He laughed and squeezed Tonnerre into a trot as we crossed a wide-open expanse of land lined with dogwood and a small waterway. Our approach sent a cloud of dragonflies and damselflies teeming up into the air, brilliant emperors and scarlet darters that shimmered brighter than jewels in the sunlight. The marshlands were wild and raw, stretching unchecked all the way to the sea where they turned into salt-flats from which salt had been harvested since Roman times. But the landscape was not the only thing round here that was wild and raw. Its bulls. Its horses. Its people.

We may look tame. But don’t be fooled by looks.

I didn’t question him. Didn’t pester him. I let the peace and the quiet soak into him, waited for it to blur his mental sharpness and steal all trace of wariness from this alert military man. In his denim shirt, cowboy hat and pointed cowboy boots he was putting on a show for me. But that was fine. Because I was putting on a show for him.

After a long and exhilarating canter along a trail through the marsh, broad hooves flinging spray up over us in a kaleidoscope of rainbows, Joel Dirke gently reined in his horse and brought it to a halt. He was gazing ahead, transfixed. I experienced a quick pulse of alarm. What had caught his attention? I squinted against the sun as it dipped lower in the flat blue sky and released a laugh of relief. It was the sea lavender. Ahead of us it stretched in a great swathe of flowers, as if Van Gogh had taken his paintbrush and daubed the landscape purple.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he murmured, his Southern drawl extending the word. ‘Right now in Texas the land is yellow and parched.’ A gleaming white egret swept into view, skimming the lavender, perfecting the painting. ‘Is this why you brought me here?’

‘I brought you here because I thought you’d like to see the flamingos in the lagoons. It must be tough living in camp all the time.’

He laughed. ‘Yes, those Thunderjet flights setting off on patrol early morning sure blast us right out of bed every day.’

I smiled. ‘And you said you missed your horses. I know that feeling. When I’m in Paris I miss them.’

‘It was mighty kind of you to invite me.’

There was a pause, a small crack in time into which a sudden stillness seemed to slide. The birds fell silent. The only sound was the creak of leather as Joel Dirke swivelled in his saddle to get a better look at me.

‘Well, Eloïse, as one horse-lover to another, let’s talk straight, shall we? Why did you invite me out here?’