He’d been back on duty for a fortnight or so now, but she could still picture him sharply in her mind, and what a wonderful week they’d had together when he was on leave. Truly, she was the luckiest woman in the world to have a man like him. She pulled down the blackout blind, just in case Rita or Ruby needed to come into the shop later on. She was dog-tired, even though she hadn’t done anything exerting today. On some of her free evenings she’d begun to persuade Ruby to come to the pictures with her, but she hadn’t had the energy even to suggest it since Eddy had gone back. Never mind. Dolly was making stew with some of the spring greens, and that would pep her up. As good as a tonic, Dolly’s stews were. Wearily she took off her gingham apron and folded it away under the counter, picked up the handbag she’d made herself from remnants, and let herself out of the side entrance. She wondered what Eddy was doing at that very moment. Perhaps he was halfway to Canada, but he’d be safe now the U-boat threat had been averted.

‘How about a cocktail?’ Laura suggested, trying to be jaunty and not let her worry show. That was the last thing Peter needed. He was under enough strain as it was, preparing for the big offensive that nobody was meant to know about but which seemed to be common knowledge, at least in their circles. ‘I’m simply dying for a martini. How very convenient that your uncle can get hold of the necessary ingredients. I swear I wouldn’t last the week without one.’

Peter’s handsome face broke into a smile, the frown lines relaxing for once. She nodded in delight, hoping that she’d distracted him from whatever was causing those lines to deepen by the day, almost by the hour. The creases at his eyes were deeper too – laughter lines, she called them, wanting to cheer him up. The truth was that the responsibility of being a captain in a navy at war had aged him, the good looks that had attracted her to begin with still there, but now tempered by two extra years of sleep deprivation, stressful shifts, and the knowledge that his every decision affected the lives of the men serving under him. On top of all that, there were the endless meetings.

It was one such meeting that had brought him back to London from his new base, close to Portsmouth on the south coast. At least it wasn’t far to travel – although the train had been slow, he’d reported, and he’d only just made it in time. He didn’t think it worth the risk of trying to return on the same evening, and so he and Laura were snatching a precious night together at his uncle the admiral’s flat.