He had two surgeries to repair internal damage. He was in such a bad state when he arrived that I don’t think anyone expected him to make it, there was so much blood pumping out of him.” She sighed, remembering how another soldier had come in with him, hand pressed to Jack’s side in a desperate attempt to stem the blood. “And yet, here he is still. He’s a fighter, that’s for sure.”

Harry nodded, and she saw in his eyes, in the way he held her gaze so calmly, that he understood. Maybe she’d been wrong to think he could be a deserter; she had the feeling that he might be the complete opposite. There was a steadiness about him that she imagined he deployed with his troops.

“Sometimes we get lucky, sometimes we don’t,” he said. “It’s as simple as that. It’s the times you think you’ll make it that sometimes end up the worst.”