Fergus was flying out to take over David’s job and one more pilot had been drafted in to help David for a big exercise in Malaya. It was why David had had to fly on home. He had taken the twins back to Ah Heng so that Fleur could rest.

‘I was meant to fly in two days ago. David’s furious, but I had to give my seat to a brigadier,’ Fergus said. ‘So fate has decreed we travel together, Mrs Montrose.’

‘So it seems.’

Once on board she found she was sitting next to a fat major. Fergus was nowhere to be seen. Then a burly corporal flight-attendant bent to his ear and the major got up grumbling, shot Fleur a hostile look and made his way to the end of the plane. As soon as he’d left his seat, Fergus bounded up and slid into it, breathless.

‘You can’t sit there, Fergus! It’s that grumpy fat major’s seat.’

‘Not any more. I bribed the corporal to say he had made a mistake with the seating. I told him it was imperative that I sit next to you because you have been very ill and you might throw up all over the place and I was a family friend…Fat major is not amused. I was sitting next to the most enormous army sister…Hey ho, this is fun!’

Fleur threw her head back and laughed. ‘You and David are going to be appalling together! Whoever suggested you became his second-in-command?’

‘I did, of course!’

Fleur looked back on that flight home to Singapore as the moment she recovered her sense of humour. Fergus made her laugh. He could make the most ordinary story amusing. They talked and talked about everything and nothing as they headed back into the heat on the long, slow journey via Cyprus and Gan.

Fleur changed out of her jeans at Gan and into a cooler brown skirt with small butterflies on and a cream tee shirt. Something changed in that moment. Fergus, watching her return to the waiting area, was suddenly still, mesmerised by her long, dark hair caught up in a band, by the smallness of her waist and the way she moved, but most of all by the sweet beauty of her face, guileless, it seemed to him, as she walked over to him.

Fleur met his eyes and for a moment was stopped by what she saw in them. They simply stood staring at each other, unable to look away in front of a whole room of people. Then, confused, she sat quickly down and Fergus went away to get her a drink.

Fleur, shaky, thought with a start: David has never, ever looked at me like that; with blatant, unabashed, open longing.

Even buying her a drink Fergus turned as if he could not bear to take his eyes off her. Fleur was used to being admired and flirted with, but Fergus’s intensity, his air of sardonic amusement on that long, intimate journey home was seductive, made her stomach churn and desire flash through her body, horrifying her. Their naked, mutual attraction was shocking.